Chapter 5 of Beneath The Midnight Mask

He chuckled and went back to his computer.

Aria opened the report.

If Ethan Ashford wanted to know whether she could think, she'd give him an answer he couldn't brush off just because she'd been hired yesterday.

She didn't read it front to back. She worked through the summary, the financial projections, the legal notes, the market analysis, and the risk section, flagging anything that mattered.

When a number looked off, she checked it against the source documents. When two departments disagreed, she compared their assumptions.

By four, her coffee had gone cold. By five, the executive floor had cleared out. By six, Aria was still at her desk, hair falling loose around her face, one hand under her chin, the other on the keyboard.

She was not going to let him make her look incompetent. Not after everything it took to get here.

At 6:31, she finally sat back. The original report was down to twelve pages. She read it once. Then again. She cut the repeats, checked the numbers one last time, and printed it.

At 6:52 she stood, shoulders aching, and carried it toward Ethan's office.

She knocked once.

"Come in."

Ethan sat behind his desk, jacket still buttoned despite the long day, sleeves neat at the wrists, eyes on his laptop.

She set the report in front of him. "Your report."

His eyes moved to it. "How many pages?"

"Twelve."

His face didn't move. "I asked for a summary."

"Yes."

He opened it. Aria stood there while he turned page after page, unhurried, giving nothing away.

She watched his face for a reaction. Nothing. She hated that. With most people she could read whether they were pleased or annoyed. Ethan Ashford seemed to have opted out of facial expressions entirely.

He paused at the financial projections, tapped one figure with a finger, kept reading. Then he closed the report.

"You included the regulatory risk."

"Yes."

"It wasn't flagged in the original file."

"It was buried in the legal notes."

His eyes came up. "And you decided it mattered."

"I did."

A short silence. Aria wasn't sure if she'd passed a test or started a new problem.

Ethan tapped his pen once against the desk. "Why?"

"Because if the regulation changes, so does the projected return. I thought you should know that before you made a call based only on the numbers."

His jaw shifted. He looked at the report again, then shut it.

"Tomorrow, cut it to six pages."

Her eyebrows went up. "Six?"

"Is that a problem?"

"No." She paused. "Though losing half the report means losing some context."

"Then decide what matters."

His tone was flat, almost bored. She stared at him for a second. He actually expected her to make that call herself.

Fine. She could do that.

"I'll have it ready in the morning."

He gave a small nod and went back to his laptop. Probably a sign to tell her the conversation was over.

She'd taken two steps toward the door when his voice stopped her.

"Ms. Bennett. Remove the third section."

"The market comparison?"

"Yes."

"It explains why our growth beats the industry average."

"I read it."

"Then why cut it?"

He finally looked up. "Because I don't need twelve pages to understand a decision."

She almost pointed out that if he already understood it, he could've written the summary himself. Instead she swallowed it.

"Understood."

"And restore the original font."

Her hand froze on the door handle. Of course. She glanced back. "Of course, Mr. Ashford."

She walked out before her face could give her away. Once the door shut, she let out a breath and looked down at the report.

"Six pages," she muttered. Then, glancing at the door, "Original font." She shook her head. "He's impossible."

The senior manager across the floor looked up. "Still think you'll get used to him?"

She gave him a tired smile. "No. I think I'm going to become a better person just to survive him."

He laughed. She sat down, rubbed her forehead, and checked the clock. 7:14 p.m. Everyone else had gone home. She was still here and something told her Ethan wasn't done testing her yet.

Inside his office, Ethan picked the twelve-page report back up and turned to the regulatory risk page. He looked at it for a while. Then he called down to reschedule his nine o'clock to ten, hung up, and kept reading — no smile, no sign he was impressed, just turning pages.

Outside, Aria packed up, with no idea that the impossible boss she'd already written off had noticed a lot more about her work than he let on.

And tomorrow, he planned to see if she could do it again.

***

By the middle of her first week, Aria had a system for surviving Ethan Ashford. It wasn't a good system. Mostly it involved coffee, patience, and accepting that whatever she considered "a reasonable amount of work" meant nothing to her boss.

She came in early. She had everything ready before he asked. She learned which meetings he hated, which reports he wanted printed, which he wanted on his tablet, and the exact order he liked his morning briefing. She figured that if she understood his routine, the job would get easier.

By Thursday, she knew better.

She stood by her desk at 7:42 a.m. staring at the schedule she'd rebuilt the night before. Eleven meetings. Three calls. Two presentations. Lunch with investors. A board meeting. And somehow he'd also found time to review four department reports.

She stared at it, then at his closed door, and shook her head. "This isn't a schedule. This is a hostage situation."

The door opened. Ethan stepped out in his usual dark suit, folder under one arm.

"Ms. Bennett."

"Good morning."

He dropped the folder on her desk. "Need this reviewed before nine."

She checked the clock. "It's seven forty-three."

"Yes."

"Any reason it has to be before nine?"

"I have a meeting at nine."

"That gives me seventy-seven minutes."

He looked at her like she'd just commented on the weather. "I know." He walked off.

She looked at the folder, then at his door. "Of course you know."

She opened it and got to work.