HHWM | Chapter 9: Fantasies of Her Boss

The club was a frantic pulse of neon and bass, a sanctuary for those looking to drown their burdens. Saya was among them.

She sat slumped on a VIP couch, flanked by her friends Trish and Lianne. They watched her with a mixture of pity and concern as she worked her way through a row of shots.

“How many is that?” Trish asked, reaching for the glass.

“Not nearly enough to reach the bottom of how I feel,” Saya muttered, flashing a bitter, lopsided smile before swallowing the amber liquid in one go.

Her relationship had ended that morning. No screaming, no dramatic flair—just the cold realization that years of waiting for a ring had led to a dead end. Even though she had initiated the break, she was the one left in pieces.

“You didn’t deserve that,” Lianne said, leaning in. “Waiting years for a man who won’t commit? Good riddance.”

“I’m just the idiot who hoped for too long,” Saya laughed, the sound hollow and sharp.

Lianne’s eyes suddenly shifted toward the bar, her brows arching.“Wait… check out the guy in the black shirt. With the whiskey.”

Saya glanced over, squinting through the haze. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Oh my god,” Lianne giggled. “He looks exactly like your boss. Swear!”

“You mean the hot one?” Trish added, intrigued.

Saya shook her head, trying to clear the fog. “His features are sharper… but he has the same weight to him.”

Lianne smirked, her voice low and mischievous. “Well, if you can’t bang the boss, why don’t you try the next closest thing?”

They laughed, treating it like a joke. But as the liquor surged through her veins, the humor died, replaced by a sudden, reckless hunger. Before Trish could protest, Saya stood up, glass in hand, and began weaving through the crowd toward the stranger.

“Wait—is she actually—?”

“Oh my god, she is!”

Saya didn’t hesitate. Under the strobe lights and the thrumming beat, she reached the man. He looked up, surprised, but before he could utter a word, she grabbed the back of his neck and pressed her lips against his. It was an aggressive, starving kiss, fueled by years of repressed desire.

The stranger froze for a heartbeat, then his hands found her waist, pulling her flush against him. They drowned in each other, the music blurring into the background until they were the only two people in the room.

They ended up in the shadows of a curtained VIP booth. Saya’s mind was a fog of alcohol, but her body was hyper-aware. As the stranger’s hands explored her, she closed her eyes, and the face in her mind wasn’t his anymore.

Greg…

Her mind whispered his name like a prayer. It was Greg’s shoulders she felt; Greg’s voice she imagined; Greg’s scent she craved. When the man pushed her back onto the leather couch, she surrendered completely.

When he finally took her, she gasped, the sensation a violent collision of pain and ecstasy. She wasn’t in a club anymore. In her mind, she was in the office, behind the closed blinds, on the very desk where she organized his life.

“Sir Greg…” the name nearly escaped her lips in a moan.

For one night, the pain was gone. She was living a fantasy she had buried under piles of paperwork and professional decorum. It was a heaven built on a lie, but her body was too thirsty to care.

Monday Morning

The sunlight cutting through the office blinds felt like a serrated blade—bright, sharp, and unforgiving.

Saya’s head throbbed with the rhythm of her own pulse. She sat at her desk, staring at her clipboard, her stomach churning with a toxic mix of shame and lingering heat. She had never been a “one-night stand” girl. She was the responsible one, the organized one.

But on Saturday night, a stranger had taken the wheel.

She had sought out a man because he looked like Greg. She had used a ghost to fill a hole in her soul, and now, the memory of those rough hands and the name she had almost screamed made her want to crawl out of her own skin.

God, I’m losing it.

She knocked on Greg’s door, her internal landscape an earthquake of nerves.

“Sir, good morning. I have your schedule…”

Greg looked up from his monitor. He was wearing a dark blue polo, sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing his forearms. The mundane, effortless way he moved was suddenly agonizing to watch.

“Ah. Good. Wait,” Greg said, reaching for his coffee. “Reschedule the Thursday meetings. It’s my son’s birthday. I want to spend the whole day with him.”

Saya nodded, her cheeks burning. As he spoke, she found herself staring at his throat as he swallowed his coffee. Every breath he took seemed to echo the rhythm of the night before.

“Saya?” Greg frowned, noticing her glassy stare.

“Sir? Yes, sorry. Thursday. Handled,” she stammered, forcing her eyes back to the clipboard.

Greg watched her for a second, sensing a shift in the air, but he let it go. “You’re invited, by the way. Just a small gathering at the house. Don’t miss it.”

“I’ll be there, Sir,” she managed to say, her voice tight.

As she retreated to her desk, her conscience screamed at her. What are you doing? He was a family man. He was devoted to a wife who had finally given him a miracle. And she was just the secretary he looked at with nothing more than professional kindness.

She sat at her desk and buried her face in her hands. She tried to focus on reports, but every time she typed a client’s name, her mind auto-corrected it to Greg.

She shut her eyes, and her body betrayed her again. She felt the phantom pressure of those hands on her back, the heat of a chest pressing against hers. Her breath hitched, and a sudden, involuntary shiver raced through her, pooling between her thighs.

Oh God, Saya… stop.

She sat upright, grabbing a pen and forcing herself to read through emails. She had to be professional. She had to bury the fantasy before it burned her alive. But even through the office wall, she could hear his low, steady voice on the phone, and her heart refused to slow down.