The first thing I noticed after the reassignment wasn’t the paperwork.
It was the silence.
Not the absence of sound — the office was as busy as ever — but the absence of him. No quiet instructions murmured over my shoulder. No presence hovering just close enough to feel. No controlled glances that told me he’d already read the thought I hadn’t finished forming.
Jayden Roberts was no longer woven into the fabric of my day.
And somehow, that made him feel everywhere.
My new reporting line came with a different wing of the building. Different elevators. Different meeting rooms. Different faces. On paper, nothing had changed — same title, same salary, same responsibilities.
In practice, it felt like stepping out of an orbit.
Johnson met me by the elevators t
