Avery stepped into the office determined to keep her head down, to move quietly, to be invisible if possible. But invisibility wasn’t an option anymore—not when everyone had already started looking.

She hadn’t slept much. Her mind kept replaying Alexander’s voice from yesterday: “You’re not alone in this.”  

He had said it gently. Carefully. Like he meant every word.  

And maybe that was the problem—she had believed him.

The fourteenth floor was already half full when she arrived. She walked toward her desk, hoping for one breath of quiet before the day began.

It didn’t happen.

Her lunch box was there again.

No note. No message. Nothing written. But the presence of it felt louder than any whispered rumor.

She sat carefully, as if sudden movement would draw attention. People weren’t staring directly at her, but she sensed something—tiny pauses in conversations, subtle glances, a slight hush whenever she passed.

She opened her emails, willing her nerves to settle. At least numbers waited for her the same way every morning: unbothered, neutral, predictable.

Then her inbox pinged.

—from: A.Reed  

subject: 9:45  

body: Bring the cost analysis. Room 39.4.

Avery inhaled sharply.

It wasn’t unusual work. The timing wasn’t strange. But the directness—the assurance he fully expected her to comply without question—made her pulse quicken.

As she prepared the packet, two junior associates passed behind her.

“…she’s going up again?”  

“Yeah. He asks for her every day.”  

“Must be nice.”

Avery closed her eyes for half a second.

Nice.  

She wasn’t sure that was the word she’d use.

At 9:40, she headed to the elevators. People shifted slightly as she walked by—subtle, but she felt it. As if her path upward had become part of the office rhythm, something everyone now accounted for.

The elevator ride was quiet. She smoothed her blouse twice, then forced herself to stop.

When she stepped onto the thirty-ninth floor, the stillness hit her instantly. Everything here felt sharper, colder, more deliberate—except the moment she reached the analysis room.

Because Alexander noticed her immediately.

He stood at the table, reading something on a tablet. But the instant she entered, he looked up—quickly, instinctively.

“Avery.”

Her name again. Quiet. Immediate. Like he’d been waiting for exactly her.

She handed him the packet. “Cost analysis, updated for Q1 adjustments.”

He took it from her with a small nod. “Good. Sit.”

He didn’t say it like an order. More like a habit he’d already formed.

She sat across from him while he scanned the pages. His posture shifted slightly as he read—focused, controlled, but with the faintest easing whenever he reached something she had done exactly right.

“You saw the misallocation pattern,” he said.

“Yes. It kept repeating in vendors three and nine.”

“Correct.”

He flipped another page. “You adjusted the projections too.”

“It needed recalibrating.”

“It did,” he agreed.

Silence fell, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It sat between them like something familiar, something earned.

Then Alexander lowered the packet and looked at her more directly.

“You seem tired.”

Avery tensed. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” he said, not unkindly. “You didn’t sleep well.”

She blinked. “How do you—”

“You weren’t focused when you walked in.”

Avery’s pulse stumbled. “I—there’s just a lot happening.”

He didn’t ask what she meant. He didn’t need to. His eyes were too perceptive for her to hide behind vague answers.

“People are watching,” he said quietly.

Her breath stopped.

He paused. “And they’re talking.”

Avery’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table. “I know.”

He studied her carefully, like reading small text. “Did anyone say something to you?”

“No,” she whispered. “Just… glances.”

Alexander’s expression cooled, subtle but unmistakable.

“They don’t have the right to speculate.”

She almost smiled. “People are always curious.”

“Curiosity isn’t an excuse.”

His voice was controlled, but she sensed a tension beneath it—something he kept tightly contained, directed not at her but for her.

She hesitated, then asked quietly, “Why are they looking at me?”

His jaw shifted the slightest bit.

“Because I keep asking for you,” he said.

Her breath caught. “You—what?”

“I ask for your analysis,” he clarified. “For your work. Not for anything else.”

Something in her chest tightened, not from disappointment but from confusion—because she wasn’t entirely sure he meant it as plainly as he said.

He looked at her again, slower this time. “But they don’t see the work. They only see the pattern.”

The pattern.  

The one he had created.  

The one she had tried so hard not to interpret.

Avery looked down at her hands. “It’s getting hard to ignore.”

Alexander’s voice softened. “I know.”

He paused, then said quietly, “You handle yourself well.”

“I don’t feel like I do.”

“You do,” he repeated, certain. “More than you think.”

A moment passed—quiet, close, almost fragile.

Then someone walked by the glass wall again. A shadow paused. A glance lingered.

Avery’s shoulders tensed.

Alexander noticed instantly. “Look at me.”

She startled. “What?”

“Not them,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

Her breath caught in her throat.  

She lifted her eyes—slowly, carefully—until they met his.

Everything inside her went still.

The world outside the glass wall could have disappeared and she wouldn’t have noticed. He held her gaze with quiet certainty, with something unspoken but unmistakably protective.

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” he said.

She swallowed. “I know.”

“You’re not imagining this.”

Her heart skipped. “Imagining… what?”

He didn’t answer. Not directly. But the look he gave her was enough to make her forget how to breathe.

He stepped back then, as if he felt the moment tighten too much. “There’s a meeting at two.”

She nodded. “Do you want me there?”

“Yes.”

Just one word.  

Quiet, deliberate.  

Certain.

She rose from her seat, gathering her things, but before she reached the door, he said her name again.

“Avery.”

She froze.

His voice lowered. “If anything happens—anything—come to me.”

Her chest tightened painfully. “I will.”

“And Avery…”

She turned slightly, barely daring to look at him.

“You’re doing well.”

It was soft. Almost gentle. And too much.

She left the analysis room with her pulse unsteady and her thoughts worse.

Back on the fourteenth floor, she stepped into a silence that immediately thickened.

People were definitely watching her now.

Not glaring. Not whispering loudly.  

Just… observing.

As if waiting for a story to finish writing itself.

She sat at her desk, trying to focus on anything that wasn’t him. Her hands shook slightly as she typed. A coworker passed and muttered:

“She’s always going upstairs.”  

“Well, Reed chooses who he wants.”

Avery’s stomach tightened.

She wasn’t sure which was worse—  

the fact that people assumed something,  

or the fact that deep down, she no longer had the courage to insist they were wrong.

When two o’clock came, she headed to the meeting.

And just like before, Alexander’s eyes found her first.

Too quick.  

Too naturally.  

Too familiar.

She didn’t know what this was anymore.  

She only knew she was in the middle of something she never asked for, never expected—  

and couldn’t walk away from either.

Not when he kept looking at her like that.  

Not when she kept looking back.