Voss Industries occupied the top ten floors of a glass tower in Manhattan, and I — Elena Voss, twenty-nine, VP of Acquisitions — had spent three years climbing to the corner office with the view. My stepfather had founded the company. My mother had married him. And his daughter, Sloane, had been my personal nightmare since the day she walked into the building with a Harvard MBA and a smile that said she was coming for everything I’d built.
We were stepsisters. Technically. But in the corporate hierarchy, we were enemies.
She’d stolen my biggest client last quarter — a pharmaceutical merger I’d been cultivating for eight months. She’d taken my parking spot. She’d even convinced the board to give her the promotion I’d been promised, her argument so compelling, her data so perfect, that I’d sat in the meeting and watched my future disappear into her navy blazer.
Tonight was the quarterly review. Everyone had gone home. The cleaning crew had finished. And I was in the boardroom, alone, drinking the whiskey I kept in my desk for nights like this, when Sloane walked in.
“You stole my client,” I said, not turning from the window. The city was a blanket of lights below us, and my reflection showed a woman who looked defeated. “My promotion. And now you’re in my boardroom at midnight. What do you want, Sloane? My resignation? My office? My blood?”
She didn’t speak. Just walked to the bar cart — my bar cart — and poured herself a glass of my whiskey. She leaned against the glass wall, arms crossed, looking at me with an expression that was part amusement, part hunger, part complete ownership of a space she’d already conquered.
“If you think you can take this company from me,” I breathed, turning to face her, my red power suit feeling too tight, too hot, too much like armor that was about to fail. “You’re delusional. You’re my stepsister. You work in a different department. You have no authority here. You have no right to be in my boardroom, drinking my whiskey, looking at me like—”
She pushed off the wall. Walked over. Stopped close enough that I could smell her — whiskey, perfume, and something darker that smelled like victory. She took my chin in her hand. Her grip was firm, commanding, completely at odds with the polite executive she pretended to be.
And she kissed me.
Hard. Aggressive. A kiss that tasted like corporate warfare and stolen clients and the exact moment when hate becomes something that can’t be named in any quarterly report. Her tongue slid against mine, her free hand finding my waist, pulling me against her with a violence that made the conference table rattle.
The elevator dinged outside.
We both froze. The boardroom had glass walls — floor-to-ceiling, designed for transparency, for openness, for the kind of corporate culture that said “we have nothing to hide.” Which meant that anyone walking past could see us. Anyone in the elevator lobby could look in and see the VP of Acquisitions being kissed senseless by her stepsister.
“Don’t stop,” Sloane whispered against my mouth, her hand sliding down my back, over my ass, finding the hem of my skirt. “Let him watch. Let him see who really runs this company.”
The CEO — my stepfather, Richard Voss — walked into the lobby. He was carrying his briefcase, his phone to his ear, completely absorbed in a conversation about Tokyo market openings. He was twenty feet from the glass wall. He was looking at us.
Sloane didn’t stop. She just turned me around, pushed me face-down onto the conference table, and lifted my skirt with one hand while the other pressed against my mouth to silence me.
“Quiet,” she whispered, her fingers finding my underwear, pulling it aside, pressing inside me with a confidence that made my vision blur. “He’s looking right at us. And he thinks we’re discussing the merger. So discuss it. Tell me about the merger, Elena. Tell me about the numbers while I make you come on your own table.”
I tried. I really did. I opened my mouth to say something about EBITDA and market share, but Sloane’s fingers curled inside me, finding the spot that made my knees buckle, and all that came out was a strangled moan that I tried to cover with a cough.
Richard waved. He thought we were working late. He smiled — a proud father seeing his daughters collaborating — and walked to his office.
Sloane made me come three times on that table. The first time was quick, desperate, her fingers moving fast and hard while I bit my own hand to keep from screaming. The second time was slower, deeper, her mouth on my neck, her other hand pinching my nipple through my blazer. The third time was after she’d stripped me completely naked, my power suit on the floor, my body exposed to the city lights, and she used her mouth on me until I couldn’t remember my own name.
After, she fixed her blazer. Poured me another whiskey. And sat in my chair — the one behind the desk, the one with the view — with her feet on my quarterly reports.
“I want this office,” she said, her voice casual, completely at odds with what she’d just done. “And I want you. And I’m going to have both. Not because I’m your stepsister. But because I’m better than you. At business. At this. At everything.”
She was right. She got the office three months later. I moved into a smaller one down the hall. But every night, after the building empties, Sloane comes to my new office and shows me exactly who runs Voss Industries.
The glass walls are still transparent. The city still watches. And I still come apart on whatever surface she chooses, while my stepfather works in his office twenty feet away, completely unaware that his company is being run by a woman who owns me completely.
