Monday morning.
The office buzzed like a disturbed hive.
People murmured in corners, phones lit up, and eyes kept darting toward the glass-walled CEO office… and her.
Aanya sat at her desk, trying to ignore it.Trying to pretend her hands weren't shaking.
But she couldn't avoid the message that had landed in her inbox at 8:01 a.m.
Subject: URGENT
Check the news.— Unsigned.
She had.
And what she saw made her heart collapse.
📰 "CEO Riaan Khurana Caught in Office Romance Scandal — Leaked Photos Suggest Relationship With PA"
Attached: Blurry, intimate images.Her laughing beside him outside a restaurant.Him touching her face, brushing her hair back.A captured moment of him entering her building — at night.
Someone had been watching.Someone wanted to ruin them.
She stared at her screen. Her face pale. Cold.
Riaan hadn't come in yet.
But by the time he did… the whole floor went quiet.
He walked in like he always did — tall, composed, dangerous.
But the moment his eyes met Aanya's, everything changed.
He went straight to her desk.
"Aanya," he said lowly. "My office. Now."
She followed, heart pounding, eyes watching her from every corner.
Once the door closed behind them, she whispered, "They know. Everyone."
"I saw," he said. "And I'm handling it."
"Someone leaked this, Riaan," she said, voice shaking. "Someone wants to destroy you. And I'm just… collateral damage."
"No," he said. Firm. "You are not collateral. You're everything."
Before she could speak, his office line rang.
He picked up.
Silence.
Then—
"Yes, I'll be there," he said into the phone. "But let me make one thing clear — if the board wants to come for me… they'd better be ready to lose."
He slammed the phone down.
"Aanya," he said, turning to her. "I'm not letting them take you from me."
Tears brimmed in her eyes.
"But what if they take you?"
He walked up to her, resting his forehead against hers.
"Then I go down loving you out loud."