TRUE LOVE, WRONG FIRM

Chapter Five: The Girl He Kept Looking For

The problem with attention was that once you noticed it, you could not go back to not noticing.

Ronda learned that quickly.

By the next week, she had become painfully aware of every small shift in Karl’s behavior, not because he was doing anything reckless, but because he wasn’t. That was what made it harder. He stayed within the shape of the firm’s rules. He never cornered her. Never flirted carelessly. Never gave anyone something obvious enough to name.

And yet.

He kept finding her.

In questions.

In moments.

In those brief, impossible glances that made her feel as if the room had narrowed around one point and that point was her.

The first time she tried to ignore it, she told herself she was imagining things.

The second time, she blamed Anita for putting ideas in her head.

By the third, she knew better.

When she entered the training room that Monday morning, Anita looked far too pleased with life already.

“That face means trouble,” Ronda said, setting down her bag.

Anita leaned back dramatically. “My own or yours?”

“Yours.”

“Then your own must mean denial.”

Ronda opened her notebook. “Good morning.”

“That is not enough greeting to cover guilt.”

Ronda shot her a look. “I am not guilty of anything.”

Anita grinned. “Exactly what a guilty person would say.”

Before Ronda could answer, the room began filling more quickly than usual. Trainees drifted in with low conversations, the morning air carrying sleepiness, fresh perfume, and the tension of another workday beginning. Nathan walked in shortly after, and the day snapped into shape.

The first hour was merciful.

Work-heavy.

Focused.

Demanding.

Ronda needed that.

It was easier to think in bullet points and instructions than in the new language her body seemed to understand every time Karl entered a room.

She was deep in a practical exercise when the door opened and the atmosphere changed in that now-familiar way.

Not loudly.

Not enough for anyone to challenge.

Just enough for the room to tilt slightly.

Karl stepped in.

Ronda refused to look up immediately.

This had become a private test now.

How long could she behave normally before her heartbeat betrayed her?

Apparently not long.

She raised her eyes after a few seconds and instantly regretted it.

He wore a charcoal shirt today, fitted well enough to make her profoundly annoyed with whoever allowed men like that into disciplined workplaces. His sleeves were folded again. His face was composed, but there was something faintly warm in his eyes as he greeted Nathan and turned toward the trainees.

Ronda looked back at her notes before that warmth could become anything dangerous.

You are working, she told herself.

Not wandering.

Not daydreaming.

Working.

The trouble was, Karl’s presence no longer felt like an interruption alone.

It felt like expectancy.

And expectancy was harder to guard against because it turned the minutes before anything happened into their own form of distraction.

The morning review moved along. Nathan asked questions. Karl observed. A few trainees struggled. Others answered well enough. The room’s energy remained mostly professional.

Mostly.

Then Nathan assigned a live communication task and called for volunteers to demonstrate the best response structure.

Ronda avoided eye contact with the front of the room.

Not because she didn’t know the answer.

Because she knew what would happen if Karl noticed that she knew.

Of course, he noticed anyway.

“Ronda.”

Her stomach tightened.

The room turned toward her in one smooth motion.

She looked up slowly, fighting the urge to glare at fate itself.

“Yes?”

Karl held her gaze. “Would you take this one?”

It was an ordinary question.

Just a work question.

But the steadiness in his voice made it sound more intentional than that.

Ronda stood and walked to the front with what she hoped was dignity and not surrender. She gave the response clearly, keeping her voice calm, her explanation structured, her mind focused on the task and not on the fact that Karl was listening with the sort of attention that made her feel too visible.

When she finished, Nathan nodded.

Karl said, “Good. Very good.”

The extra word ruined her whole internal balance.

Very good.

The room reacted with the small shifting energy of people noticing something again.

Not enough to call it out.

More than enough to feel.

Ronda returned to her seat and sat down with measured calm while her heart behaved like it had lost its home training.

Beside her, Anita whispered, “Very good, oh.”

Ronda kept her eyes forward. “Please be quiet.”

“Mm-hmm.”

That “mm-hmm” carried too much understanding.

The rest of the session only made things worse.

Not openly.

But pattern by pattern.

Karl stopping by her group first during an exercise review.

Karl asking her how she had arrived at one conclusion.

Karl returning to a point she had made earlier and saying, “Like Ronda mentioned…”

Nothing by itself.

Everything together.

And with each small moment, Ronda became more aware of something else too:

she was not the only woman noticing him.

That truth came fully into shape during lunch.

The trainees had spread themselves across the usual corners outside, balancing takeaway packs and bottled drinks while trying to recover pieces of themselves before the afternoon resumed. Ronda sat with Anita near the low wall by the side building, trying to eat in peace.

She was halfway through her food when two female trainees passed nearby, speaking in voices low enough to pretend privacy and loud enough to fail.

“…I don’t care what anyone says, that man is too fine.”

The other laughed. “Please, I’ve accepted my fate. If he looks at me twice, I may resign from seriousness.”

They kept walking.

Anita waited exactly two seconds before turning to Ronda. “See?”

“See what?”

“That you’re not imagining it. Every female with functioning eyes in this building has noticed Karl.”

Ronda picked at her food. “That’s not new information.”

“No,” Anita said. “But maybe it helps.”

“It doesn’t.”

Anita smiled. “Because he keeps looking at you, not them?”

Ronda looked up sharply. “Why do you enjoy this so much?”

Anita laughed softly. “Because your face changes every time I say something true.”

Ronda should have denied it.

Instead, she looked away.

And that told Anita everything.

The thing was, Anita was right.

Karl did look at her.

Not always.

Not obsessively.

Not in ways that broke the rules.

But enough.

Enough that she had started expecting it before it happened.

Enough that she felt it when it didn’t.

And that was the truly dangerous part.

Her attention had now become reciprocal.

Not just in fact.

In habit.

By the time the afternoon began, Ronda had become even more determined to hold herself together. She focused harder than anyone needed to. Took cleaner notes. Spoke less. Looked up less.

It might have worked, if not for Vivian.

Vivian had been in the room all along, of course. Beautiful, polished, and never in a hurry to make herself obvious. But that afternoon, for the first time, she made the effort to be near.

Not by sitting beside Ronda.

That would have been too direct.

Instead, she found reasons to orbit the same spaces. Joining the group nearest Karl during a task rotation. Asking a question from a position that required him to turn in Ronda’s direction. Smiling when he answered in that smooth, composed way of his.

Ronda noticed all of it.

Not because she wanted to.

Because women always noticed when other women moved toward the same warmth.

The realization sat badly with her.

Not jealousy.

Not exactly.

Something more stubborn.

Discomfort.

Because until then, Karl had existed in her mind as danger mostly in relation to her own discipline. Now he was becoming dangerous in a wider, uglier way; in the way that men with presence often became accidental centers of competition whether they asked for it or not.

And Ronda hated competition.

Especially over a man.

Especially over a man she had not even admitted to herself properly yet.

During one practical session, Vivian answered a question badly, then laughed at herself in a way that made two of the trainees smile. Karl corrected her politely. She leaned in just a little as he explained.

Ronda looked away immediately and hated that she had looked long enough to notice.

Why should this matter?

It shouldn’t.

And yet when Karl’s attention returned to her group minutes later, asking for her opinion on a revised response, relief moved through her before she could stop it.

That was unacceptable.

She answered calmly.

He nodded.

The world did not end.

Still, the damage remained.

At closing time, she packed faster than usual.

She needed space from the building, from the eyes in it, from the ridiculousness of being affected by things she had no right to let inside her peace.

She was almost out when she heard Vivian’s voice nearby.

“Ronda.”

Ronda turned.

Vivian stood a short distance away, folder in hand, smile perfectly arranged.

“Hi,” Vivian said.

“Hi.”

Vivian tilted her head slightly. “You’re very serious.”

Ronda wasn’t sure whether that was observation or insult.

“I’m here to work,” she said.

Vivian smiled a little more. “That’s obvious.”

There was something in the way she said it that made the air feel thinner.

Not hostility.

Something smoother.

Something that carried a hint of challenge without being open enough to slap.

Before Ronda could respond, Karl walked past the corridor turn, glanced once in their direction, then paused.

The moment shifted instantly.

Vivian turned toward him with easy brightness. “Karl.”

He acknowledged her politely.

Then, to Ronda’s deep irritation, his eyes moved to Ronda too, and for one stupid second she felt the old pulse of being found again.

Vivian noticed that.

Of course she did.

She smiled, but this time the smile looked sharper.

And in that moment, Ronda understood something clearly:

this was no longer just about her trying not to lose focus.

It was becoming a room full of eyes.

A space where every softness could become visible.

A place where a woman could quickly become the center of stories she never agreed to tell.

That evening, on the bus ride home, she sat by the window and watched the city slide past in tired color and movement.

A woman bargained loudly over fruit.

Two boys ran barefoot through traffic with the recklessness of the poor.

The sky hung low with heat and fading light.

Ronda leaned her temple against the glass.

This was exactly why she had made rules for herself.

Not because desire was evil.

Not because men were f*******n objects from another world.

But because women like her could not afford emotional confusion.

Not when money was short.

Not when ambition was fragile.

Not when dignity was the only thing that often stayed fully hers.

At home, she took out her notebook and wrote:

He keeps noticing me.

Then, beneath it:

And I am not the only one noticing him.

She stared at the lines for a while.

That was the real danger now.

Not only that Karl’s attention had begun to matter.

But that it was beginning to matter in a room full of other people.

A room full of witnesses.

A room full of women.

A room full of possible stories.

She added one more line before closing the notebook:

The kind of attention that feels good in private can become trouble in public.

Ronda lay back after that and closed her eyes.

No distractions, she had once promised herself.

But the truth had become harder now.

Karl was no longer just a distraction.

He was becoming the kind of attention a woman could start building quiet hopes around.

And if she wasn’t careful, that would ruin far more than focus.