Temptation: Breaking Victoria Sharp

"This team member," Samantha ventured, her tone deliberately casual as she finished arranging the cheese board, "would he happen to be that James person? The one you're always on the phone with whenever you visit? Your strategic officer now, I believe?"

Victoria's hand froze momentarily over the sauce before she recovered her composure. Had her mother really been tracking her phone calls with James during visits? She had no specific recollection of being particularly focused on those calls, yet her mother's infallible observation suggested otherwise.

"James is an excellent strategic officer," Victoria said carefully, keeping her tone professional despite the sudden acceleration of her pulse. "He's been instrumental in developing our international expansion framework."

"Mmm," Samantha hummed noncommittally, the small sound somehow conveying volumes. "The one you promoted from being your assistant, yes? Every time you visit, you seem to step away to take his calls. Always about work, of course."

Victoria added pasta to the boiling water with mechanical precision, buying time as she considered how to redirect the conversation away from James without appearing defensive.

"Victoria has always had an eye for talent," Fabian commented, moving to the cabinet to retrieve wine glasses. "Though usually she doesn't let that talent distract her to the point of nearly burning dinner."

"The dinner is not burning," Victoria replied sharply, even as she noticed the sauce had indeed begun to reduce too quickly while her attention had wandered. She adjusted the heat again, irritated at the physical evidence of her distraction.

"Shouldn't you be more relaxed anyway?" Samantha asked. "After all, you're here celebrating the government contract. The whole company's on break for a week...your idea, I believe. A wonderful gesture for your team."

"Yes, well," Victoria said, stirring the sauce with renewed focus, "they deserved it after the push to secure that contract. We'd been working toward it for two years."

For several minutes, Victoria focused with deliberate intensity on completing the meal preparation, draining the pasta at precisely the right moment, incorporating it into the sauce with practiced movements, adding the final touch of fresh basil and grated Parmesan. The familiar routine steadied her, providing momentary respite from both her parents' gentle probing and her own wandering thoughts.

"There," she said finally, setting the serving bowl on the kitchen counter with a decisive gesture. "Dinner is served, completely unburnt and without any professional distractions whatsoever."

Fabian chuckled, reaching for the bowl to transfer it to the dining table. "Whatever you say, sweetheart." He paused, studying her with the perceptive gaze that had made him respected among his engineering colleagues throughout his career. "Though I will say, whoever this James fellow is, he must be quite something to have captured the attention of Victoria Sharp during her well-earned victory lap."

Victoria opened her mouth to issue a denial, then closed it again as her father continued toward the dining room, his observation hanging in the air between them. Samantha followed with the wine and bread, pausing briefly beside Victoria.

"You know," her mother said quietly, "sometimes the most unexpected connections prove to be the most meaningful. Your father and I met when I was adamantly opposed to his highway proposal that would have cut through the neighborhood where my school stood."

Victoria knew the story well, how Samantha, then a young teacher, had organized community opposition to Fabian's county engineering project, how their initial antagonism had gradually transformed through debate and mutual respect.

"That was different," Victoria said, reaching for the salad bowl. "You were equals from the beginning, opposing forces meeting in the middle."

Samantha tilted her head slightly, studying her daughter with gentle scrutiny. "And you and this James aren't equals?"

The question caught Victoria off-guard. "He was my assistant," she said, the explanation sounding inadequate even to her own ears. "Now he's part of my executive team."

"Ah," Samantha replied, her tone suggesting deeper understanding. "And that progression challenges your established dynamic. The former assistant now asserting boundaries you hadn't anticipated."

Victoria felt a flicker of irritation at her mother's effortless deconstruction of the situation. Samantha had always possessed this ability, to reduce complex interpersonal situations to their essential elements with disturbing accuracy.

"Mom," Victoria said with forced patience, "this really isn't something I want to discuss."

Samantha nodded, respecting the boundary even as her eyes conveyed understanding Victoria wasn't ready to acknowledge. "Of course, dear. Let's enjoy dinner before it gets cold." She squeezed Victoria's arm gently before heading toward the dining room. "Though sometimes," she added over her shoulder, "the people who challenge our carefully constructed worldviews are precisely the ones we need most."

Victoria remained in the kitchen for a moment, gathering herself before following her parents to their modest dining room. The conversation had veered uncomfortably close to truths she wasn't prepared to examine not here in her childhood home, not under her parents' perceptive gazes.

As she reached for her phone one final time before joining them, she caught sight of a text notification on the screen. James's name appeared above a brief message about the Singapore regulatory assessment.

Victoria felt a ridiculous flutter of awareness at the sight of his name, a reaction more suited to the seventeen-year-old girl who had watched for Michael Hamilton's daily jog than the CEO of a multinational company.

"Ridiculous," she muttered again, shoving the phone into her pocket without responding to the message.

She squared her shoulders and moved toward the dining room, determined to redirect the conversation to safer topics and reclaim her usual focus. Whatever this temporary distraction represented, whatever "interpersonal complexity" James had introduced with his unexpected challenge, Victoria would master it as she had every other obstacle in her path.

The fact that her pulse had quickened at the mere sight of his name on her phone screen was simply another problem to solve nothing more.

Yet as Victoria took her seat at the table, accepting the wine her father poured with a practiced smile, she couldn't quite dismiss her mother's words.

Sometimes the people who challenge our carefully constructed worldviews are precisely the ones we need most.

The thought lingered, unwelcome but persistent, as Victoria raised her glass in response to her father's toast to her company's latest achievement, a silent acknowledgment of a complication she wasn't yet ready to name.