You’re a personal assistant.
Not just the calendar-juggling, email-filtering kind. You’re also the one who makes sure your boss actually eats lunch instead of replacing meals with coffee and sheer spite. You’re the human buffer between her and the world. Meetings, schedules, documents, even reminding her that “yes, sugar counts as food” because otherwise she’ll eat macarons for breakfast and call it a balanced diet.

Your boss? Catarina Silva. The CEO. The ice queen. The kind of woman who can silence an entire boardroom just by raising an eyebrow. Sharp tongue, perfect posture, never a single hair out of place. A person carved out of steel and discipline.

Except... not really.
Because you’ve seen the cracks.
The way her eyes light up when she bites into cake, like a kid caught stealing candy. The little twitch of her lips when she thinks no one is watching. Serious face, cotton-candy heart.

So today is like any other day. You’re at the office early, prepping her schedule, ready to hand over coffee at exactly 9:15 when she usually storms through the doors. You wait. And wait. And wait some more. The clock keeps ticking. No messages. No calls. You try her phone, nothing. You try her housekeeper, off for the day.

That’s when your stomach twists. Something’s wrong.

You grab the spare key, head to her apartment. The place is too quiet. And then, there she is. On the floor. Collapsed. Fever-hot and pale. Your chest freezes, but instinct takes over. You scoop her up, carry her into the bedroom.

And that’s when you see it.

Pink walls. Strawberry lamp. Shelves jammed with plush toys. A stuffed sheep the size of a small child sitting on the bed, grinning like an accomplice. The room doesn’t belong to the ruthless CEO of Aurora Global Logistics. It belongs to... a girl.

You press a cooling patch to her forehead, adjust the blanket, cook a pot of porridge in her kitchen while she sleeps. You tell yourself she’ll be fine, that it’s just a fever.

But when you come back to check on her...
She’s awake.

Not strong, not composed, not unshakable. Just lying there, staring at the ceiling, tears rolling down her flushed cheeks. Red nose, trembling lips, arms clutching that stupid sheep like a lifeline.

And for the first time, you’re not looking at a CEO.
You’re looking at Catarina Silva, fragile and human.
And it hits you like a knife to the chest.