Who Is Mia Perez?
870 Words
Killian found out about the dinner by Wednesday morning.
I wasn't sure who told him, whether it was someone from the office who spotted us or whether Kade said something himself, but Killian showed up at my office door at nine in the morning with a coffee cup in each hand and a look on his face that was trying very hard to be unbothered and failing completely.
He set one of the cups on my desk.
"Heard you had dinner with my brother last night."
"I did," I said, not looking up from my laptop.
"Just the two of you."
"Yes."
He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down without being invited.
"Mia."
"Killian, I have a deposition to prep for."
"Look at me for a second."
I looked up. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, and for once the easy charm was dialed back. He looked like a man genuinely struggling with something.
"I know I came on strong," he said. "At the hotel and at the dinner and every message after. I know that. And I know last night was not by accident." He paused. "But I need you to know that what I feel is real."
I held his gaze. Part of me wanted to believe him. Part of me remembered waking up in that hotel room and the cold feeling of finding no mole on his shoulder.
"Killian."
"I'm serious."
"I know you think you are," I said carefully. "But you have to understand what you're asking. You showed up at my job, bought my company, and told your parents I was your girlfriend without a single conversation with me first. That is not real feelings. That is obsession."
He sat back.
"What would it take?" he asked. "For you to give me a real shot."
Before I could answer, my phone rang. I picked it up and saw the number. My client. I held up a finger to Killian.
"I have to take this."
He stood and walked to the door. Then he stopped with his back to me.
"Just think about it," he said, and left.
I answered the call, but my eyes were on the door for longer than they should have been.
By Thursday, whatever separation I had managed to maintain collapsed entirely.
Kade and Killian separately requested that the managing director of litigation be present at two different client meetings on the same day. I walked into the first one at eleven and found Kade waiting. I walked into the second one at two and found Killian. By the time I got back to my office at four, Madeline, my assistant, was looking at me with the careful expression of someone who had been fielding questions about me all day.
"Are you all right, Ms. Perez?"
"Fine," I told her. "Hold all my calls."
I sat behind my desk, rubbed my temples, and decided I had had enough.
I called them both into my office the next morning. They came separately, which I was grateful for, and I asked each of them the same thing.
"Stop."
Killian frowned. "Stop what?"
"Stop scheduling me into meetings I don't need to be in. Stop the coffees appearing on my desk. Stop the texts. Stop making this office into a personal playground. I am an employee here and so far you are making my job impossible."
Kade, when it was his turn, listened without interrupting. Then he said, "Understood."
That was it. Just understood. And somehow that made it worse.
Then on Friday, something shifted. I was walking out of the building at the end of the day when a reporter with a camera phone caught me on the front steps. A blog had already run a story. The headline was up before I got home.
CARTER BROTHERS IN A BATTLE FOR THE SAME WOMAN — WHO IS MIA PEREZ?
There was a photo of me walking out of the dinner with Kade. There was another one someone had taken of Killian in my office doorway with the coffees.
My phone exploded.
I sat on my couch and stared at the screen. Friends from law school. Old colleagues. People I barely remembered from university all sliding into my messages wanting details. I silenced them all and called Clover.
She picked up on the second ring.
"I saw it," she said immediately.
"Tell me what to do."
A pause.
"Honestly? At this point, maybe you just need to set the terms yourself," she said. "You've been reacting to everything they do. Maybe it's time to stop reacting and decide what you actually want."
I lay back on the couch and stared at the ceiling.
She was right. I had spent five years searching for a man and now there were two of them in my orbit and I was hiding in bathrooms and ducking into elevators.
I needed to stop running.
I sat up and pulled up a text.
Me to Kade: Tomorrow morning. My office. I want to talk about this properly.
Me to Killian: Same. Tomorrow morning. Be there by nine.
Then I put my phone down and tried to sleep.
I didn't manage much of it.
- Writer
