Chapter Text
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and Regina Mills stepped into the marble-floored lobby of Mills Media Group headquarters, her Louboutin heels clicking with the precision of a metronome. The sound echoed through the soaring atrium, bouncing off glass and steel surfaces that reflected the morning sun in sharp, calculated angles. Everything about the building spoke of power—her power—carefully constructed over the past decade.
She adjusted the strap of her burgundy Hermès bag and smoothed down her perfectly tailored Alexander McQueen suit, the charcoal fabric hugging curves that had filled out considerably since her awkward teenage years. Her dark hair was pulled back in an elegant chignon, not a strand out of place, and her makeup was impeccable: smoky eyes, bold red lips, the armor of a woman who had learned to weaponize beauty along with brilliance.
Regina didn't smile as she crossed the lobby. She never smiled anymore, not really. Not since—
She stopped that thought before it could fully form, the way she always did, the way she'd trained herself to do for ten years. But today, the memory pressed closer than usual, threatening to breach the walls she'd so carefully erected.
Today was different.
Today, she would see her again.
The security checkpoint loomed ahead, and Regina's pulse quickened despite her best efforts at control. Her assistant, Kathryn, had mentioned the personnel change in passing during yesterday's briefing: "We've hired new security staff for the executive floor. They start tomorrow."
Regina hadn't thought anything of it then. Why would she? She employed over three hundred people across four cities. She couldn't possibly keep track of every new hire, especially not in security.
But then this morning, her head of HR had sent the routine new employee files to her private email, and Regina had opened them over her first espresso, barely paying attention until—
Emma Swan.
The name had leapt off the screen like a physical blow, stealing the breath from her lungs. For a full minute, she'd simply stared at the attached photo, older now but unmistakably her. Those green eyes, slightly harder than they'd been at nineteen. That blonde hair, shorter, pulled back in a practical ponytail. That face that had haunted Regina's dreams and nightmares for a decade.
Regina had sat frozen at her breakfast bar, her hand trembling so badly that she'd set down her coffee cup before she could spill it. A thousand memories had crashed over her in an instant: fumbling hands in darkness, whispered promises that meant nothing, the weight of another body pressed against hers for the first and last time, the humiliation that followed.
The shame.
The betrayal.
The absolute devastation of being nineteen years old and having your heart ripped out by the only person you'd ever trusted with it.
She'd felt it all again in that moment—the naive hope, the desperate longing, the complete and utter stupidity of believing that Emma Swan, golden girl, star athlete, could ever actually want someone like her. Regina Mills, the nerd, the scholarship student, the girl who'd hidden behind books and perfect grades because she had nothing else.
And then, beneath the pain, something else had risen up. Something cold and sharp and hungry.
Finally.
Finally, after ten years of success that felt hollow, of wealth that couldn't buy back her innocence, of power that meant nothing because the one person she wanted to have power over was nowhere to be found—finally, the universe was giving her a chance.
A chance for what, exactly? Regina hadn't let herself name it. Not yet. But all morning, as she'd gone through her routine with mechanical precision, she'd felt it building inside her like pressure behind a dam. Anticipation. Vindication.
Revenge.
Now, as she approached the security desk, Regina's heart hammered against her ribs with such force that she was certain everyone in the lobby could hear it. Her palms were actually sweating inside her leather gloves—an indignity she couldn't remember experiencing since her Stanford thesis defense.
Get it together, she commanded herself. You are Regina Mills. You are the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. You did not claw your way up from nothing, did not work yourself to exhaustion for ten years, did not become the youngest female media mogul in the industry, just to fall apart because of her.
But then she saw her.
Emma Swan stood behind the security desk in a crisp black uniform, her hair pulled back severely, her posture rigid. She was thinner than Regina remembered, almost gaunt, with shadows under her eyes that spoke of exhaustion and hard living. The cocky confidence that had once radiated from her like heat was gone, replaced by something defeated and wary.
For just a moment, Regina felt a sharp twist in her chest that might have been sympathy. Might have been satisfaction. She couldn't quite tell anymore; the emotions were too tangled.
Then Emma looked up, and their eyes met.
The world seemed to stop.
Regina watched the recognition hit Emma like a physical force. She saw those green eyes widen, saw the color drain from Emma's face, saw her lips part in shock. Emma's hand, reaching for something on the desk, froze mid-motion.
"Ms. Mills," Emma whispered, and hearing her name in that voice—that voice that had once murmured dirty promises in her ear, that had coaxed her into doing things she'd never imagined, that had said "I want you" with such convincing hunger—sent a jolt of electricity straight through Regina's body.
It was arousal and rage in equal measure, a toxic combination that made her skin feel too tight.
"Do I know you?" Regina asked coolly, her voice betraying none of the chaos inside her. She arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow and let her gaze drift over Emma with calculated indifference, the way one might observe an insect under glass.
She watched Emma flinch as if she'd been slapped. Good. Let her hurt. Let her feel even a fraction of what Regina had felt.
"I—no, I don't think—" Emma stumbled over the words, and Regina felt a dark thrill at her obvious discomfort. The mighty Emma Swan, reduced to stammering. How the tables had turned.
"You're new here," Regina continued, her tone businesslike and remote. She stepped closer to the desk, deliberately invading Emma's space, and noted with vicious satisfaction how Emma's breath caught. "What's your name?"
"Emma. Emma Swan." The words came out rough, barely audible.
"Emma Swan," Regina repeated slowly, tasting each syllable. She pulled off her gloves with deliberate sensuality, finger by finger, never breaking eye contact. It was a power move, and they both knew it. "That's... forgettable. I trust you understand the security protocols for the executive floor? I don't tolerate incompetence."
The cruelty in her own voice should have made Regina feel guilty. Once upon a time, it would have. But that girl—the sweet, hopeful, trusting girl who would have been horrified at such coldness—had died ten years ago in a dorm room that smelled of sex and betrayal.
"Yes, ma'am," Emma said, and now Regina could hear the tremor beneath the words. Could see the way Emma's hands shook as she reached for Regina's ID badge to scan it.
Their fingers brushed for just a second—skin against skin—and Regina felt it like a brand. Heat scorched up her arm, pooled low in her belly with an intensity that shocked her. Her body remembered, even after all these years. Remembered Emma's touch, Emma's mouth, Emma's body moving against hers in the darkness.
She saw Emma's pupils dilate, saw her swallow hard, and knew that Emma felt it too. This electric current between them, this chemistry that had never made sense but had always been undeniable.
"Is there a problem?" Regina asked, her voice dropping to a purr that was half seduction, half threat. She leaned forward slightly, just enough to invade Emma's personal space, to make her uncomfortable. Close enough to smell Emma's soap—something cheap and generic, nothing like the expensive cologne she'd worn in college.
Emma jerked back as if burned. "No, ma'am. No problem. You're all set." She practically shoved the badge back at Regina, careful not to make contact this time.
Regina took the badge slowly, deliberately dragging her fingers across Emma's palm as she did. She felt Emma's sharp intake of breath, saw her eyes darken, and smiled. It was not a kind smile.
"I'm sure I'll be seeing more of you, Emma Swan," Regina said softly, and the promise in those words was clear. She turned and walked toward the elevator, acutely aware of Emma's gaze boring into her back, aware of the power she now held, aware that the game—whatever game this was going to be—had officially begun.
As the elevator doors closed, Regina caught one last glimpse of Emma's face. She looked destroyed, completely shattered, and Regina felt triumph surge through her veins like poison.
Only when the doors sealed shut did she let herself sag against the polished brass railing, her legs suddenly weak. Her whole body was trembling, adrenaline and arousal and rage coursing through her in waves. She was wet—god, she was actually wet, her body responding to Emma's proximity with a Pavlovian intensity that made her want to scream with frustration.
How dare her body betray her like this? How dare it remember pleasure when all Regina wanted to remember was pain?
She pressed her hands against her flushed cheeks and tried to steady her breathing. She had meetings in twenty minutes. She had a company to run. She couldn't afford to fall apart, not now, not after everything she'd built.
But as the elevator rose toward the executive floor, carrying her away from Emma Swan and toward the life she'd constructed as both shield and weapon, Regina couldn't stop the memories from flooding back. Couldn't stop herself from remembering how it had all begun, ten years ago, when she'd been a different person entirely.
Ten years earlier...
Regina had been sitting in her usual spot in the campus library—third floor, northwest corner, the carrel by the window that overlooked the quad. It was a Friday night, which meant the library was nearly empty; everyone else was at parties or bars or doing whatever normal college students did when they weren't buried in Advanced Differential Equations homework.
She'd been there for six hours straight, working through problem sets that weren't due until next week, because that's what she did. That's who she was: Regina Mills, full scholarship student, 4.0 GPA, no social life to speak of. She'd learned early that in a school full of rich kids with trust funds and connections, the only way to compete was to be smarter, work harder, be better.
So she studied while they partied. She aced exams while they coasted on family names. She stayed invisible, stayed safe, stayed alone.
Except she wasn't entirely alone in her head.
Because even Regina Mills, serious student and social pariah, couldn't help but notice Emma Swan.
Everyone noticed Emma Swan.
She was impossible to miss—tall and athletic, with that effortless confidence that came from being good at everything without even trying. Star of the women's soccer team, scholarship athlete, with a smile that could light up a room and a laugh that made everyone around her laugh too. She was popular in a way that seemed natural, not calculated. People gravitated toward her like she was the sun, and she seemed genuinely surprised by it every time.
Regina had first seen her during orientation, surrounded by a crowd of admirers, and had felt something painful twist in her chest. Longing, maybe. Or recognition of something she could never have.
Because girls like Emma Swan didn't look twice at girls like Regina Mills. That was just how the world worked. Regina had accepted it, the way she'd accepted being the scholarship kid, the nerdy girl, the one who didn't fit in. She'd built her walls high and told herself she didn't care.
But she'd still notice, sometimes, when Emma walked by her in the dining hall. Would feel her stomach flip when Emma smiled at her in passing, that easy, friendly smile she gave everyone. Would catch herself staring during the few parties she'd forced herself to attend, watching Emma hold court, wishing—
Wishing for things that were pathetic and impossible.
So Regina had kept her distance, kept her head down, kept her crush buried so deep that she could almost pretend it didn't exist. She'd convinced herself she was fine with it, with wanting from afar, with the safety of never putting herself out there.
Until the day Emma Swan had walked up to her in the library and completely shattered her careful world.
"Hey, you're Regina, right? Regina Mills?"
Regina had looked up from her textbook to find Emma standing beside her carrel, backpack slung over one shoulder, wearing torn jeans and a fitted t-shirt that showed off arms sculpted by years of athletic training. Up close, Emma was even more beautiful than from a distance—all golden skin and bright eyes and that smile that made Regina's mouth go dry.
"I... yes," Regina had managed, cursing herself for sounding so breathless. "That's me."
"I'm Emma. Emma Swan." As if Regina didn't know. As if everyone on campus didn't know who Emma Swan was. "I'm in your Calc III class. Professor Harrison's section?"
Regina had nodded, not trusting herself to speak. They were in the same class? How had she not noticed? But then, the lecture hall was huge, and Regina always sat in front while Emma—Regina vaguely remembered seeing her in the back, usually rolling in late and leaving early for practice.
"I'm totally drowning in this class," Emma had continued, and she'd looked almost embarrassed, rubbing the back of her neck in a gesture that Regina found unbearably endearing. "And I heard you're like, a genius or whatever. I was wondering if maybe you could tutor me? I can pay, obviously. Or like, buy you dinner or something?"
Regina's mind had gone completely blank. Emma Swan was asking her for help. Emma Swan wanted to spend time with her. Emma Swan was looking at her with those impossibly green eyes, and Regina felt like her entire body was on fire.
"I don't need payment," she'd heard herself say. "I'd be happy to help."
And that smile—god, that smile Emma had given her then, like Regina had just made her whole day—had sealed Regina's fate.
She'd been so stupid. So unbelievably, pathetically stupid.
Back in the present, the elevator dinged as it reached the executive floor, jarring Regina from her memories. She straightened, smoothed down her suit, and rebuilt her walls with practiced efficiency. By the time the doors opened, her face was a perfect mask of cool professionalism once again.
But inside, the past and present were colliding with explosive force.
Emma Swan was here. In her building. Under her authority.
And Regina Mills, who had spent ten years becoming someone unrecognizable to her nineteen-year-old self, finally had the power to make Emma Swan pay for what she'd done.
The only question was: what exactly did she want?
As she walked down the hallway toward her corner office, Regina realized with a shock of insight that she didn't actually know the answer. Revenge, yes—but revenge how? Make Emma's life difficult? Get her fired? Humiliate her the way Regina had been humiliated?
Or...
Regina paused with her hand on her office door, a dangerous thought crystallizing in her mind. An idea so twisted and perfect that it made her pulse race with something that definitely wasn't entirely anger.
Emma Swan had seduced her once, had made her want things, had taught her body to crave, and then had thrown her away like garbage.
What if Regina did the same thing back?
What if she made Emma want her this time? Made her desperate, made her beg, made her feel that soul-crushing combination of desire and vulnerability that Regina had felt? And then, when Emma was completely under her spell, when Emma had exposed every weakness and given up every defense—
Then Regina would walk away.
The symmetry of it was beautiful. Cruel, but beautiful. And Regina Mills, who had stopped being a good person the day Emma Swan had broken her heart, found that the cruelty didn't bother her at all.
In fact, it excited her.
She smiled—really smiled—for the first time in what felt like years. It was a sharp, dangerous expression that her assistant would have recognized as a warning sign.
"Game on, Emma Swan," Regina whispered to herself as she stepped into her office, her body still humming with the memory of Emma's touch and her mind already plotting her next move.
Outside her floor-to-ceiling windows, the city stretched out before her, full of possibilities and power. Regina had conquered it once, built an empire from nothing but determination and pain.
Now she would conquer Emma Swan.
And this time, Regina would be the one walking away unscathed.
Or at least, that's what she told herself as she sat down at her desk and pulled up Emma's employment file, drinking in every detail like poison that tasted like wine. That's what she promised herself as she noticed her hands were shaking and her heart was racing and her body was betraying her in ways that felt far too much like the nineteen-year-old girl she'd tried so hard to bury.
That's what she swore, even as some small, terrified part of her wondered: What if revenge wasn't enough? What if, after all these years and all this pain, she was about to discover that some addictions could never be cured?
What if she'd never stopped wanting Emma Swan at all?
The thought should have terrified her.
Instead, it felt like coming home.