THE IRON HEIR Chapter Two — Glass and Wolves
842 Words
His office was a weapon.
Mara knew architecture the way most people knew language instinctively, in her bones. Whoever had designed the sixtieth floor of Voss Tower understood one thing perfectly: make everyone who enters feel small.
Floor-to-ceiling glass. The city spread below like something conquered. A desk of black stone so vast it functioned less as furniture and more as a statement: You are on my side of the world now.
Dominic stood at the window with his back to her.
He let her wait eleven seconds. She counted.
"You're on time," he said, without turning.
"You're not." She set her bag on the nearest chair. "Your assistant left me in the lobby for eight minutes."
"Four." He turned. "I was watching."
Of course he was.
He looked different in daylight. Not softer---nothing about Dominic Voss suggested softness---but more defined.
Like something that only revealed its full danger in proper light. Charcoal suit, open collar, deliberate casualness that probably cost someone their job to arrange.
He gestured to the chair across his desk. "Sit."
"I'll stand." She pulled out her tablet. "Show me the site assessments."
A pause. Brief, but she caught it---the almost imperceptible stillness of a man unaccustomed to being redirected.
He moved to the desk and opened a file. Professional. Efficient. For twenty minutes they worked, and Mara was almost convinced this was exactly what it appeared to be--- a business arrangement between two adults---until she looked up.
He wasn’t looking at the load diagram.
"You're not reviewing the cantilever specifications," she said.
"I reviewed them yesterday."
"Then why am I here?"
"Because I needed to see if you'd changed."
The room went very quiet.
Mara set down her tablet. Slowly. The way you set things down when your hands need something to do. Her pulse beat too fast. She shouldn’t be affected. She told herself that. She was wrong.
"I don't know what you mean," she said.
"Yes you do." His voice was low. Unhurried. A man laying cards on a table he’d already won. "Six years ago. March.
The Aldermere Harbor conference." A pause heavy with something unspoken. "You wore a green dress to the closing dinner. You argued with the keynote speaker about load-bearing ratios until he turned red. You laughed at your own jokes before finishing them. You told me your name was Mara. I gave you mine."
Not his real one.
The air left the room.
"Daniel," she whispered.
"Dominic." He didn’t look away. "I should have told you the truth. I didn’t. I’ve made a great number of decisions I’d unmake if I could. That’s near the top."
Her stomach dropped. Every instinct screamed to step back----but curiosity rooted her in place.
"You lied about who you were," she said quietly. "For an entire week."
"Yes."
"And then you disappeared."
"Yes."
"And now you're standing in front of me acting like that's—" she stopped. Breathed. "What exactly are you expecting me to do with this, Dominic?"
His name in her mouth did something to his jaw---- a tightening, barely visible. There it was. The small c***k in the architecture.
"Nothing," he said. "I'm not expecting anything."
"You're lying again."
Silence filled the space, loud and pressing.
He came around the desk. Not quickly-he did nothing quickly-but with that deliberate, inevitable focus that made every step feel dangerous. He stopped close enough that she had to decide whether to step back.
She didn’t.
"I found out about Lily ten months ago," he said, voice low, precise. "I’ve known for ten months that she exists. That she's...." Something flickered across his face. Raw. Brief. Gone before she could name it. "I didn’t come to take her from you, Mara. I want you to understand that."
"Then what do you want?"
He looked at her for a long moment. The city glittered sixty floors below, indifferent and vast.
"I want to know her," he said quietly. "And I want......"
He stopped himself.
"What?" she pressed. Her pulse was loud in her ears. She shouldn’t want him here. She shouldn’t want him like this.
His eyes traveled over her face with that unnerving attention.
"I want to stop pretending the last six years didn’t happen."
The confession landed between them like something irreversible.
Mara’s throat tightened. "You don’t get to do this," she said. "You don’t get to walk back into......"
Her phone rang.
Unknown number. She almost ignored it. Then instinct moved her hand.
"Ms. Ellison?" A woman’s voice. Clipped. Official. "This is Dr. Reyes at St. Augustin's." A pause that lasted a lifetime. "Lily's condition has changed overnight. You need to come now."
The tablet hit the floor.
Dominic was already moving-jacket off the chair, keys in hand-before she had even processed standing.
"My car is faster," he said. Not a question.
She looked at him-the man, the stranger, the ghost of a week she'd spent six years not thinking about.
"Don't make me regret this," she whispered.
"You won’t," he said. And for a heartbeat, she almost believed him. Almost.
- Writer
