Page 1 of My Masked Savior
1
MORGAN
Ifix my lipstick and stare at the too-bright reflection in the mirror. My brown eyes look glassy, too wide, too frightened, and my bottom lip won’t stop trembling. Lipstick can’t disguise that. I hate parties—hate being trapped in a room where the noise and bodies press in on me, just like the crowd waiting outside the ladies’ bathroom.
It’s two weeks until Christmas, and while I’ve dodged family holiday gatherings for years, there’s no escaping this shindig. The company holiday party isn’t optional—not if I want that promotion I’ve been clawing toward. I’ve been with Aegis Ironclad Insurance for five years, and I’m ready to level up to account manager. More than ready. I’m sick of juggling a hundred tiny policies when I know I’d thrive managing a handful of high-value corporate clients. Companies are easier than people, anyway. Cleaner. Less messy emotions, more bottom line. Way less anxiety for me.
One more deep inhale. Hold for two. Exhale. Hiding in the bathroom won’t get me promoted, no matter howmuch I’d rather camp out here until New Year’s. Time to plaster on a smile and fake small talk like my career depends on it. Because, you know, it kind of does.
I push the bathroom door open, and the noise slams into me like a wall. There’s laughter, clinking glasses, and the bass from some overplayed Christmas pop remix. Somewhere out there, Mariah is making her millions before she counts them and returns to her cave.
Our biggest conference room is strung with twinkling lights, silver garland, and giant red bows. I don’t mind the colors and glitter from the decor. It’s the people that scare the shit out of me. Everywhere I look, there are sequins, expensive suits, employees and clients rubbing shoulders with drinks in hand, their voices overlapping until I can’t tell one conversation from the next.
The air feels too thick, too warm, too… smelly. There’s a miasma of wine, perfume, cologne, and roasted meat from the buffet in the air. My pulse jumps as my throat tightens, and I hug my clutch closer to my chest like a shield, trying to force my chin up.
I need to smile. I need to make eye contact. I need to remember people’s names and pretend my lungs aren’t already working double-time just to keep me upright. I need them to just love me, to love working with me. Is that such a big ask? It’s the season of giving, after all.
I spot my boss’s bald head on the other side of the room. He’s busy kissing select asses—only the biggest clients for Todd. My shoulders lower a bit when I spot one of the few coworkers who isn’t a backstabbing ladder-climber—my friend Basia. She’s talking with one of our mid-sized clients, and I have to admit, he’s not too hard to look at.
I paste on what I hope passes for a confidentsmile and head toward Basia, rehearsing my opening line in my head like I’m about to deliver a pitch instead of saying hi to a friend. She’s laughing at something the client says, her blonde curls bouncing, and for a moment, I almost believe I can do this. That maybe I won’t crumble under the weight of all these people and expectations. Or worse, the expectations I’ve set for myself.
Then I see him.
Not him, not Marco, my brain tries to argue. It can’t be him. My ex is two states away, out of my life. I ran far away from his stomping grounds. But the tilt of the stranger’s jaw, the way he leans in too close to the woman at his side, the arrogant smile—every detail slams into me like a fist. Almost as hard as his fists used to slam into my stomach, where no one could see the consequences but us.
My chest caves inward. My lungs seize. I can’t do this. I’m not going to survive him a second time.
It’s not him, I realize a beat later. The nose is wrong, the hair too short.
But the recognition comes too late, and my body doesn’t care about logic anymore. My hands are shaking, my pulse spikes like I’m running a sprint, and the air I need just won’t fit through the tightening straw of my throat.
Basia’s smile fades when she notices me hovering, frozen. “Morgan?” she mouths, concern flickering across her face.
I try to answer, but no sound comes out. Just a thin wheeze. My clutch slips from my hands and smacks the carpet. Someone laughs nearby, oblivious, while my knees buckle.
“Oh my god, Morgan!” Basia shouts, the muted click-clack of her heels echoing oddly in my ears. I feel her arms on me, helping me sit down, but I’m clawing at my button-down shirt, pulling on the collar until two buttons snap off and roll over the carpet squares. I need my inhaler. Oh god, I can’t breathe.
I spot my clutch where I dropped it, and point at it frantically. My salvation is in there. Someone must grab my inhaler and put it in my hands, because I’m breathing in three puffs before I realize it, the sharp taste coating the back of my tongue. Only it’s not helping. It’s not helping at all. I still can’t get any air.
“H—help,” I wheeze, looking up at Basia through a haze of tears.
A woman shouts, “Someone call 991!” followed by a man’s assurance that it’s already been done. Oh, no. An ambulance. I know exactly how much that costs, even with employee coverage. Leave it to me to bankrupt myself just by breathing wrong.
I don’t know how much time passes, but the meager amounts of air coming in have made me so dizzy that the edges of the world grow fuzzy. I feel scratches from where my nails dug into the thin skin of my cleavage, and somewhere in my spinning brain, I register I’ve just given half the room a view I didn’t budget for.
A deep male voice cuts through the murmuring of the crowd, assertive, calm, demanding obedience. “Move out of the way. Make space.”
I see two pairs of utilitarian boots approaching, standing out in the sea of high heels and dress shoes. The bigger ones, obviously belonging to a man, stop right in front of me, so close that it would normally take my breath away. As it is, I’m highly deficient in that luxury anyway. When he crouches, I struggle to lift my head up, following the lines of his uniform as they stretch over strong legs, tattooed forearms, then further up, until eyes blue as theCaribbean Sea pierce through me above a generic face mask.
The only thing I see are his eyes and a killer blonde fade. Nevertheless, as I’m gasping for air, doing my best impersonation of a dying grouper, I come to the realization that this EMT is the hottest man I’ve ever seen.
2
DAMIEN
The moment I step into the festively decorated office space, my training kicks in—Navy field assessment protocols flowing through my mind automatically. Eight years as a Corpsman taught me to compartmentalize, evaluate, prioritize, and execute.
As I push through a crowded room of Christmas party goers and panicked bystanders, my eyes are instantly drawn to a woman in acute respiratory distress on the floor.
