No One’s Pov

"Miss Amelia, it’s past your bedtime. You should get your beauty sleep. You have a meeting with Mr. Valente tomorrow," her personal assistant said, hovering near the door with a schedule in hand.

Amelia was sprawled across her silk sheets, scrolling through her phone. With her particularly round eyes and a slender frame, she looked like a model.

At the mention of the meeting, her eyes lit up with a sudden spark, and she bolted upright. But just as quickly, a memory seemed to flash behind her eyes, she shuddered, her shoulders tensing, and she slowly sat back down.

"Actually... I think I want to take a rest. I’ll meet him another day," she said, her voice quiet.

The assistant looked troubled. "But Miss, I thought you wanted to win him over. If you really want to seduce him, you have to show up and create that connection. This is the third time you’ve refused. Has your mind changed? Do you no longer want him?"

Amelia stayed silent for a few moments, staring at the blank screen of her phone. "It didn’t," she whispered. "I still want him, but..." She trailed off, unable to voice the strange fear that had been growing inside her.

"Is something bothering you, Miss?"

Amelia shook her head quickly, forcing a smile. "No. Fine. I will meet him tomorrow. Prepare my most expensive outfit- something that shows him exactly what he’s missing."

With a sudden burst of cheer, she tucked herself into bed and dismissed the assistant. But the moment the door clicked shut, her expression flattened. She reached for her phone and typed a quick message to a contact with no name.

A few minutes later, the screen lit up.

[Unknown]: He’s not the same person.

Amelia stared at the words until they blurred. A sense of satisfaction washed over her, calming her trembling hands. Feeling finally satisfied, she closed her eyes and drifted into a restless sleep

Meanwhile, in a dimly lit mansion on the outskirts of the city, silence reigned.

Dominic sat in his study, the only light coming from the glow of his monitors and a single desk lamp.

He was working, until his hand suddenly stopped halfway across the keyboard. The image of that girl from the university flashed through his mind.

He really hadn’t cared about some clumsy student- until he heard her voice that day. The moment she spoke, a jolt had gone through him that he couldn’t explain. He hadn’t been able to see her face fully, it was always obscured by those thick bangs and her oversized glasses, but oddly, he felt like he knew her.

More than that, he felt a pull- a craving to have her near him, a want that bordered on an obsession.

This feeling was foreign to him. Since a young age, Dominic had been able to get anything he wanted without even asking. Success, power, women- it all came too easily, making the world a dull, uninteresting place. Until the dreams started.

For months, he had been plagued by blurry dreams. In them, he was hugging someone, kissing someone, and doing things to a woman he had never met in real life. He could never see her face in the dreams, but he knew her voice. He knew the way she breathed...

"Is Miss Troublesome really her...?" he mused.

Suddenly, a knock interrupted his thoughts.

"Boss, I brought the file you mentioned."

Dominic gave a curt nod, dismissing the assistant with a wave of his hand. He pulled the manila folder toward him and flipped it open.

Inside was everything the world knew about Vivien.

He scanned the pages. There was nothing particularly special about her background- a normal, middle-class life, though her academic records showed extraordinary talent in programming.

He flipped to her ID photo, but even there, her face was partially hidden by those same stubborn bangs. His hand twitched against the paper, he felt a sudden urge to reach into the photo, brush the hair away, and finally see her eyes.

Then, his gaze landed on her relationship status: Single.

For a reason he couldn’t quite define, a wave of

satisfaction washed over him.

He kept reading, noticing the long list of recent job applications she had sent out.

A smirk played on his lips. He picked up his phone and made a call to his head of operations.

"I am sending you the information of a girl,"

Dominic said. "If any company in this city even thinks about hiring her, I will personally destroy them. See to it that she is rejected by everyone."

He hung up, his eyes returning to the photo. If she were desperate, she would have to stay close to him. If she were broke, she would have to rely on him.

He glanced at the clock. It was late, but he wanted her to know he wasn’t letting her slide. He pulled up their message thread and typed out the text, his siren eyes gleaming in the dark.

[Unknown]: 3 hours and 30 minutes remaining. I hope you aren’t sleeping, Vivien. I’d hate to see you fail on your first day.

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Back in her apartment, Vivien was on her fourth cup of instant coffee. Her eyes were burning, and the scripts on the documents were starting to look like Greek mythology.

"Pass-by-object-reference... memory allocation... budget for the new server room..." she mumbled, her head nodding off before she snapped it back up.

She glanced at her phone. 4:30 AM.

"Just a few more pages," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Do it for the sake of your campus, Vivien. If I even lose this, my life will be miserable asf."

As she highlighted a final row in the spreadsheet, she noticed something strange.

In the footer of one of the documents, there was a signature of Mr. Valente. Oddly, it was exactly the way Dante used to sign his papers- the same aggressive curves and style

Vivien froze, her pen hovering over the paper.

"No... it’s just a coincidence. It has to be."

But the resemblance was uncanny. She grabbed her phone to check the time, and another message from the unknown number lit up the screen.

[Unknown]: 3 hours and 30 minutes remaining. I hope you aren’t sleeping, Vivien. I’d hate to see you fail on your first day.

"Oh, you’re definitely Dante," she hissed at the screen, her anger rose. "Only he was this much of a micromanager!"

She slammed her laptop shut.

She gathered the now completed files into a neat stack and stood up, her legs feeling like jelly.

She had less than four hours to make herself look like a functioning human being before she had to face the Grumpy Suite Devil.

"If you think you can break me with paperwork, you’ve forgotten who you’re dealing with," she muttered, glaring at the dark screen of her phone.

The morning sun began to enter through her curtains, casting shadows across her messy apartment.

Vivien didn’t even have time for a proper breakfast. She splashed ice-cold water on her face to shock her system awake, pulled on a fresh hoodie, and grabbed her bag.

By the time she reached the campus, the sun was fully out. She sprinted toward the administrative floor.

At exactly 7:58 AM, she stood before the heavy mahogany door of the Principal’s office. She took a deep breath, adjusted her glasses, and knocked.

"Enter."

The voice was cold. Vivien walked in to find Dominic Valente sitting behind the desk, looking as if he’d slept for ten hours and had a professional spa treatment. He was wearing a deep navy suit today looking handsome as always.

"You’re early," he said, not looking up from the file he was holding. "I suppose that means you’ve either finished or you’ve come to beg for an extension."

Vivien didn’t say a word. She walked up to the desk and slammed the thick stack of folders down with a thud.

"Everything is complete. Calculations verified, scripts optimized, and I even caught the error in your third-quarter projections," she said, her voice steady despite her exhaustion.

Dominic finally looked up. His gaze was slow, traveling from her messy ponytail down to the dark circles under her eyes, and finally resting on her face.

He reached out, his long fingers brushing against the top folder, and flipped it open. His eyes landed on the signature area.

He picked up a silver fountain pen and signed the document.

Vivien’s breath hitched. It was identical. The way he signed and all.

"Is there something on my face, Miss Vivien?" he asked as he noticed her staring at his hand.

"You..." she started, her heart thumping. "Your signature. It’s very... unique."

Dominic leaned back, a smirk playing on his lips. He looked at her with an intensity that made the room feel twenty degrees hotter.

"Everything about me is unique, Vivien. The sooner you realize that, the easier your ’internship’ will be."

He closed the folder and slid a small, white envelope across the desk. "Your first ’reimbursement.’ Consider it a reward for not failing."

Vivien opened the envelope, and for a split second, her eyes sparkled like she’d just found hidden treasure. The cash was crisp, and it was a lot. But then, her pride flared up. Shaking her head, she slid it back across the mahogany desk.

"I am fine," she said, though her stomach chose that exact moment to let out a traitorous growl.

Dominic’s lips curled into a smirk. "Fine then. If you don’t want it, I will take-"

Before he could even finish the sentence, Vivien’s hand darted out snatching the envelope back. "But again, thinking about all of my efforts, the sleep deprivation, and the mental trauma you’ve caused... I deserve it, don’t I?" she said, stuffing it deep into her hoodie pocket.

He didn’t laugh, but the cold stone like mask of his face seemed to soften for a fraction of a second before he dismissed her with a sharp nod.

Vivien practically flew out of the office and headed toward her class. Her mind was a mess.

She just couldn’t get over his face. No matter how much she tries to.

"I really need to get away from him as soon as possible"

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice the group approaching until a hand shoved her shoulder, sending her stumbling against the lockers.

"Move it. Miss Amelia is coming through. Make way," a woman in a suit snapped, barely glancing at Vivien as if she were a piece of gum stuck to the floor.

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TO BE CONTINUED