Clara Voss did not believe in coincidence, but Zurich had other plans.

Her flight was delayed six hours—mechanical issue, storm advisory, 

vague apologies spoken in several languages.

She sat in the airport lounge, laptop open, 

watching the rain make confetti out of the runway lights. 

The delay was annoying. It was also the first real pause she’d had in months.

Her phone buzzed again—another internal update from Voss HQ. 

This one wasn’t from an assistant, or from Mira’s endless budget breakdowns. It was from Evan Reid.

**Subject:** Post-Workshop Debrief (Unofficial).  

**Body:**  

*Everyone survived. Nobody cried.  

Also, you might want to know: people are actually quoting “truth = respect.”  

Please advise if I should trademark it before HR does.*  

She stared at the message for a long moment, the corner of her mouth betraying the smallest smile. 

She typed a short reply and then deleted it twice before settling on:  

*“It’s already yours. Use it wisely.”*

She didn’t send it right away. Instead, she scrolled back through their thread—the first coffee-stained apology, the terse guardrail edits, the late-night Zurich prep notes. 

There was a tone running through them that didn’t sound like any employee she’d ever managed. 

It sounded like a conversation she hadn’t realized she’d been having.

Back in the city, Evan sat in the half-empty marketing floor, 

cleaning up the workshop notes for distribution. 

The office was quiet, the kind of quiet that felt earned. 

Lena was already gone, Mira had left to “negotiate with spreadsheets,” 

and Iris had taped one of her design drafts to his cubicle wall—*“Smart feels simple.”*  

He reread Clara’s text, the one about small miracles, and decided not to overthink it. 

Which, for him, meant he overthought it for only half an hour.

Nadia appeared at his desk like a ghost who billed hourly. “Working late again?”

“Trying to get ahead before Monday,” he said.

“Don’t bother,” she replied, dropping a folder onto his desk. 

“You can’t out-pace Clara’s insomnia. She’s already editing your edits somewhere over the Atlantic.”

“Her flight’s delayed,” he said without checking.

Nadia raised an eyebrow. “You’re tracking her flights now?”

“I checked the company Slack,” he lied, too quickly.

She smiled, sharp and knowing. 

“You’re in dangerous territory, Mr. Reid. The last man who made Clara laugh is now working for a startup in Oslo.”

“Did he quit?”

“No,” Nadia said. “He flinched.”

At 1:17 a.m., Clara finally boarded. The cabin smelled like leather and exhaustion.

She opened her laptop again—old reflex—and re-read Evan’s “truth = respect” line in her inbox.

Simple. Clear. Dangerous.  

She closed the computer and leaned back. 

Somewhere over the dark Atlantic, she realized she was thinking not about the board,

 not about Zurich, but about that ridiculous first meeting—the spilled coffee, 

his half-smile, the way he’d said *humiliate* like it was a foreign language he wasn’t fluent in.

Monday morning, the office hummed with pre-meeting energy.

 Evan was at his desk by eight, trying to appear casual. Clara walked in at 8:07. 

Jet-lagged, sharp, immaculate. She passed the open-plan desks without slowing,

 but her eyes flicked once—just once—toward him.

“Good morning, everyone,” she said to no one in particular. “Reid, my office in five.”

Lena mouthed *Godspeed* as he stood.

He entered the glass office and closed the door behind him. 

She was standing by the window again, city skyline at her back like a crown she didn’t have to earn.

“I read your report,” she said.

“And?”

“You turned a compliance workshop into philosophy.”

“I’ll add it to my crimes.”

Her lips curved faintly. “It worked. The board heard about it before I landed.”

“That fast?”

“Bad news travels faster,” she said. “So does sincerity.”

He hesitated. “Are those… the same thing here?”

“Sometimes.” She handed him a document—his guardrail draft,

 now annotated with her sharp blue handwriting. 

“I made adjustments. You’ll brief the department heads tomorrow.”

He blinked. “Me?”

“I’d do it myself,” she said, “but you have something I don’t.”

“What’s that?”

“Permission to sound human.”

He almost smiled. “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or a delegation.”

“It’s both,” she said. “Don’t waste it.”

When he left her office, Lena and Mira were waiting like journalists outside a courthouse.

“Well?” Mira asked.

“She’s alive,” Evan said.

“Alive and terrifying?” Lena said.

“Always,” he replied. “But I think I’ve just been promoted to spokesperson for human emotion.”

“Congratulations,” Lena said. “Try not to start a revolution.”

He sat back at his desk, the city sun finally cutting through the windows, 

and wondered—not for the first time—how something as simple as a coffee spill had turned into whatever this was.  

Clara was still upstairs, still impossible,

 still orbiting just far enough that he couldn’t tell if she was keeping distance or drawing him in.

And Evan, against his better judgment, was starting to hope it was both.