Adrian didn’t move for a long time. The silence in Elena’s office wasn’t empty—it was heavy, deliberate, almost like it had been placed there to press against his chest until he finally admitted what he didn’t want to say out loud. He still held the file she had given him but he wasn’t reading it anymore. Not really as his eyes were fixed on her. On the woman standing across from him like she had never once doubted her place in the world. Like she had always belonged at the top and somehow—worse than everything else—that was what unsettled him the most.
Elena didn’t speak again. She didn’t rush him and she didn’t explain further. She simply returned to her seat, opened another file, and continued working as if he was no longer the most important problem in the room.
That silence irritate
