Page 17 of Charmingly Obsessed

T hree Years Ago

The job title was straightforward enough: Manager, Art Collections.

My ever-expanding fund of canvases and sculptures, a tangible representation of wealth I barely registered, had grown unwieldy. It needed a dedicated eye, a curator with taste and business acumen. Diana Bilova. The name on the HR file.

I arrive at the office before anyone else. A first. A genuine, unheard-of anomaly. The pre-dawn quiet of the thirty-fourth floor, the city still a slumbering beast below.

I choose a seat off to the side in the conference room, deliberately avoiding the head of the table, the central throne of authority. Today, I want to observe. To assess.

I make a piss-poor boss when I’m distracted. And something tells me distraction is imminent.

Someone, probably Albina from HR, has already prepped the room. A carousel of images glows on the massive screen at the far end. Paintings. Ah, samples of her acquisition proposals. Smart. Proactive.

One in particular snags my attention. A bizarre, almost childlike landscape – a bubblegum-pink hill, an apple tree with impossibly round fruit, all trapped beneath an emerald-green sky.

The inverted, unnatural color scheme stirs something…

sentimental. A cheap trick of the heart, maybe, but effective. It’s… oddly compelling.

The door clicks open. A woman steps through. Slender. Dressed in something white and crisp. A cascade of light hair.

Diana Bilova.

And just like that, the world goes silent. Not a metaphorical silence. A literal, deafening, brain-wiping crash of absolute quiet inside my head. As if someone, somewhere, flipped a cosmic off-switch.

Her. The word echoes, a single, resonant chime in the sudden void. Her.

She hesitates on the threshold, a flicker of uncertainty in her posture, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Then, her head lifts. Her eyes, light and unreadable from this distance, meet mine.

And a new countdown begins. The countdown of my life. Or maybe the end of it. I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore.

But I know the exact time. The meeting is scheduled for noon. And as Albina, bustling and efficient, and Crosby, my stoic second-in-command, enter the room, I glance at the clock on the wall. 11:59 AM. The moment the world stopped turning on its axis and started revolving around her .

Everyone takes their seats. Albina offers the new employee a warm, welcoming smile. Diana Bilova doesn’t return it. Not even a polite flicker. Her expression is… unwavering. Composed. Either breathtakingly arrogant or achingly restrained. I can’t tell.

She doesn’t look at me again, but I can’t tear my gaze away. I’m frozen, transfixed, staring at her profile as Albina begins the introductions. The words are a meaningless drone in the background. White noise.

Her eyes. They’re light, yes, but what shade ?

From here, they look like a sky, a bruised blue-gray.

Slightly swollen, maybe from lack of sleep, giving her gaze a languid, almost dreamy quality.

A waterfall of golden-brown hair, tucked behind one delicate ear.

The crisp cut of her white blouse clings…

shyly… to a frame that’s slender but hints at soft curves beneath. No jewelry. Not a scrap. And…

Albina clears her throat pointedly, her gaze flicking towards me. Right. The script.

By now, according to standard operating procedure, I should be on my twentieth witty remark, charming the room, putting everyone at ease.

But this isn’t standard. This isn’t anything I’ve ever experienced. Because Diana Bilova, this quiet, unreadable woman, is, unmistakably and irrevocably…

… my dream.

I just didn’t fucking know it. Didn’t know a dream, an abstract longing, could take human form. Could walk into my conference room and hijack my entire goddamn operating system.

“…I worked for Maratchi Art online, as an independent contractor,” her voice finally registers, soft, low, with a faint, unplaceable accent that makes my skin prickle.

“There was a need for custom digital templates, though it’s not quite the kind of direct experience that would be most useful to you here… ”

“Wait,” I interrupt, my own voice sounding rusty, unfamiliar.

I’m trying… God, I’m trying to grasp her words, to string them into a coherent narrative.

But the facts, her qualifications, her experience…

they’re just tumbling around in my head like clothes in a goddamn washing machine stuck on the spin cycle.

I keep trying, and trying, while she waits.

Patiently. Watching me with those unreadable eyes.

And she is… she is breathtakingly, terrifyingly beautiful. Like…

Like a force of nature – ruthless, magnificent, utterly indifferent to the chaos she unleashes…

Like a prima ballerina caught mid-fouetté, a perilous, exquisite leap twisting into a doomed, intoxicating vortex…

Like some ancient solar priestess, born of the sun’s own inferno, but her true light is so vast that it reaches earthly mortals only in its coldest, most distant rays.

Fucking hell, she is a babe.

“…Mykola?” Albina prompts again, her voice gentle but firm, a delicate, nervous chuckle escaping her.

She tucks her chin into her shoulder, a subtle gesture of…

concern? “It’s an important day, I know – Liverpool is playing this afternoon,” she clicks her tongue, offering Diana a conspiratorial smile.

“You… you were going to ask something, Mykola?” she raises her voice slightly, trying to cut through my apparent stupor.

“Yes,” I latch onto the shortest word available, forcing it out, making it sound firm, decisive. God, I hope. “I was just saying. You… You…” You are going to be the death of me.

Diana’s gaze slides through me, as if I’m made of glass. Then she casually, dismissively, tosses her hair over one shoulder and scans the room, her attention drifting.

And I lose it. The moment. The crucial, irreplaceable, first-impression moment. Control, my lifelong companion, slips through my fingers like dry, useless sand.

“You said,” I manage, trying to recover, trying to sound like the competent, powerful CEO I’m supposed to be, “your experience at Maratchi… isn’t exactly relevant. Why useless? Explain.” I even attempt a smile. I think it might have come out as a grimace.

Diana doesn’t answer immediately. There’s no sign of deliberation, no thoughtful pause. She just seems… absent. Utterly detached. As if this meeting, this job, me … none of it registers on her radar. She’s indifferent. Not even condescending. Just… blank.

I… I’m not sure I remember how to breathe, let alone move.

“The position advertised,” she says finally, her voice still quiet, still maddeningly calm, “is highly specialized. My work at Maratchi didn’t involve developing a commercial fine art portfolio.”

“Wait,” I interrupt again, desperate to regain some footing, to assert some control over this…

this inexplicable unraveling. “Maratchi is, of course, mass-market. Not a serious gallery, no one in the real art world takes it seriously. But it’s still direct experience with artists, with the market… ” I’m babbling. Jesus Christ.

“I-I said commercial ,” she replies, a faint hint of impatience, or maybe just weariness, finally entering her tone. “It’s not commercial fine art experience. That’s why I mentioned it at the outset.” Abrupt. Dismissive.

“But we don’t need commercial,” I counter, grasping at straws. “You’ll be working directly under me. My guidance. My… oversight.”

“Alright,” Diana replies, and it’s painfully, excruciatingly obvious she’s only agreeing because I’m her new boss. Because she has to.

But I don’t want to be her boss. I won’t be. I can’t be.

The back of my Italian shirt is damp with sweat. The echo of her quiet, indifferent voice still lingers in my ears, on my skin. What fucking boss? She… She’s burned onto my retinas like a solar flare. I won’t be able to work with her. Work? Ha. She… I like her.

Ridiculous word. Like. Pale as a goddamn winter sky. Dull as…

God, my brain simply doesn’t work anymore.

Apparently, I laugh out loud. A harsh, strangled sound.

Because even Crosby, my usually imperturbable rock, shoots me a look of utter confusion.

“Maratchi isn’t quite the level we’re aiming for here, of course,” I try to recover, forcing my tone softer, more reasonable. “Where else have you worked? Directly in fine art acquisition and management? I confess, I haven’t had a chance to review your complete file yet.”

Diana just stares at me. Blankly. That same unnerving, detached gaze.

I feel – irrationally, absolutely – that she’s on the verge of revealing her true self, of dropping the mask. And the anticipation, the sheer, terrifying need to know, makes my head spin.

My mouth is so dry my throat starts to itch.

I always try. I always try to avoid… objectifying women.

To keep my thoughts respectful. Professional.

It’s unnecessary, that kind of mental locker-room bullshit.

Only appropriate, only permissible, when the woman is yours.

Truly yours. But… Diana moves her arm slightly, a subtle shift of her shoulders, and the white blouse pulls taut across her chest for a fleeting instant.

And now the images, the thoughts, they won’t stop.

The soft, delicate curve of her breasts pressing against her ribs.

They seem to sharpen at the top, and I think – God, I think – her breasts must be like perfect teardrops, her nipples taut, exquisitely sensitive, and I would…

I would roll them in my palm. For hours. Worship them with my mouth.

And her face… those lips, that skin… it makes me flush, hot and heavy, just imagining what I’d do to it. No, what I’d do on it…

I try to wrestle control of the runaway train of lust careening through my thoughts.

Apparently, I laugh again. Another harsh, inappropriate bark of sound.