From Clingy to Independent- He Thought I Needed Him Until He Realized I Didn’t Chapter 06
I boarded my flight the next day, exactly as
planned.
But the onboarding process at my new company
hit a few snags.
First, my name was the only one missing from the
onboarding list, which held up all my paperwork.
Then the department director dumped a dead–end
project on me and assigned me an impossible
KPI.
A few days later, I finally figured out what was
going on.
The department’s nominal boss was the
company’s crown prince, an heir parachuted in for
executive training, known behind his back as the
Boy King.
But the one who actually held power was the director who had been entrenched there for years, privately known as the power behind the throne.
On the surface, the two of them got along just fine. Underneath, they were locked in a constant
power struggle.
My role had always reported directly to the Boy
King, so I’d been forced to take sides without even realizing it.
One more approval got stuck in the neighboring. department, and after they left me on read without
replying, I tapped open my pinned chat.
My fingers moved faster than my brain, and a [crying cat meme] had already been sent.
I was just about to launch into a long rant to
Autumn.
Then the reply came instantly.
Cameron: [I’m here.]
Cameron: [What’s wrong?]
I froze. Since when did Autumn respond like that?
Normally she would’ve replied with an [all ears for
the gossip] sticker first.
My eyes dropped to the contact name, and my
hand jerked.
I’d sent it to the wrong person.
It wasn’t my best friend.
It was the Boy King, my boss, Cameron Sterling,
who was away on a business trip.
Legend had it the Boy King tore people apart when
he got mad.
He had the kind of face that could command six figures as a high–end escort, yet he wore a
permanent scowl like the whole world had
personally wronged him.
I hadn’t even met him in person yet, but I’d already
heard all about his greatest hits.
At a boozy work dinner, one male coworker
bragged about two–timing.
While everyone else laughed it off and pretended they hadn’t heard, Cameron cut in with, “You’re
proud of that?”
At a department meeting, one of the old–guard execs got nostalgic and went on and on about how everyone should learn from young people and
“be themselves.”
Cameron cut him off, his voice cool. “Spend less time being yourself and more time acting like at decent human being.”
When someone working under the power behind. the throne made a stupid rookie mistake, Cameron
mocked him in public.
“You were lucky to be born when you were. Back
then, prenatal screening wasn’t that strict. If you were born now, you wouldn’t even make it past a
4D ultrasound.”
I was out of options.
It was my first time dealing with a boss who
answered messages at millisecond speed, and I
hadn’t even been given a chance to unsend it.
While I was still trying to figure out how to salvage
this, the top of the chat suddenly changed to [typing…]
Then a third message from my boss popped up, brief enough to be almost unsettling.
Cameron: [Wait for me.]
Me: [?]
Three hours had passed.
The person who was supposed to be out of town on business was sitting in the conference room.
A black suitcase stood beside his chair.
He looked up when he heard me come in. The loose hair over his forehead was dampened by the season’s first snow outside the window, and his gaze settled on me.
“What kind of trouble did you run into?”
The rumors had not been exaggerating.
Cameron really did have a face that made overtime feel forgivable.
But he wasn’t as cold or vicious as the stories claimed. If anything, he was surprisingly mild.
After I explained that I had messaged him by mistake, Cameron gave me a smile that didn’t
reach his eyes.
“So how come payroll never accidentally sends
your paycheck to me?”
I had to admit it.
The rumors were true after all.
I took the opportunity to make my loyalties clear
and brought up the approval process that had
been stalled.
Instead, I somehow ended up being treated to an
unexpected one–on–one career coaching session.
The process that had been dragging for days was
approved at near–millisecond speed after
Cameron made a single phone call.
I let out a breath of relief.
“Thanks, Ki-”
The word king spun once on the tip of my tongue,
and I caught myself just in time.
“Thanks, young Mr. Sterling.”
Cameron lifted a brow slightly and studied me for
two seconds. Then the corner of his mouth
curved, just barely.
“Jenna Pierce, you really did forget me completely,
didn’t you?”