Temptation: Breaking Victoria Sharp

She ended the call before he could respond, then stood to pace behind her desk in tight, controlled circuits. The familiar motion usually helped her organize her thoughts, but today it only emphasized the restless energy that had been building inside her chest for days. She felt like a caged animal, all potential and no outlet, power with nowhere to direct itself except inward until she was consuming herself with circular thoughts and unwelcome awareness.

Two sharp knocks announced James's arrival. Victoria didn't bother with pleasantries.

"Come in and close the door."

James entered with his usual quiet grace, the navy sweater fitting his built frame in ways that made Victoria's concentration fracture before she could stop it. He moved to his customary chair, but Victoria's sharp gesture kept him standing, positioned in the center of her office like a defendant awaiting judgment.

"Don't sit," she commanded, her voice carrying the authoritative edge that had dissolved boards and intimidated competitors. "This won't take long."

James remained standing, his expression neutral but alert, waiting for whatever storm was about to break over his head. His patience, that damnable, unshakeable patience only intensified Victoria's agitation. How could he stand there looking so calm, so collected, while she was coming apart at the seams?

"I want to know," Victoria began, her voice tight with barely controlled emotion, "what exactly you think you're doing."

James's eyebrows rose slightly, but he didn't speak. The silence stretched between them, charged with tension that made the air feel thick and difficult to breathe.

"Don't play innocent," Victoria snapped, beginning to pace again. "The clothes, the colors, the whole... performance you've been putting on. The peacocking." She spat the word like an accusation, her finger pointed at him with prosecutorial precision. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? Did you think I was too distracted by quarterly reports to see what you were doing?"

"Victoria—"

"I'm not finished." Her voice cracked like a whip, cutting off whatever response he'd been about to offer. "I want to know why you're doing this. Why you're trying to get under my skin, why you're working so hard to unsettle me. What's your endgame here, James? What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with your little fashion show?"

The words were pouring out of her now, days of carefully controlled emotions spilling over like water through a broken dam. Victoria had spent so long maintaining perfect composure that the release felt both terrifying and exhilarating, her voice rising with each accusation.

"Because that's what this is, isn't it? Some kind of strategy to throw me off balance, to make me lose focus so you can... what? Leverage whatever happened between us into some kind of advantage? Is this your idea of career advancement, James? Seduce the CEO and hope she promotes you again out of gratitude?"

"That's not—"

"I said I'm not finished!" Victoria's voice had reached a pitch she barely recognized, sharp and desperate and entirely too revealing. "You want to know what I think? I think you're trying to make something significant out of nothing. It was just a kiss, James. Just a momentary lapse in judgment that meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things."

She was spiraling now, her carefully constructed arguments dissolving into emotional chaos as words tumbled out without filter or consideration. "What's so special about kisses anyway? People kiss all the time. Actors kiss for movies, friends kiss in greeting, strangers kiss at parties after too much champagne. It's just... contact. Physical contact that humans engage in for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with deep emotion or lasting significance."

James stood perfectly still, his dark eyes tracking her movements as she paced, his expression unreadable but intent. His silence only fueled Victoria's desperate need to fill the space between them with explanations, justifications, anything that might restore some semblance of control to the situation.

"I was merely borrowing your lips," she continued, her voice growing more strident with each word. "Taking advantage of their proximity for a moment of curiosity, nothing more. You should be grateful I found them suitable for the purpose. Do you have any idea how many men would consider themselves fortunate to receive even that much attention from me?"

The words sounded hollow even to her own ears, desperate attempts to minimize something that had felt anything but minimal in the moment. But Victoria couldn't stop, couldn't stem the flow of increasingly frantic explanations that were only making everything worse.

"Men have begged for my attention, James. CEOs, politicians, celebrities, people who could buy and sell you ten times over have practically prostrated themselves for the chance to kiss me. And here you are, making a production out of something I gave you freely, without expectation or obligation or any of the usual prerequisites that most men have to meet before they're considered worthy of my time."

She was losing track of her own arguments now, contradicting herself with each desperate justification. Her voice cracked on the last words, revealing the emotional chaos she'd been trying so hard to conceal behind professional indignation.

"So I want to know," Victoria said, her finger pointed at James like a weapon, "why you're making this into something it wasn't. Why you're using fashion and strategy and whatever game you think you're playing to unsettle me. Why you're making me question things that should be simple, straightforward, completely manageable aspects of professional relationship that—"

She stopped abruptly, realizing she'd been about to admit exactly how much he was affecting her, how thoroughly he'd disrupted her carefully maintained equilibrium. The silence that followed felt deafening, punctuated only by Victoria's slightly ragged breathing and the distant hum of office activity beyond her closed door.

James remained standing in the center of her office, his expression thoughtful and entirely too perceptive. He'd watched her entire breakdown with the same quiet attention he brought to market analysis, cataloging every word, every gesture, every crack in her composure with strategic precision.

When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, almost gentle, and devastating in its simplicity.