Esther's eyes fluttered open.
The soft morning light filtered through the curtains, casting warm patterns across the room. Her head ached, just enough to remind her of the drinks from the night before. But it wasn't the hangover that made her stomach twist.
It was the memory.
Her mind began to piece it together, the bar… Sankoh… Daniel. Her voice had risen, her thoughts had scattered, and then..
Her heart skipped.
The kiss.
Her hand flew to her mouth as the image flashed in vivid detail: his face above hers, the heat in her chest, the brief, unsteady press of their lips. Her breath caught.
"Oh God."
She sat up, the blanket falling to her lap, and stared ahead in disbelief.
"What the hell did I do?"
Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the shame echoed loudly in her chest.
"You kissed your boss," she muttered bitterly. "Your emotionally unavailable, grieving, complicated boss…"
She pressed her palms into her face.
"This can't be happening."
Frustration rose in her like a wave. How could she have lost control like that? Why didn't she just stay away? Why did she let herself fall into this mess?
After a long, grounding breath, she pushed the thoughts aside and stood.
She showered, dressed neatly, tied her hair back with trembling hands, and decided, if there was ever a way to fix this, it was through control. Discipline. Emotional distance.
She would act like it never happened.
She was an employee.
He was her employer.
And that was the end of it.
The dining room was quiet.
Too quiet.
Betty sat at the table, a half-eaten bowl of cereal in front of her, absently poking her spoon. Lady Bell sat beside her, flipping through her tablet but peeking over it more often than not.
Daniel was already seated.
Coffee in hand.
Newspaper spread open before him, though he hadn't turned the page in ten minutes.
Then..
Footsteps.
He looked up.
Esther entered with practiced calm, wearing a soft beige blouse and navy jeans, her expression blank. Professional. Composed.
"Good morning," she said, tone light, almost cheerful.
"Morning," Belle replied, a little too quickly.
Daniel merely nodded. "Morning."
Esther sat across from him. The silence stretched. A maid poured her tea, and the faint clinking of utensils became the loudest sound in the room.
Belle arched an eyebrow at the air between them, then glanced at Betty, who was watching with quiet intensity.
Esther picked up her cup slowly, taking a sip. Her hands were steady now. Her face unreadable.
But inside, her heart was doing cartwheels.
And across from her, Daniel gripped his cup just a little too tightly, his eyes fixed on the paper, but his mind stuck on the memory of her lips.
He hadn't slept.
Even hours after laying her in bed, Daniel had sat alone in his study, eyes fixed on the glowing embers of the fireplace, replaying it over and over in his head.
The kiss.
It wasn't planned. It wasn't supposed to happen.
But when her fingers curled around his collar and pulled him down, when their lips brushed, soft, unsure, and far too fleeting, it had struck something deep, something buried so long beneath grief and loyalty, it startled him.
And worse, he hadn't pulled away.
He'd frozen.
Not out of resistance.
But out of fear that if he kissed her back, he wouldn't stop.
Now, morning had come, and she walked into the dining room like nothing happened, composed, polite, the very model of professionalism.
He hated it.
No, he didn't. He admired it. That was the problem.
He admired her strength. Her courage. The way she could laugh in the middle of chaos. The way she looked at Betty like she was more than her condition. Like she mattered. Like she was a child, not a project.
Esther was nothing like Sarah. Or any woman he'd met in years.
But he couldn't, he wouldn't go there.
Not with her.
Not after everything.
"No one is replacing her."
The thought was sharp. Loud. Final.
His late wife, Marian , had been the love of his life, her voice still lived in the walls of this house, her spirit still wrapped around every memory. He had built his world around her, and when she died, a part of him died too.
He owed her his loyalty.
Even now.
So then why… why did his stomach twist with something close to rage when he saw Esther laughing with Sankoh?
Why did his feet move on their own, storming out of the hall, grabbing her like she belonged to him?
She didn't.
She was his employee.
His daughter's aide.
Nothing more.
So why did it feel like something was slipping beyond his control?
Why did he carry her in his arms like she meant something?
And why, now, as she sat across from him in the morning light, eyes cool, shoulders straight, lips silent, why did it feel like he was the one being punished?
Like he had done something wrong?
Daniel dropped his gaze to the magazine again but didn't read a single word. The kiss still lingered on his mouth like a secret he wasn't ready to admit.
He needed distance.
Clarity.
Control.
What was growing between them, if anything, it was a mistake.
It had to be.
But deep in his chest, where truth refused to be silenced, he already knew, he was losing the fight.
And Esther Cole was the battlefield he never saw coming.
As silence settled like morning fog, the clinking of cutlery slowly died down. The plates sat half-emptied, Esther's untouched, Daniel's barely grazed. Betty had already excused herself earlier, sensing the thick, quiet tension that children were too often forced to learn without explanation. She might have been young, but she wasn't blind.
Lady Bell remained, her plate clean, her curiosity far from satisfied.
Her eyes flicked between Esther and Daniel like a hawk watching two unsuspecting prey. Something had shifted. She could smell it in the air, unspoken, fragile, and complicated.
She broke the silence with a voice dipped in elegance and veiled intention.
"So, Esther… how was the party?"
Esther's back straightened. "Good," she replied shortly, with the practiced restraint of someone walking on glass.
Lady Bell's eyes gleamed with more amusement than surprise. "Hmm. And you, Daniel?"
Nothing.
Not a flicker of reaction. His eyes remained fixed on the magazine in his hand, a magazine he'd been pretending to read for the past fifteen minutes without flipping a single page.
Lady Bell gave a knowing smile. His silence was more telling than any confession.
"Esther, dear," she continued, now with a sugary tone laced in sharpness, "did you get drunk last night? I happened to see Daniel carrying you in."
Esther blinked, her composure briefly wavering. She stole a glance at Daniel, still silent, still stone.
"Umm…" she hesitated, then lifted her chin with a calm, measured smile. "Aunt, I have no memory of last night. The last thing I remember is… drinking."
Daniel's fingers twitched, barely noticeable, but Lady Bell caught it.
No memory?
She remembered Sankoh. The bar. The drinks. But not the kiss?
Not the way she'd clung to him like a lifeline. Not the way her lips…
He shut the thought down, jaw tightening.
Lady Bell leaned back in her chair, eyes now narrowed with something more than amusement. "I see," she said thoughtfully. "Well, they do say the brain forgets what the heart finds too painful to remember."
Esther stood abruptly, grasping for an exit. "Excuse me. I have a lecture this morning."
She didn't wait for a reply. She needed space. Air. Sanity.
She left like she always did, composed, contained, controlled.
But Daniel didn't move.
He couldn't.
And Lady Bell, with a sly smile, leaned in slightly toward her brother. "So, she doesn't remember, hmm?"
He finally turned a page in the magazine.
But still said nothing.
Like clockwork, Daniel Lewis stepped through the executive entrance of LewisTech, the doors parting with their familiar hiss. Even with the fog of last night pressing at the edges of his mind, his habits remained unchanged. Suit pressed, face unreadable, steps firm, he looked every inch the composed CEO.
But his mind was anything but.
Esther's face still hovered at the back of his mind, her laughter with Sankoh, her weight in his arms, the kiss. That damned kiss. The way her lips had brushed his, soft and unsure, clinging to something she probably didn't even remember.
He didn't want to remember either.
Still, he arrived at 7:59 a.m. sharp, just as he always did. LewisTech didn't wait for heartbreaks or emotional crises, and neither did Daniel Lewis.
Inside his office, the skyline of the city sprawled out behind him through the floor-to-ceiling glass. He sat down, trying to drown the memory of last night in routine. But routine didn't come.
"Good morning, sir," Sarah's voice pulled him from his spiral as she walked in, tablet in hand and face already made up with the usual polished confidence.
Daniel looked up, nodding briefly. He noticed something in her eyes. She was tense… too tense.
She'd seen it. The photos. Their entrance together at the Prime Minister's wife's birthday bash was already splashed across half the tech blogs and society columns. Daniel Lewis seen with mystery woman. Of course they wouldn't know her name yet, but it was only a matter of time.
Sarah had barely slept. Her head had spun all night over the images. The dress. Esther's arm looped through Daniel's. The way he looked at her, not professionally, but protectively.
Possessively.
That should have been her.
She pushed the tablet forward, suppressing her jealousy. "Here's today's schedule, sir. You have a 10 a.m. virtual with the Tokyo partners, the engineers need sign-off on the cooling framework for the second-gen servers, and legal sent the revised NDA for the NeuroSpeech subdivision.."
Daniel stopped her with a raised hand.
"What about your tasks, Miss Williams ?"
She blinked. "Sir?"
"I asked what you're working on today."
She swallowed, shifting under his gaze. "Just reviewing the Tokyo expansion files and drafting the proposal for the AI ethics board."
He nodded slightly, but before he could respond, a soft knock came at the door.
"Come in."
Thomas entered, and the moment Daniel saw his face, everything stilled. The young assistant's usual pep was gone, replaced by a drained expression, lips tight, eyes shadowed with worry.
Daniel stood up, already tense. "Miss Williams , give us a minute."
She glanced between them, her stomach knotting even tighter. But she obeyed, walking out with slow, deliberate steps. She shut the door behind her but didn't go far, ear pressed just slightly closer than professionalism allowed.
Inside, Thomas looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here.
"What happened?" Daniel asked, voice low and sharp.
Thomas stepped forward, his voice barely above a whisper. "There's been a problem, sir. At the NeuroSpeech subdivision."
Daniel's eyes narrowed. "What kind of problem?"
"It's… bad. A system failure. Ibrahim called it a total crash during last night's routine neural calibration run. Some of the test subjects, two of them, showed aggressive neural misfires. One even collapsed and was hospitalized. Alie tried to stabilize the system this morning, but the software is still looping corrupted data."
Daniel exhaled, fury and worry surging. "Why wasn't I told immediately?"
"It happened late. Ibrahim didn't want to escalate until they could confirm. But… the Prime Minister's son was one of the two test subjects."
A silence fell, thick and deafening.
Daniel sank into his seat, the weight of it all pressing down at once, personal chaos on one end, a public scandal waiting to detonate on the other.
And Esther…
She didn't even remember the kiss.
The campus air was just what Esther needed. Her back leaned against the balcony railing of the third-floor classroom, her eyes lifted to the morning sky as it began to bathe the clouds in soft sunlight. The breeze teased her hair, and for a moment, she allowed herself to breathe, really breathe, as if she could exhale away the fragments of last night.
It was almost 9 a.m. The module lecturer, true to form, was late again. The man had no regard for punctuality, but for once, she was grateful. She needed the silence. She needed to clear her head.
"Good morning, my butterfly," came a familiar voice.
Esther glanced down to see Dija entering the classroom, her high heels clicking softly as she strutted up to join her on the balcony.
"Morning," Esther replied, her voice light but flat.
"Whoa, someone's not in the mood," Dija teased, planting herself beside her. "Don't tell me you had a rough night."
The joke landed, but Esther didn't laugh. Her averted eyes said more than words.
Dija raised an eyebrow. "Talking about last night… I saw you, you know. In Uncle Daniel's arms. What's going on there?" Her voice rose with mischief. "Wait,don't tell me you two are.." she gestured dramatically with her fingers.
"No! What are you even thinking?" Esther snapped, biting her lower lip before sighing. "There's nothing between us. We're strictly professional."
But then, almost in a whisper, she added, "I kissed him last night."
Dija's eyes widened, her hands flying to cover her mouth. "No way. You what? You gave your first kiss away?!"
"It wasn't intentional!" Esther rushed to defend herself. "I was drunk. Probably stupid. But now I can't even look him in the eye. I feel… so embarrassed."
Dija blinked slowly, then gasped again as it clicked. "Oh my God… girl, have you fallen for Daniel Lewis?"
Esther turned away, hugging her arms. "I don't know. I keep telling myself I haven't, but my heart…" she trailed off, her voice heavy with conflict. "How did this even happen?"
Dija gently wrapped her arms around her. Esther wasn't one to fall easily, she was careful, measured, someone who didn't hand out feelings like free samples. That's what made this so terrifyingly real.
"Maybe it happened because you saw something good in him," Dija said softly. "He's kind. He listens. He was there for your mom… he's been there for you. Sometimes, those things are enough to make someone fall."
Esther said nothing, her fingers knotting at the hem of her sleeve.
"If anyone's to blame, it's Daniel," Dija went on. "He shouldn't have been so gentle. He shouldn't have looked at you like that. He gave you signals, and now you're left wondering if they meant anything at all."
"What do I do, Dija?" Esther asked, her voice small. "I feel so lost."
"Talk to him," Dija suggested. "Tell him how you feel. Maybe you'll get closure, or maybe something else."
Esther spun to face her. "Are you serious? Confess? To Daniel Lewis? No way. That man is still tied to his late wife. He doesn't see me that way."
"You never know until you ask."
"I'm not doing that," she said firmly. "I'd rather keep this to myself than risk ruining everything between us. What we have now… it's already complicated enough."
Dija threw up her hands. "Your choice. But I better be the first to know if anything changes."
Esther finally laughed, shaking her head, just a little.
"And speaking of love life," Dija said, flipping her hair. "How's my future husband, Thomas?"
"I'm not exactly besties with him," Esther chuckled. "If you want to know how he is, maybe you should go to LewisTech yourself."
Dija lit up. "You're right! That's exactly what I need to do. If I'm going to woo him, I need to be in his orbit. Close-range."
She spun on her heel toward the classroom door.
"Where are you going now?" Esther called after her.
"To beg my mom to beg Uncle Daniel to give me an internship!" Dija shouted, already halfway through the corridor.
Esther stood there, stunned for a moment, before breaking into another smile.
Her friend was really serious this time.
At around 10:30, the heavy, metallic doors of the subdivision hissed open as Daniel stepped inside with Thomas trailing behind him. The cool air inside buzzed with tension, and a faint trace of burnt circuitry lingered in the sterile hallway.
He hadn't even taken a proper seat at the main HQ, yet this emergency dragged him across the city. Whatever had happened, it was serious, and one look at Ibrahim's taut expression confirmed it.
"Ibrahim," Daniel greeted tersely as they met near the core operations chamber. "Talk to me."
Ibrahim, tall and stoic with his tablet clutched to his chest, gave a short nod. "Sir, we had a critical system failure early this morning. Around 3:17 a.m., the NeuroSpeech mainframe crashed. Everything, servers, neural test simulations, even the interface, went dark."
"How?" Daniel asked, eyes sharp.
Before Ibrahim could answer, Alie stepped in, his lab coat half-buttoned, brows furrowed in frustration. "It wasn't just a crash, sir. It was sabotage. We found traces of a custom virus embedded into our core system, loaded with multiple bugs. It bypassed the firewall, corrupted most of the neural interface data, and destroyed several recovery points."
Daniel's jaw clenched. "That facility has layers of clearance and live surveillance. You're telling me someone walked in and wiped our project under that level of security?"
"It had to be an inside job," Ibrahim said grimly. "No breach in the external systems. No sign of forced entry. Whoever did this had credentials… and access to the backup vault."
Daniel's eyes narrowed. "What was taken?"
Ibrahim hesitated, then answered. "Some of the backup files, partial prototypes of the speech-mapping algorithms, early voice-to-signal logs, and part of Betty's test data."
A silence dropped like a lead weight.
Daniel's fists clenched at his sides.
"Do we know how much of it was copied? Who accessed it?"
"We're still running a trace," Ibrahim replied. "The security logs were tampered with, but the metadata on the server indicates file movement around the same time of the crash."
"And recovery?" Daniel demanded.
"We're working on it," Alie said. "We have teams of specialists trying to isolate the virus and restore corrupted segments. There's hope, we encrypted most of the sensitive files. The damage is heavy, but it's not irreversible. Just… time-consuming."
Daniel inhaled sharply and looked to Thomas.
"I want every damn security protocol reviewed," he ordered. "Screen every staff, check ID logs, keycard usage, camera footage, visitor records, everything. And lock down this subdivision. No one goes in or out without your signoff."
"Yes, sir," Thomas replied at once, already pulling out his device.
Daniel turned back to Ibrahim. "You said someone did this from inside. Which means they know exactly what we're building."
"Yes," Ibrahim confirmed. "This wasn't just someone trying to ruin us. They wanted something. And they knew exactly where to look."
Daniel's expression darkened, his mind racing.
Someone had infiltrated their most delicate project.
The question now was,who?
And more importantly..
What the hell was their agenda?.