Page 1 of Charmingly Obsessed

T hirty-four floors.

My thighs scream with every step. My lungs burn.

I curse myself for skipping the gym yet again, but this brutal climb is my penance. Each step is a fight against the exhaustion that threatens to pull me under.

Today is my last day.

The stairwell door hisses open onto the thirty-fourth floor, revealing the hushed, cathedral-like expanse of Frez Enterprises.

The ‘family’ office. What a joke. It’s code for the nerve center managing the obscene wealth of one Mykola Frez—everything from sourcing hand-spun silk socks for his dozen residences to hundred-year investment plans mapped out like military campaigns.

The only ‘family’ here is the obscene wealth of one man: Mykola Frez.

I bypass the main reception, taking the long way through corridors lined with abstract art that costs more than my life savings.

I have no desire to see Sarah or Aisana and their pitying smiles. “Almost free, Diana!” they’ll chirp. As if.

My eyes snag, as they always do, on the empty square of wall in the secondary hall. A ghost image is burned onto my retinas: the giant magazine cover that hung there for years. His cover. Mykola Frez, staring out with that infuriatingly knowing smirk.

For the first year, my heart would hammer against my ribs every time I turned that corner. I’d stare, mesmerised, until that photographed smile began to feel less like charm and more like mockery.

Then, two and a half years ago, it was just… gone. Vanished overnight, leaving a blank space as abrupt and silent as his disappearance from the office.

Most billionaire CEOs plaster their faces on Forbes or Fortune. Standard ego-stroking. But Mykola Frez? He graced the cover of Needle & Thread. A goddamn sewing magazine.

His sharp cheekbones, the impossibly dark blue almond eyes, that mouth curved in perpetual, mischievous irony—all framed by a ridiculously soft-looking caramel-beige knit sweater that matches his sandy hair.

He looks out from the cover like he knows exactly how pretentious and eccentric it is, daring the world to call him out, knowing they’ll just end up charmed.

When you leap from heir-apparent to financial demigod whose name even Oprah drops casually, you can pull stunts like that. You can probably knit stock options and crochet hostile takeovers. I wouldn’t know.

I’m just Diana, a mid-level artist who traded paint-stained instability for a corporate marketing job so I could afford shoes without holes. Pretending minimalism is high art instead of just… easier. Faster.

The lights in my minimalist office are already on. I shrug off my trench coat and hang it up with meticulous care. Control. It is all I have left.

David, my replacement, arrives precisely on time. His ambition radiates off him like a heatwave.

“Ready for the handover?” he asks, his voice too bright for the hour.

“As I’ll ever be,” I say, my tone flat.

We cram side-by-side at my desk, scrolling through months of marketing strategy.

In this ‘family’ office, my job often feels like inventing work to fill the void left by an absentee billionaire. Frez hasn’t set foot here in years, running his empire remotely through his terrifyingly efficient manager, Crosby. No one else questions it. Frez’s genius is gospel here.

Everyone trusts him.

Everyone but me.

But the real kicker? His reputation. Sociable. Kind. Impeccably polite. Witty. Genuinely good. A man who despises cruelty because it’s simply illogical to him.

The problem isn’t that it’s a lie. The problem is that for everyone else, it’s true. They genuinely believe he’s some kind of saint who can charm dictators into diplomacy.

Apparently, I’m worse than a dictator. Because the Frez I met, the one who haunted these halls for the first few months of my tenure? He was… different. Cold. Cutting. Disdainful. He never charmed me. He barely tolerated my presence.

“Diana?” David’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. He points at the screen, his brow furrowed. “This can’t be right. It says all oil and traditional energy processes are to be shut down by the end of the year?”

A blinking tag confirms it. Frez’s main fund has a massive energy conference scheduled for December. I am meant to start the branding next week.

Even I, the office financial illiterate, know that portfolio is foundational. Big, big money.

My hand finds the cold metal lock on my desk drawer. A nervous habit. Don’t tug it. Yesterday, I exceeded my antidepressant dose. Today, I skip it entirely as punishment. Focus.

“You need to confirm that with Crosby. Immediately,” I say, forcing my voice to stay level. “Find out if the conference is officially cancelled. Hold off on any drafts until we—”

The heavy office door flies open, slamming against the doorframe with a sickening crack.

A man stands in the doorway, breathing hard.

He looks… wrecked. His usually impeccable sandy hair is dishevelled. Sweat dampens his temples and the collar of a bespoke shirt that is clinging to his broad chest.

His eyes—an impossibly dark blue—burn with a feverish, wild intensity.

My brain short-circuits.

Mykola Frez.

Two and a half years. Gone. And now he is here, in my office, looking like a storm given human form.

His gaze locks onto mine with an unnerving focus, and for a heartbeat, the world narrows to just us. The air crackles, charged and humming. Then his eyes flick to David.

The shift is instantaneous. The air turns to ice.

“Out,” Frez bites out. His voice is not the smooth baritone I remember. It is raw. Like gravel. Worn thin.

David scrambles from his chair, practically tripping over his own feet in his haste to escape. The door clicks shut behind him, the sound echoing in the sudden, terrifying silence.

Frez stands there for a moment, head slightly bowed, as if gathering himself. Or maybe unravelling.

Then he turns. Not fully. Just his upper body, pivoting towards me with a predator’s coiled tension. He looks at me, really looks at me, with an intensity so raw it feels like a physical touch.

He takes a step closer. Then another. The scent of him hits me—expensive cologne undercut by something else. Something purely, primaly male.

He stops just feet from my desk, close enough for me to see the dark circles under his eyes, the muscle ticking in his jaw. My fingers tighten on the drawer lock, the cold metal a useless anchor.

He leans over the desk, caging me in. His heat radiates towards me. His shadow falls over me, blocking out the light.

His eyes hold mine, dark and demanding.

“Your resignation,” he says, his voice a low, sharp command, “has been annulled.”