The Risk of You

Chapter 1: The Boardroom

The glass walls reflected the city like a living painting skyscrapers stabbing into a pale winter sky, yellow cabs darting like frantic insects below. I adjusted my blazer, smoothing an invisible crease. My palms were damp. It wasn’t the presentation; I’d been doing this for years. It was the client.

The Reed Group.

One of the biggest architectural firms in Manhattan.

Lola had insisted this project could be my career breakthrough the interior design for a new luxury hotel in SoHo. She’d been right. Landing this meeting had taken months. But as I stood waiting for the conference door to open, a prickle crawled up my spine. Something about today felt… off.

The receptionist finally poked her head out. “They’re ready for you, Ms. Cole.”

I walked in.

The boardroom was sleek chrome table legs, leather chairs, and floor-to-ceiling windows spilling daylight across polished wood. I scanned the room, automatically sizing up the faces around the table.

And then I saw him.

Daniel Reed.

Five years collapsed into a single, shattering heartbeat. My breath hitched before I could stop it. He was standing at the far end of the table, in a charcoal suit that fit like it had been cut just for him which, knowing Daniel, it probably had. His hair was shorter now, darker, his jaw sharper. But his eyes…

Those grey eyes had once undone me. And now they pinned me in place, unreadable.

I felt my fingers curl into my notebook.

“Ms. Cole,” the man next to him Ethan, I assumed was speaking, gesturing toward a chair. “Please, have a seat.”

I moved, my legs somehow remembering how to work. Daniel didn’t say a word. Didn’t smile. Just watched me with that same piercing gaze I remembered from the night he walked away.

As I set up my laptop, the air between us thickened, charged with something neither of us dared name. I focused on my slides, my voice steady as I began the pitch. But inside, my chest was a storm.

Every time I looked up, his gaze was there not warm, not cold, just… intense.

When I finished, polite applause rippled around the table. Ethan leaned forward, already asking about timelines and budgets. But Daniel… he finally spoke.

“Your concept is bold,” he said, his voice exactly as I remembered low, deliberate, and dangerous in ways it had no right to be. “But bold comes with risk. Are you prepared for that?”

The question wasn’t about the design. We both knew it.

I met his eyes, forcing a professional smile. “I don’t take on projects I can’t handle, Mr. Reed.”

A flicker maybe amusement, maybe challenge crossed his face. “Good. Then we’ll see if you can handle this one.”

And just like that, I knew this job was going to be far more complicated than I’d planned.The meeting went on without him saying much more, but his presence was like a silent hum in the room, a vibration I couldn’t tune out. Every time I answered a question from one of the junior associates, I felt the weight of his gaze. He was studying me the way an architect studies a building searching for cracks, calculating pressure points.

When the presentation wrapped, Ethan stood and shook my hand warmly. “We’ll be in touch within the week. You’ve given us a lot to think about.”

I gave him my professional smile the one that didn’t reach my eyes and began packing up my things. I told myself I would leave without acknowledging Daniel, but of course, fate doesn’t grant you clean exits.

The moment I turned toward the door, he moved.

“Amara.”

Just my name, but my breath caught. I’d forgotten how it sounded coming from him less like a word, more like a memory wrapped in silk.

I kept my tone cool. “Mr. Reed.”

Something flickered in his eyes at the formality. “We should talk.”

“I think we just did.” I brushed past him, but his hand came up not touching me, just hovering, as if he wanted to but thought better of it.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

“Five years.” My voice was steady, but inside, I was shaking. “And that’s exactly where I’d like it to stay.”

His jaw tightened. “You don’t mean that.”

I laughed, a sharp sound that felt brittle even to me. “You have no idea what I mean anymore.”

He didn’t try to stop me when I left the boardroom, but I felt his eyes on me until the door shut behind me.

The elevator ride down was the longest sixty seconds of my life. My reflection in the mirrored walls betrayed me cheeks flushed, eyes too bright. I hated that he could still do this to me.

Outside, New York greeted me with its usual chaos honking horns, chatter, the cold sting of winter air slicing through my coat. I walked fast, as if I could outpace the memories clawing their way back.

Daniel Reed. The man who’d once known me better than anyone. The man who’d kissed me in the rain outside a West Village café and whispered promises he never kept. The man who’d vanished one September evening without so much as a goodbye.

And now he was back. In my city. In my work.

My phone buzzed. Lola.

“Well?” she demanded the moment I answered.

I didn’t slow my pace. “I got the meeting. I think they’re interested.”

“You think? Babe, you either crushed it or you didn’t. Which is it?”

I hesitated. “I crushed it.”

A beat. “Oh God. What happened?”

She knew me too well.

“He was there,” I said quietly.

Silence, then a low, sympathetic groan. “Daniel?”

“Yes.”

“The Daniel? Tall, infuriating, built-like-a-GQ-model Daniel?”

“The very one.”

“Wow.” She whistled. “And here I thought your day would be boring.”

I stopped at the corner, waiting for the light to change. “Lola, he’s leading the project.”

“Which means…”

“Which means I have to work with him.”

“Oh.” Her voice softened. “You okay?”

I stared at the crosswalk signal, willing it to turn green. “I will be. I have to be. This project is too big to walk away from.”

That night, I stayed late at the office. Work had always been my safest distraction. But no matter how many floor plans I reviewed or fabric swatches I sorted, my mind kept circling back to the way he’d looked at me. Not like a stranger. Not like an ex. Like someone who still knew the taste of my lips and the sound of my laughter.

I hated that a part of me remembered those things too.

At nine, I finally shut down my computer. The office was quiet, the city outside glowing in that soft, golden haze that only winter nights bring. I gathered my things, but as I stepped into the hallway, I froze.

He was there.

Leaning casually against the wall outside my door, one hand in his pocket, the other holding two cups of coffee.

“Thought you might still be here,” he said, as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’ve always been a workaholic.” He extended one cup toward me. “Vanilla latte. Extra shot. Two sugars.”

I stared at him. “You remember.”

His smile was faint. “I remember everything.”

For a second, my resolve wavered. But then I took a step back, keeping my hands at my sides. “This doesn’t change anything, Daniel.”

His gaze held mine, steady and unflinching. “It changes everything.”

I brushed past him without taking the coffee.

Still, long after I’d left, I could feel his eyes on me. And in the quiet of my apartment later that night, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he was right.