Helen got Adam right where she wanted him

The smirk on Rena’s face vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced in a fraction of a second by the cold, authoritative mask that routinely struck fear into the hearts of the project team.

"Adam," she barked, her voice sharp and perfectly echoing Rena's usual impatient tone. "My office. Now."

Adam jumped, his heart doing panicked backflips against his ribs. He cast a hurried glance down at Steph, who was rubbing her temples and blinking away the residual brain fog of her impromptu possession. "I... uh, just make sure you drink some water, Steph," he stammered, before obediently trailing behind the redheaded manager like a scolded puppy.

As soon as Adam crossed the threshold of Rena’s corner office, the heavy door clicked shut behind him. The blinds were thankfully already drawn from a previous meeting. Before Adam could even open his mouth to demand an explanation, Rena’s rigid, perfect posture completely dissolved. She doubled over, clutching her stomach as a very un-managerial, breathless laugh escaped her lips.

"Oh my god, your face!" Helen giggled, leaning back against the edge of the heavy oak desk to support herself. "You looked like you'd just seen a ghost! Which, I suppose, you technically did."

Adam rubbed his face in sheer exasperation, feeling his stress levels redlining. "Helen, please, you have to stop this! Stop toying with me at work!" he hissed, keeping his voice low despite the thick glass walls. "Do you have any idea how much trouble we could get into? You left Steph practically comatose at her desk!"

Helen pouted, crossing her arms—Rena's arms—under her chest, a motion that inadvertently emphasized the sharp, tailored cut of her blue blazer. "Oh, relax, she’ll just think she had a bizarre daydream. I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to work with you," she insisted, a wicked gleam returning to her borrowed brown eyes. She took a step closer, crowding his personal space. "And honestly? I love this new power dynamic. I get to boss you around, and you have to do exactly what I say."

"That's not how this works, Helen—" Adam started, stepping forward to interject and regain some control of the situation.

"Ah-ah, let me finish," Helen interrupted, playfully pressing a manicured finger to his lips. "As much fun as it is torturing you, there's actually a real reason your terrifying boss was hunting you down." She pushed off the desk, smoothing down her pencil skirt with practiced ease, seamlessly slipping a hint of Rena's commanding posture back into her stance. "An advisory group from the Japan branch is arriving any minute now. Rena wanted you to join her down in reception to greet them."

Adam blanched. The Japan branch? That was a massive deal for their department. The executives from overseas were notoriously strict, and if this greeting went poorly, it wouldn't just be embarrassing—his entire career trajectory could be on the line.

"So," Helen smiled, tilting Rena’s head and offering him a dangerously playful wink. "Shall we go meet our very important guests, underling?"

Adam stared at her in disbelief. “You are going to leave Rena, right?” he asked, still keeping his voice low despite the door being shut. “You can’t just... stay in her and pretend everything’s normal while she’s supposed to be greeting senior people from the Japan branch.”

Helen, still wearing Rena’s composed expression far too well for his liking, gave a small shrug. “Why not?”

Adam blinked. “Why not?”

She folded her arms and answered in a matter-of-fact tone that sounded unnervingly practical coming from Rena’s mouth. “Because I have her memories. I know who she is, how she speaks, what she’s meant to do, and what she thinks of everyone here. Technically, I can be Rena long enough to do her job for her.”

Adam stared at her another second, searching for the joke. There wasn’t one. Helen looked entirely serious.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No chance. You’re bluffing.”

One of Rena’s brows arched. “Am I?”

Adam stepped closer, lowering his voice even further. “Fine. If you’re so confident, what’s the name of the regional operations lead who visited last month?”

“Martin Kessler,” Helen answered instantly. “Tall, awful handshake, talks too much about ‘efficiency culture,’ and Rena still hasn’t forgiven him for taking credit for her scheduling fix in the post-visit report.”

Adam’s mouth opened, then closed again.

Helen’s smirk deepened.

He rallied quickly. “Alright. What was the issue with the transition plan Pete sent around this morning?”

“He attached the outdated version first, corrected it fifteen minutes later, and still missed the procurement note on page six.” She tilted her head. “Rena noticed. Rena notices everything.”

Adam felt a prickle crawl up the back of his neck. She hadn’t even paused to think.

He tried again. “Who’s the one person on this floor Rena actually respects?”

Helen let out a soft laugh. “No one fully. But she finds Dana in finance competent, which for Rena is basically a love letter.”

Adam exhaled through his nose. “That could just be a lucky guess.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Helen said, and now there was far more of his girlfriend than his manager in the look she gave him, “you’re flailing.”

“I am not flailing.”

“You are absolutely flailing.”

He opened his mouth to throw another question at her, something obscure, something impossible to fake, but Helen moved first. In two brisk steps she had crossed the little gap between them and pressed him gently but firmly back against the wall beside the filing cabinet.

Adam gave a startled breath. “Helen—”

“There,” she murmured, placing one hand beside his shoulder. “Much better.”

The gesture had layers to it. There was the unmistakable edge of a manager cornering a subordinate in private, all authority and control, but threaded through it was something more intimate—more playful, more them. The clash of the two made Adam’s thoughts tangle hopelessly.

Helen leaned in just enough to make his pulse jump. “You should trust your girlfriend more,” she said softly.

Adam swallowed. “It’s not about trust. This has gone too far.”

“I know,” she replied, smiling. “That’s part of why it’s fun.”

Pinned between the wall and Rena’s perfectly tailored blazer, Adam felt his frustration war with a ****, helpless fascination. Helen was enjoying this far too much, and the worst part was that she knew exactly how bewildered he was. Her fingers smoothed the front of his shirt in a gesture that could have been possessive, affectionate, or simply another part of her game.

“Tell me,” she said, her voice dropping lower, “does the bossy act suit me?”

Adam gave her a look somewhere between warning and surrender. “Don’t do this here.”

“That isn’t a no.”

“Helen.”

She laughed under her breath, then straightened his collar with exaggerated care, as though she were preparing him for inspection. “You’re cute when you’re out of your depth.”

Before Adam could come up with a response sharp enough to cut through her amusement, the desk phone rang.

The sound sliced through the charged little bubble between them.

Helen stepped back at once.

What struck Adam most was not that she moved away, but how quickly she changed. The warmth and mischief vanished from her face almost instantly, replaced by Rena’s cool, efficient professionalism. Her shoulders squared. Her expression settled. Even the way she turned toward the desk looked practiced.

For a second Adam could only watch.

Then Helen picked up the receiver.

“Rena speaking,” she said crisply.

Adam’s eyes widened.

It wasn’t just close. It was exact. The tone, the cadence, the clipped authority—it was so convincingly Rena that Adam felt a fresh wave of unreality wash over him.

Helen listened, her face composed, one hand resting lightly on the desk.

“Right,” she said after a moment. “Thank you. We’ll be there in one minute.”

She placed the receiver back in its cradle with measured precision, then looked at Adam.

“The team from Japan has arrived,” she said.

For one absurd second he almost expected her to giggle again and break character. She didn’t. She merely reached for a folder on Rena’s desk, tucked it under her arm, and gave him a level, managerial glance.

“Try not to look so terrified,” she said. “You’re coming with me.”

Adam pushed himself off the wall, still trying to catch up with the fact that his girlfriend had just passed every test he could think of, pinned him in his boss’s office, and answered a work call so perfectly that even he had nearly believed she was Rena.

As Helen reached for the office door, she spared him the faintest sideways smile—small enough that anyone else would have missed it, but unmistakably hers.

Then she opened the door and walked out as if she owned the building.