“Are you alright?” I modulated my voice lower. Not soft, but softer, subtracting everything that could be misconstrued as condescension.
No answer at first. Then, “Handled,” she said, eyes on anything but me, refusing to look up. “It’s nothing.”
A lie. But not one she wanted interrogated.
I wanted to step forward, to reach out and physically uncurl her, but my own feet wouldn’t move. Something in me anticipated her recoil. Instead, I found myself doing something even more pathetic, standing guard, not over her, but between her and the office door. Ridiculous; there was no threat except whatever had come through her laptop, and the only physicaldanger in this room was the residual voltage running between us.
My hands had gone useless, so I put them in my pockets.
“Eliza-” Her name tasted strange, almost unfamiliar with that register of concern. “If there’s something I can do-”
“I said it’s handled.” The snap in her tone was precise. She did not raise her voice; she never did. But the edge was diamond, and I felt the cut.
“I’m not trying to intrude or imply you can’t handle yourself. But you-” I trailed off. No, don’t say you seem afraid. Don’t say you want to know why she’s treating the world like it’s made of shrapnel. Don’t tell her you saw a heated look in her eye that left your gut tightening with need. “It’s our office, our network. If there’s a security risk, it’s my problem, too.”
She closed her eyes, breathed in through her nose. “You already know everything, Gabriel.”
She was deflecting. And I was letting her. It wasn’t cowardice, exactly. More like respect for the clear perimeter she’d drawn, razor wire and all.
I walked to the wet bar on the wall and busied myself with the ritual of glass and decanter. “About what I did,” I said. The phrase was soft enough to evaporate before reaching her. “That wasn’t-”
She laughed. A single bark, so out of place it could have been sarcasm or a malfunction. “Please. I’m tired. You’re-” She gestured at me vaguely. “You. That was just exhaustion and adrenaline. It’s not a story. It’s not even a sentence.”
Her reflection in the window caught the hollow of her throat, the slight shimmer of sweat at her hairline. She’d probably spent the whole day feeling watched, and I’d nearlypushed her up against her desk in a moment of… what, stupidity? Desire?
All the same.
“Understood,” I said. I poured the whiskey and set it in front of her on the table, like a peace offering or a bribe. “I’ll get an external audit of the firewall anyway. If this is an internal risk, I want it contained before the London trip.”
That got her attention. Her head whipped up, jaw tighter than before.
I could see the precise second her internal calendar started flipping through logistics. “We’ll fly out Sunday, hit the hotel – it’s a two-room suite – and prepare. I’ll need you on all three pitch sessions, plus the offsite with Newfield at Canary Wharf.”
She did math faster than me. “That’s… two overnights.”
“Three.” I watched her lips purse as she recalculated. “I can arrange a direct flight or a layover if you prefer to work on the plane. If there’s an issue with the timing-”
“There’s not.” She snatched the whiskey, drank it all in one hard swallow. “Just didn’t realize we were staying together.”
The word together hung in the air for a second. Not seductive; not hostile.
I turned to my own glass but didn’t drink. “You’re essential to the presentation,” I said, which was both true and insufficient. “And the partners-” I stopped, realizing how it would sound. “They need to see us as a unit.”
“As in, you and me.” It wasn’t a question.
I tried to read her. Impossible. “As in, a cohesive team. That’s all.”
Eliza leaned back, tipping her chin up. The pose was pure challenge, but her hands trembled on the glass. “Then I’ll pack accordingly. Unless there’s a dress code for women who make you look good.”
I almost smiled, but that would’ve been suicide. “No code. I trust your judgment.”
“That’ll be a first.” She flicked her gaze to me, and for an instant, there was actual mischief. Almost like she wanted me to push back, to restore the familiar rhythm of our verbal sparring.
“It’s not trust I lack,” I said, careful to maintain the equilibrium. “It’s habit. Hard to break.”
“Isn’t it just.” She stood, too abruptly, almost knocking the chair over. “I have numbers to run and five hours to sleep before my first call. Unless you want to circle back to ‘before’ and have an awkward HR moment?”
She was defusing the bomb herself, one pin at a time.