CHAPTER 4: A SILENT PROPOSAL

The private office of the head of the Power Group on the 88th floor was submerged in a silence so heavy it felt suffocating. Aiden stood there, his tall silhouette obscuring the dying rays of the setting sun as they flickered against the floor-to-ceiling glass walls. After a long moment, he slowly turned around. The intense turbulence that had flashed in his eyes upon seeing her was gone, replaced by the cold, detached gaze of a man who held the power of life and death.

"Ms. Alma," Aiden began, his voice deep and slightly raspy in the hollow room. "Do you know exactly why you are here?"

Alma started slightly. She adjusted her posture on the premium leather sofa, her hands interlaced tightly over her knees to conceal an uncontrollable tremor. Taking a deep breath, she struggled to keep her voice steady.

"Mr. Power, Mr. Nolan gave me a brief overview over the phone. I am here to apply for the position of Special Personal Assistant," she answered honestly, her emerald eyes shimmering with the desperation of someone clinging to a final lifeline. "As I understand it, the role requires absolute confidentiality and support regarding your personal matters. As for the specific requirements, I would truly like to hear them directly from you."

Aiden let out a faint, hollow smirk. Leaving the glass wall, he began to pace slowly around the vast office. The sound of his shoes striking the marble floor thudded like a hammer against Alma’s chest as he closed the distance between them.

"Special Assistant..." He repeated the phrase with a mocking undertone. "Nolan always did have a way with words to please people. In your opinion, why would a man like me—the head of the Power empire—truly need an 'assistant'? To brew coffee or remind me of my meeting schedule?"

Aiden’s counter-question left Alma flustered. She hesitated before replying, "I imagine... beyond administrative duties, you might require someone to manage your lifestyle, monitor your health, or handle sensitive matters that you prefer not to route through your standard staff."

"Health?" Aiden stopped abruptly right in front of her. The proximity was so stifling that Alma felt the air leave her lungs under the sheer weight of his presence. "You’ve hit on a part of it. I need a partner for a project... the most personal project of my life."

He sat down in the chair opposite her, eschewing the distant executive throne behind his desk. His gaze grew profound, as if trying to pierce through the final layer of resilience shielding this woman—the girl he had secretly loved during his youth, a girl who remained entirely unaware of a silent devotion from fifteen years ago.

Aiden looked at Alma’s slender, trembling shoulders. He didn’t need a detailed report to know how she had been living. One look at her worn-out heels and the way she gripped her handbag—as if it were the only thing keeping her from collapsing—told him everything.

"This project does not require your professional qualifications, though your education is a bonus to ensure everything proceeds safely," Aiden continued, his voice calm to the point of cruelty. "It requires a far greater commitment. A transaction where, upon its conclusion, you will have enough money to cast off this wretched reality... but in exchange, you will have to leave a piece of your soul behind."

A chill ran down Alma’s spine. "Mr. Power... I don’t understand. What do you mean?"

Aiden paused, his eyes fixed on her lips, now pale with agitation. He slid a black folder toward her—a simple gesture that carried the weight of a thousand tons.

"I am looking for a surrogate mother for the heir to the Power empire. A mother in the shadows, with no status and no right to interfere with the child after it is born. That, Ms. Alma, is the true nature of the 'Special Assistant' position you are applying for."

The air around Alma seemed to vanish. Every sound—from the hum of the air conditioning to the wind howling against the reinforced glass of the 88th floor—fell abruptly silent. She stared blankly at the man before her: a powerful stranger using the most nonchalant tone to offer the most ruthless, repulsive proposition she had ever heard.

"What... what are you saying?" Alma whispered, her face shifting from shock to utter humiliation. "You would spend such a vast sum of money just to turn me into a breeding tool?"

"Nolan said you were in desperate need of money," Aiden interrupted, his voice cold to mask the internal turmoil caused by the shattered look in her eyes. "I don’t care what you need it for, and I don’t have the time to investigate your circumstances. But let’s be honest with each other, Alma. If you weren’t at the end of your rope, you wouldn't have accepted an interview for a vague 'assistant' role with an abnormally high salary. You are sitting here because, deep down, you knew you had no choice but to gamble on one last chance—no matter what it was."

Alma stood up abruptly, her shoulders shaking with fury. "I would rather be a janitor, rather starve to death, than sell my dignity! Mr. Power, do you truly think so little of me?"

Aiden didn't react with anger. He simply leaned back in his chair, watching her with the detached gaze of a man who held fate in his hands. "Pride does not fill an empty stomach, Alma. I don't need to see your resume to know that for an educated woman like you to step foot in here, your life must be so deadlocked that there is no way out."

Alma’s courage froze instantly. She stood paralyzed. Aiden’s words were like a blade striking a wound that had never healed: since the tragedy five years ago—the day she lost everything—her life had been a series of days spent hiding amidst debts and exhaustion. This man didn't know the specifics of her past, but he spoke a bitter truth: she was desperate. Her presence on this 88th floor was the clearest evidence that she had been completely broken by the storms of life.

A fierce struggle played out in Alma’s eyes. On one side was the final shred of self-respect she was trying to cling to; on the other was the only lifebuoy that could pull her out of the hell she had endured for half a decade.

"Are you feeling pity for yourself, Alma?" he asked, his voice low like the roll of thunder before a storm. "Don't waste your tears. In this transaction, emotion is the cheapest commodity—one I will never pay for."

Seeing her collapsed state, Aiden’s chest tightened with a strange ache—a sensation more nagging and uncomfortable than the tumor eating away at his body. A part of him wanted to stand up, to shed this cold facade, and walk over to confirm if this broken, wounded woman was truly the same girl he had once loved fifteen years ago.

But ruthless logic and the depletion of time reminded him: right now, he didn't need meaningless romance. He needed to know for certain if the Alma standing before him was still the girl he had once risked everything to love, or if she had truly been tainted by money and debt.

He would use this contract as a final test to bind her to him in the most calculated way. Even if she hated him, even if she saw him as a monster, he had to ensure she remained within his sight before the hourglass of his life ran out of sand. Whether he would treat her as "merchandise" or a "treasure" depended on whether he could still find the shadow of the past in those tear-filled eyes.

He rose slowly, his cold breath mingling with the suffocating atmosphere as he stepped closer to her. Aiden leaned in, his deep black eyes—resembling two bottomless black holes—boring straight into Alma’s trembling form.

"Does this silence mean you are weighing whether the price for your 'soul' is high enough?" Aiden asked mockingly, his raspy voice echoing painfully in her ear. "Look at yourself, Alma. Do not let that hollow pride deceive you. You came here because you know full well there is no turning back, and I am the only one willing to pay a price for your desperation."

He reached out, his fingers brushing lightly against a stray lock of hair falling over her pale face. Yet, the gesture held no affection; it felt more like a contemptuous inventory of merchandise.

"Do not look at me with those eyes. You have no right to play the victim in this room. The world out there will not show mercy when you fall, regardless of your beauty or your education."

Alma felt her heart tighten, aching as if being strangled. A surge of humiliation left her breath hitched in her throat. She looked at the man before her—a powerful figure exposing her misery with a terrifyingly nonchalant attitude.

Every last shred of Alma’s courage shattered. Her lips parted, on the verge of uttering something—perhaps a final protest or a bitter acceptance...

Suddenly, Aiden drew himself up to his full height. He turned his back to her, casting his gaze out at the skyscrapers lighting up through the glass wall. He did not rush her, nor did he seem to care for her presence any longer. He simply left a heavy silence hanging in the air, as if Alma’s existence at that moment were nothing more than a tiny speck of dust in his empire.

The twilight shadows completely swallowed the room, leaving only the ticking of the clock on the desk—steady and dry, like a countdown to the collapse of a soul teetering on the edge of the abyss.