This moment in time, this very second, everything stops. Everything stops moving and spinning.

My heart was pounding out of my chest, the beating sound making it to my ears and eventually to my head as I surely convinced myself that Liam can hear it.

Liam, good lord, we are on a first name basis.

My lips part as I feel him getting closer, slightly moving his body in the bed, the sheets contracting the small notice to his slow movements. His thumb rubs small circles on my cheeks as he doesn't look or feel like he is about to pull away anytime soon.

His presence next to mine on the bed is big, so big that I can't focus on anything else other than him.

I managed to open my eyes as I stared right back at Liam's eyes, his head still resting against mine as neither of us looked away from each other.

His eye, so green, so lovely. It's full of life and shines bright, even with the one lamp that is turned on.

He's the first to look away as he stares at something lower, pasting my nose and–I don't even want to think about Liam staring at my lips.

I don't move and neither does he, all I can do is breathe out as I close my eyes again and let him–

Wait, I suddenly thought, this is wrong, absolutely wrong. This goes into something that I should never do, especially in the middle of the night and especially with one of my employees.

My hands move fast, grabbing his hands as they still remain on my cheeks, our hands now intersected, touching.

He looks back at my eyes as leans back, a hesitant but yet complex expression appearing on his face.

I say nervously, my hands begin to sweat and shake as I splurt out, "We need to go to bed, Chopard"

That's all I said, I quickly let go of his hands as I turned over to the other side, turning off the lamp as I flop myself in the bed, not saying anything else, leaving Chopard in the bed–speechless, I guess.

As I layed there in the silent bed, I already missed the warmth on my cheeks that his hands provided.

I shook my head as I tried to calm myself down from what was about to happen between us.

Beside me, I still haven't heard any movement from the other side of the bed, I guess Chopard is still sitting up in the bed.

Neither of us said anything, and I don't plan to say anything to him, at least for the rest of the night, or in the morning (I hope).

And I wish to not speak to him for the rest of my life.

Eventually Chopard gets into his position in the bed, making the bed dip and move. I still don't say anything to him as I'm facing the other side, he might be facing the opposite side as well–who knows.

My mind is all over the place. In places where it shouldn't be. Consuming thoughts that are eating me alive in this moment, even though there is no action on the outside. There is too much happening on the inside.

My mind is going into overdrive, my organs and muscles might shut down all together. My cheeks become sour, making me clench my eyes shut even more, I can suspect that I'm blushing.

My breath becomes short and unstable, like I'm about to have a panic attack but I'm not, my chest is heavy, trying to keep my composure together and at the same time, not alert Chopard because of my shortness of breath.

I become a sweating mess under the sheets, even though the overhead fan is on, I'm still sweating like crazy–Like I can physically feel the drip on my back.

But I'm afraid to move in this bed, not when Chopard is in the bed, not after what just happened between us. I don't want to give him a reason to talk to me, because god knows, he will find any reason to open his mouth.

This is all my fault, hundred percent.

I feel like I keep making mistakes that are easy to avoid, and this is one of them.

My mind is still progressing everything that just happened and the one thing that comes to mind is that I was an idiot, and that I let my emotions take over.

I should've listened to my head, that was my mistake. I actually thought, for a second–that my emotion or heart is doing the right thing, that I should be feeling like that. That it was right to almost kiss my employee.

I should have known that listening to your heart can't make something good out of it. It makes you a fool. I actually believed it for a second.

Listening to your heart throws out every logical thing out of the window.

If I wasn't so blinded by my feelings then I wouldn't have engaged in any conversation with Chopard, I'd have ignored his comment about my appearance and not let my brain go into a deep spiral about how others view me–that alone was stupid of me.

I shouldn't say that I didn't remender anyone calling me beautiful, that put me in a vulnerable place, a place that people can use you. I should've pushed his hand away from my cheek, I don't know what I was thinking about that.

In truth, I wasn't thinking and that was the problem. I let him whisper sweet nothings into my ear and let him tell me what to do, and I fell into that trap.

I fell into that trap, and what was the result of that? He got the permission to do more–by leaning his head against mine and proceeded to try and–I don't even want to think about it or even imagine it for another second.

This whole situation is so stupid of me, and I don't even know what to do about it, or if I can even face him the next morning.

The most conflicting thing about the whole thing is, should I fire him for this? I mean, I don't usually hesitate on the idea of firing someone. In most cases, if I consider firing someone, then I do it in a heartbeat because there shouldn't be any reason to where I'm doubting someone.

But in this particular case, there are some factors.

I mean, I was the one who convinced Chopard to stay in bed instead of going on the couch–all because I was feeling bad for this whole hotel situation.

Plus, I didn't do anything about him touching my cheek, I didn't push away instead I accepted it with open arms.

All these thoughts, I don't even know if I can go to sleep after this, not after what I had almost done–something I would surely regret.

All I did tonight was embarrassed myself, my ego and my pride all together.

Tonight only proved something–That I have gone soft, I actually started to value people's opinions and take into consideration the feelings of others.

That is not who I am, I didn't work this hard for the image that I want, just for all of it to be torn down just because of one person, who I didn't trust from the beginning.

And now I see why.

I knew it, I should have listened to my guts the moment I started to be suspicious of him–and now, I'm stuck with him until the end of this business trip.

Not unless I throw him out of the hotel and let him fend for himself.

No, I'm not that cruel, but what I am doing to do is take back my power, the power that dissolved the moment Chopard started talking friendly to me.

That is his game plan. I calculated and figured out the formula for his game. He will want to be friendly towards me and try to get me to open up, (which I already did, unfortunately) and boom, backstab for life.

Me and Chopard are not friends, we will never be. I am his boss and he's only an employee that can be easily replaced if he's not up to my satisfaction.

But tonight, what happened or what almost happened between us was my doing, I let it get too far, I admit it.

But after tonight, I can't be weak anymore. There needs to be changes around here, these past few weeks, I have been generous and taking pity towards people. That is not me at all.

The 'hunger games' need to return, I have to push him to his breaking point, I can and will do anything to make that happen.

Settling to what I have constructed in my head, I fully lay my head on the pillow, not realizing I have been tensed up this whole time. Breathing out I close my already tired, dry eyes, thinking about everything and nothing.

But one thing that is constantly ingrained in my head is that I am back, in full swing, ready to set everything on fire (Not really).

                                            *

My alarm goes off.

I quickly sat up, not giving myself time to prepare to process–I reached over the bedside table, silenting my phone after the first ring.

Rubbing my head, feeling my hair in a tangled mess whenever I tried to run my finger through it. My brain fogs, probably due to the lack of sleep I got.

I felt like that was just a short nap, I definitely need to take a day just for sleeping, but knowing my schedule and what I have to do and all my tasks–that won't happen for the next twenty years or so.

It doesn't matter though, the main important topic for the day is the meeting.

As long as I'm prepared and ready for that, then I can worry about other things later.

Feeling tension in my back and arms, probably from sleeping on them throughout my short sleep, I stretch them in all kinds of directions, not thinking about anything else at the moment.

My arms shake slightly as I stretch them around my back, then suddenly come into contact with something.

I pull back my arms back as quickly as lightning as I turn my head towards the thing that I touched. Looking at the figure, I quickly remember Chopard was still in the bed, sleeping away soundly.

As startled as I was a few seconds ago, that was soon replaced with shame and anger.

Everything that happened last night begins to replay in my head, from the whole thing with the worker from downstairs, to figuring out the sleeping arrangements, then the showers, and everything else leading to me going to sleep at the worst time possible.

All thanks to me and my confused feelings.

I stop looking towards Chopard's sleeping body as I look forward, closing my eyes as I breathe calmly, trying to get my head into the right headspace for today.

As I thought to myself, just forget it Hailey, there are many things to focus on, thinking this puts my mind at ease.

The only thing I need to focus on is the success of the meeting and what I need to get out of it, but until then that is finished, I will deal with Chopard later, when we are back in the office.

Tapping into the right headspace for the day, I quickly but quietly get up as I don't want to wake him up, I don't know when he's waking up, nor do I care–that is not my responsibility, that is all up to him.

But I do hope that he set an alarm, because I would hate to wake him up.

The objective for today is to interact with him as little as possible.

I head to the bathroom, the little amount of light from the sun rising through the curtains not preparing me for the absolute brightness of the bathroom.

I take one look into the mirror, feeling the relief that I brought concealer to cover up the dark bags under my eyes.

It looks bad, and I mean bad–I look like I have been staying up for three days straight and that brief moment of sleep last night was only teasing me from getting actual sleep–I might as well stay up.

My eyes are puffy, more puffy than usual, pairing it with the darkness under my eyes, everyone is going to think I'm a zombie, coming out from under the ground of a graveyard.

I got to business, as I stripped away my pajamas and hopped in the shower–There I let the warm water run through my body, as I ran the body wash through my body, I eventually began feeling more hopeful.

I guess my appearance, the lack of sleep, and the lack of control from last night's situation started to weigh me down, forcing me to confront things that I'm not familiar with.

That made me think back to when I was young, I was actually comfortable with this type of feeling, the type of feeling that I could go talk to my mom about. I could actually figure out why I was feeling the feeling I was feeling.

That changed after I got into the business industry. I'm not going to lie, it was tough at first, but that was because I was making it tough, because I was so overcome with emotions that I wasn't thinking logically.

At some point, I think I realize what I was doing wrong to achieve the things I want, and all together, I stopped. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and others, and instead worried about the next project or the next business venture.

I have been so focused on that, I haven't had time for myself.

But that doesn't matter now, does it? I'm too deep into this to back out now, I can't give all that up, not in this economy anyway.

As I step out of the shower, the steam makes it hard for me to see the reflection, but I can already tell that I look a lot better than before hitting the shower.

Not wanting to waste time, I dried myself off as I dressed myself in a business suit, consisting of a royal blue matching jacket and pants, pairing it with a basic white button up, not my favorite blue but it'll do, at least for today.

As I exit the bathroom, before turning off the lights, I still see Chopard's sleeping body–Not wanting to bother him or be in the same room as him, I head into the living room with everything I need.

I sit down on the couch as I pull out my laptop, checking in for emails and anything regarding business, I look back at the bedroom door, secretly wondering when he's going to wake up.

Hopefully soon, I'm not going to make a bad impression because of him.

A few minutes later, I faintly hear an alarm go off in the other room, which I assume it's Chopard.

Checking my phone, I guess we're making good time since it's only an hour before we have to head down to check out the meeting rooms, and go ready for it.

I continue working as I don't need to distract myself from thinking about Chopard doing his morning routine or anything of the sort.

Even thinking his name makes my finger type faster.

Rubbing my forehead, all I thought was, this is going to be an eventful day.

                                           *

My alarm suddenly goes off, reminding me that it's time to pack up and get ready to head down. As soon as I stopped the alarm and closed my laptop, the bedroom door opened, out come Chopard.

Taking a sneak peek, he looks like he's freshly showered, his hair damped, like he blow dried only for a little while, only to have his fingers rake it through his hair, making it look effortlessly slick back. He's wearing a basic black and white suit, pairing it with some black shoes.

Looking sharp I see, I wanted to say but was too stubborn to say anything to him.

As I got up from the couch as I put my laptop in my bag, I turned around as I caught Chopard's eyes. I stopped in my tracks as we stared at each other, not saying anything, just this awkward stare that I can't pull my eyes away from.

Looking into his eyes takes me back to last night, the way I couldn't keep my eyes off him when we were in such tight spaces. I subconsciously can still feel his hands on my cheeks and his forehead resting against mine.

And in the back of mind, I still hear, "Are you going to fire me for this?"

I can still hear it, in fact, I've been hearing it all night.

Slightly turning my head away from him, breaking my contact, but still looking at him from the corner, he opened his mouth.

Oh god, I thought, he's going to say something about last night, I know it. He is going to try and talk about it and I don't think I have the strength nor the will to even touch on the subject.

He only got a sound in as I quickly said something other than that particular thing.

"We should get going" I ushered out, facing him full front again, trying to end this madness that's going on in my head, "We need to head down right now" I said more calmly.

He only nods as he slips on his backpack, making me leave out first.

Conflicting feelings are arising, wonder how long Hailey is going to bottle it up.

-Summer Roe