His voice is professional, detached, but there’s a warmth there that I can’t stop myself from reaching for. Heat rushes to my cheeks, my chest tightening in ridiculouspride. God help me, I beam at the thought that something I did impressed him.
Nothing in his tone suggests he remembers the taste of my skin, the sound of my name in the darkness. But my body remembers, and apparently my heart does, too.
The minutes tick by. Budget lines. Staffing schedules. Marketing materials. Each topic is another brick in the wall between us. But with every accidental brush of fingers when passing papers, every brief meeting of eyes, the wall cracks.
The work begins to taper. Our pens slow. The silence stretches until I can hear my own heartbeat. The guilt rises in my throat like bile.
Tell him. Tell him now.
"Warren, I?—"
His phone beeps. He glances down. "It's Pope. He wants our timeline at the meeting this afternoon. I should go so I can get it done before I have to go to court."
The moment shatters. I swallow the words back down.
"Of course. Do you need anything from me to finish that? I have my loose timeline, but now that we've talked, we probably need to tighten a few things up."
"No, I can handle it from here."
I close my laptop, plunging half the conference room into shadow. Only Warren's screen remains open, bathing his face in harsh white light that carves deeper lines around his mouth than I remember. My throat is desert-dry as I shuffle papers into my folder.
"So..." The word hangs between us. I clear my throat. "It's strange, isn't it? Working together after all this time."
Warren's fingers freeze on his keyboard. He doesn't look up.
"I mean, five years ago we were—" My voice wavers, threatening to crack open and spill everything I've keptsealed inside. The late-night feedings. The first steps. The tiny hand that looks so much like his.
"Let's keep this professional, Janie. No need to go down that road again."
His words slice through the air. Clean. Precise. Final. His jaw tightens as he stacks his papers with military precision, eyes fixed downward like he can't bear to look at me.
Heat rushes to my face. I press my lips together, tasting copper where my teeth have worried the inside of my cheek raw.
The rejection burns, not from wounded pride, but from the weight of truths unsaid. Beckett's face flashes in my mind, his serious expressions, his curious questions, his tilted head when he's puzzling something out.
Just like Warren's.
My hands tremble as I shove my laptop into my bag, nearly missing the sleeve. The secret presses against my ribs like a stone, making it hard to breathe.
"Right. Professional. Of course." I zip my bag too forcefully. "Just colleagues."
I stand abruptly, chair rolling backward with a squeak that sounds too loud in the silent room. Warren rises too, and suddenly we're facing each other, barely a foot between us.
His cologne hits me first. Hints of cedar and something darker, more complex. Then the heat radiating from his body, familiar in a way that makes my skin whir with recognition.
Everything in me screams to lean forward, to close the distance, to confess:He has your eyes. He furrows his brow exactly like you when he's thinking hard. He's yours, Warren. Ours.
But I don't. He told me he doesn't want to go there again. It's almost like he knows, and he doesn't want me toshatter the denial bubble we've built around us. If we never speak of what we did, then it never happened.
I step back, clutching my bag like a shield.
"Goodnight then, Mr. Carter." The formality is bitter on my tongue.
Warren's eyes finally meet mine. For a heartbeat, I see something flicker behind them. It's gone before I can name it.
My heels click down the dim hallway, each step absurdly loud. The sound echoes off the polished marble floors, matching the pounding of my heart.
It's still early and hardly anyone else is here yet. Just me and what appears to be the morning janitor, who nods as I pass. I push through the glass doors into the parking garage, where my car sits alone in the visitor section.