Cassie’s POV
I went completely mute. I tried to speak, but nothing came out at all. Everyone in the room was staring, waiting for some kind of response, and all I wanted in that moment was for the floor to open up and swallow me whole.
"Cassie, can you hear me?" He repeated, waving a hand to prompt a response.
CeCe rushed over and wrapped an arm around me. "She’s in shock. Let me calm her down, we’ll be right back."
"Fine. Three minutes. I need answers."
CeCe guided me gently by the arm toward the bathroom, trying her best to steady me the whole way. "Cass, what’s going on with you today? What were you trying to tell me back there, before all this?"
"Please, don’t let me go back in there. I can’t go to jail." I pleaded.
"Did you actually do something to his coffee?"
"...No." I lied, forcing a shaky, terrified smile onto my face. "Why would I do that?"
"Then you’re fine. Just answer his questions and you’re done." She squeezed my hand. "You’ll be okay."
I breathed in slowly, then out, the exact rhythm my mother taught me years ago, back whenever panic started creeping in like this.
"Okay. I think I’m ready." I summoned whatever courage I had left.
I walked back into his office, every eye on me, waiting.
"Cassie. You good?" He asked it flatly, more interested in resuming his interrogation than actually checking on me.
"Yes, sir. I just had a panic attack." I continued. "Probably from lack of sleep after yesterday — worrying about you."
"Noted. But what happened to my coffee yesterday?"
"I have no idea. I got your regular order from the café." I shrugged. "Maybe something you ate. Or you just needed rest."
"You were there when the doctor confirmed sedatives in my system."
"And," he continued, "why were you checking on me while I was asleep?"
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay, sir. You’d been out for hours." I said it calmly, grateful the camera angle hadn’t caught the satisfied smile I’d worn while doing exactly that.
"Then explain this."
My stomach dropped. The cup swap. This is it. This is how I end up in prison.
"Are you suddenly incapable of answering a question?"
"Sir, I was just replacing your coffee with a fresh one, in case you wanted more later. Didn’t want you drinking something that had been sitting out." I blurted it out, immediately regretting not just telling the truth and begging forgiveness instead.
"That story doesn’t add up. When exactly did you get this second coffee? I want the truth, now."
"I bought it for myself that morning but forgot to drink it. When I saw yours, I swapped it out instead." My voice wavered. "I know how suspicious this looks, but it’s the truth."
"Anchor — go check the cup she threw in the trash." He directed one of the men toward the bins.
"Sir... don’t you trust me at all?"
"You look extremely guilty right now, so I suggest you stay quiet and let me finish this properly."
"But, sir—"
"CeCe, take her out for a moment. Her panic attack seems to be starting again." He cut me off entirely.
"No, I’m fine, I just want to explain—" He wasn’t listening. I let CeCe lead me out gently.
I was hoping, praying really, that the cup was already gone — buried somewhere deep in the trash the cleaners had taken out hours earlier. No cup meant no evidence, which meant no problem.
A short while later, one of the men — Anchor, I think his name was — walked back into the office, practically strutting, cup held high in his hand like he’d just won some kind of prize.
How did he even find it? Did he search the entire dumpster?
If they tested it and found anything incriminating at all, I was completely, utterly done.
"Have the doctor examine this. I want to know exactly what was in that coffee." His eyes locked on me the entire time he said it, like he’d already caught me in the act.
—
The doctor arrived shortly after with his testing kit, laying everything out carefully on the table.
"We’ll need a few minutes for the results."
The whole room sat in tense silence, waiting, Damien most of all, clearly eager to finally confirm whatever he’d already convinced himself was true.
"Results are in." The doctor looked up from his equipment. "There’s a sedative present. It was added deliberately."
Damien’s eyes found mine instantly. "Explain how a sedative ended up in my coffee."
"I — I don’t know." My voice came out barely above a whisper.
"So it just appeared there on its own?" His tone sharpened.
"Maybe it came from the café. I genuinely have no explanation for how it got there."
"Here’s what’s going to happen. We go to the café together, we ask them directly. If it’s not from them, you take responsibility."
"Responsibility for something I didn’t do?" I muttered.
"Every piece of evidence currently points to you. Until proven otherwise, that’s exactly how I’m treating this."
We headed down together, side by side, to question the barista directly about yesterday’s order and whatever had actually gone into it.
He lit up the second he saw me. "Back for another one? Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s coffee, tried something a little different."
"Different how?" I asked, suddenly very interested.
"New recipe, actually. People seemed to love it."
New recipe. Different ingredients. This, right here, could actually save me from everything.
"You used different ingredients than usual?" I pressed.
"Yeah, is that a problem? Everyone else seemed into it."
"Hope it wasn’t bad—" he started again, but I cut in fast before Damien could derail whatever I was building.
"It wasn’t good for my boss. Please stick to his usual recipe going forward, no more experiments."
"You’d normally be in serious trouble for this," Damien said to him firmly, "but since you’re actually owning it instead of lying, I’ll let it go this once. Don’t let it happen again."
"I’m so sorry, sir!" He called after us as we left.
Damien stopped right at the elevator doors, turning to face me fully, something softer in his expression than I’d seen from him all day.
"I’m sorry. I genuinely thought you’d done something to my drink."
"It’s fine, sir. At least I’ve been cleared. That’s really all I care about."
"You looked incredibly guilty through all of it, though. What are the actual odds it was just a bad recipe?"
I took the calmest, deepest breath I’d managed in a full 24 hours. It’s over. I’m free. Not guilty, not going to prison, none of it. This genuinely called for celebration, even if I had to keep that celebration entirely internal, locked somewhere behind a perfectly neutral expression.
"Going through the footage earlier, I noticed something. A man following you around, trying to talk to you. Who was he?"
A man? Of all things, this was what he zeroed in on?
"That’d be Malcolm. My ex."
"The one who cheated on you, right?"
"Yeah, that one."
"What did he want? Why was he even in my building?"
The way he asked, something sharp underneath it.. almost possessive — caught me off guard.
"He wanted forgiveness. And to invite me to his wedding. To the girl he cheated with."
"The audacity. That’s genuinely insane."
"Tell me about it. I had so many conflicting feelings, mostly just disbelief that he thought that was an appropriate thing to ask."
He leaned in slightly without seeming to notice he was doing it, close enough that his cologne hit me fully, close enough that I had to fight the sudden, inconvenient urge to just close the distance myself—
"Cassie. You there?" His voice pulled me back.
"Sorry.. yeah. Just still processing everything today."
"What if I came with you? To the wedding. Give him a taste of his own medicine."
"You’d actually do that for me?"
"Of course."
I hugged him instinctively, then immediately remembered exactly who he was to me, professionally, and pulled back fast.
"Sorry. Got a little carried away there."
He didn’t stop looking at me, not even for a second — his eyes moved slowly from mine, down to my nose, then settled on my mouth, deliberate and unhurried the whole time. He stepped closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head back just to keep looking up at him properly.
His hand found my jaw first, then traced slowly along my lips, gentle and deliberate, like he’d been holding himself back from doing exactly this for far longer than I’d ever realized.
He was close now — close enough I could feel his breath against my skin. He leaned in, just as the elevator doors slid open.
CeCe.
She stood there frozen in the doorway, staring at the two of us, something that looked unmistakably like betrayal written all across her face, before either of us could even think to step apart.