Chapter 5 — Echoes
853 Words
The next morning, Selena told herself she was fine.
Fine that her boss barely looked at her.
Fine that every time she walked past his office, her pulse jumped like she’d brushed an open wire.
Fine.
A lie.
She had gone home after the gala and spent half the night replaying the moment when his hand had lingered near hers, when his voice had dropped low enough to make her knees weak. She’d felt foolish for even noticing. He was Dante Morelli — untouchable, powerful, the man who ran an empire without blinking.
And she was an employee. Replaceable. Invisible.
Still, something had changed.
When she entered the building that day, she could sense him before she saw him. A quiet storm sitting behind the tinted glass walls of his office. Everyone moved carefully around him, as if the air itself had thickened.
Selena kept her head down, clutching a folder like a shield. She tried to focus on her work, on the numbers that refused to make sense, but her mind kept slipping back to the way he’d looked last night — the perfect black suit, the quiet intensity in his eyes when he’d said her name.
Around noon, a memo came through. Conference Room 3. 1 p.m. presentation. Mr. Morelli attending.
Of course he was.
She spent the next hour trying to calm the nervous energy humming through her. She re-did her ponytail three times, wiped her palms on her skirt, and told herself this was just work.
But when the door opened and he walked in, all calm shattered.
He looked impossibly composed, a dark suit that fit too well, expression unreadable.
He nodded to the group, then to her. “Ms. Monroe, please begin.”
Her throat went dry.
She spoke, somehow. About projections, timelines, the new client proposal. Her voice was steady enough, but her heartbeat was a drum in her ears. Every time he looked at her, her breath stuttered.
When it was over, he gave a single, quiet good job and turned to speak with one of the executives.
That was all.
Two words.
But they felt like a pulse beneath her skin.
When the meeting ended, she gathered her notes quickly, ready to flee. She was halfway to the door when his voice stopped her.
“Ms. Monroe.”
She turned. “Yes, sir?”
His gaze held hers for a long, heavy second.
“There’s a minor error on slide six. Fix it and send me the corrected version.”
“Of course.”
He nodded, but didn’t move. For a breath, it felt like the rest of the room dissolved, leaving only the two of them in that charged silence. Then he looked away, a faint muscle ticking in his jaw, and she slipped out before she could embarrass herself.
Back at her desk, her hands were shaking.
An error on slide six. That was all he’d said.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the message underneath had nothing to do with slides.
By late afternoon, the sky had turned heavy with rain again. The building emptied around her; one by one, the lights went out. She stayed behind to fix the presentation, determined not to think about him.
She was almost done when a shadow crossed her desk.
“Still here?”
She looked up — and there he was.
He had taken off his jacket; the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up, revealing strong forearms, veins standing out beneath his skin.
He looked tired. Dangerous. Human.
“I wanted to make sure the corrections were right,” she said.
He nodded slowly, stepping closer until he stood on the other side of her desk. “You’re thorough. I like that.”
The words were harmless on paper.
In the air, they weren’t.
Her pulse quickened. “Thank you.”
Silence. The rain pattered softly against the window. He leaned one hand on her desk, close enough that she could smell the faint trace of cedar and whiskey.
“Selena.”
The sound of her name in his voice made her forget how to breathe.
He looked at her like a man measuring danger — the kind of look that promised a choice neither of them should make. For a moment, she thought he’d step back.
He didn’t.
Instead, his fingers brushed the folder near her hand. “Go home,” he said quietly.
She swallowed. “I will.”
He nodded, but his eyes didn’t move from hers. Then he pushed away, grabbed his jacket, and walked toward the elevators without another word.
Only after the doors closed behind him did she exhale.
When she finally left the building, the city smelled like wet concrete and thunder. Her reflection in the glass doors looked different somehow — like she was seeing herself through his eyes for the first time.
Something was happening between them, something neither of them could stop.
And though she didn’t understand it, she knew one thing with absolute certainty.
This wasn’t the end of whatever had started that night.
It was only the beginning.
- Writer
