HE LOOKED LIKE HE REMEMBERED
1094 Words
Friday came too fast.
I told myself I was ready.
I was not ready.
The elevator ride to the forty-second floor took approximately eleven years. I held my portfolio against my chest like a shield and reminded myself of three things.
He was a client.
He was engaged.
He was a stranger.
I had never met this man in my life.
The doors opened.
The Cross Foundation offices didn't look like a corporation.
They looked like someone had decided that power didn't need to announce itself. Clean lines, dark wood, glass that gave the city back to you like a gift.
I checked in. Was handed a visitor badge. Was told someone would be right with me.
I stood by the window and looked out at the skyline.
Somewhere out there was the street where I'd dropped my coffee four days ago.
I didn't look for it.
"Ms. Reyes."
I turned.
It wasn't him.
A woman, in her early thirties, had an efficient posture, a smile that was professional and nothing else. "I'm Lena, Mr. Cross's executive assistant. He's ready for you."
Of course, he was.
I followed her down a corridor that felt longer than it was.
She stopped at a door. Knocked twice. Opened it.
"Ms. Reyes is here."
She stepped aside.
I walked in.
The room was corner-facing. Floor-to-ceiling glass on two sides. City light bleeding through like scattered diamonds.
I stopped breathing.
I knew this room.
Not the furniture. Not the art on the wall. Not the long table where three people sat with laptops open, mid-conversation.
The light.
The view.
The particular quality of silence underneath the noise.
I knew it the way you know a place you've only ever visited in dreams.
No.
I forced everything back into place and moved.
He was standing at the far end of the table.
Back to me.
Hands in his pockets.
Looking out at something I could never quite see.
My heart stopped.
Then he turned.
He found me immediately.
Not a scan of the room. Not a polite glance toward the door. His eyes came straight to me, like he already knew exactly where I was standing.
And he stood.
Not visibly, not in a way the others would catch. Just a fractional pause. A breath held a half-second too long. Something moving behind his expression that he controlled before it fully formed.
I had two seconds. That was all I needed.
Same jaw. Same eyes.
The scar near his brow, faint, slightly curved, was exactly where I knew it would be.
Then I was a professional Nova again. Portfolio in hand. Smile in place.
"Mr. Cross." I crossed the room and extended my hand. "Nova Reyes, from Callum & Drake. Thank you for having me."
His gaze dropped into my hand.
Then back to my face.
Something I couldn't name moved through his expression, quick, controlled, gone.
He took my hand.
His grip was firm. Brief. Correct.
"Ms. Reyes."
His voice.
Low. Unhurried.
Too familiar to make sense.
I released his hand before he released mine.
The next forty minutes were a masterclass in pretending.
I presented. He listened. His team asked questions I answered cleanly. Derek's voice in my head: don't make me regret this, kept me sharp when everything else wanted to slip.
Damien Cross said very little.
That was somehow worse.
He sat at the head of the table with the particular stillness of someone who understood that attention was its own kind of power. He didn't need to speak to fill the room. He just existed in it, and the room reorganized itself accordingly.
I didn't look at him more than necessary.
He looked at me more than was professional.
I noticed.
I said nothing.
When it was over, his team filtered out in clusters of conversation. Lena appeared at the door with the quiet efficiency of someone who had choreographed a thousand exits.
I was closing my portfolio when I felt it.
The particular quality of silence when a room empties and one person stays.
I looked up.
He was still there.
Standing where he'd sat, hands back in his pockets, watching me with an expression I couldn't read and wasn't sure I was meant to.
"You did well," he said.
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment. It was an observation."
I held his gaze. "I know the difference."
Something shifted at the corner of his mouth.
"The campaign concept, the one Derek didn't include in the brief. That was yours."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"How did you know what we needed?"
I paused one beat too long.
"Research," I said.
His eyes stayed on mine. Steady. Patient. Like he was waiting for a different answer.
"Research," he repeated.
"Is that a problem?"
"No." He tilted his head slightly. "You just seem like someone who leads with instinct and backs it with research. Not the other way around."
The observation landed somewhere it shouldn't have.
"Most people get that wrong," I said.
"I know."
Silence.
Not uncomfortable. Not professional.
The other kind.
I picked up my portfolio. "I'll have the full proposal to your team by Monday."
"I'll look forward to it."
I nodded. Turned toward the door.
"Ms. Reyes."
I stopped.
Didn't turn around immediately. Took one breath.
Then I faced him.
He was watching me the same way he had from the moment I walked in. Like I was something he was trying to place. Something that sat just at the edge of recognition, not quite resolving.
"Have we met before?"
My pulse stuttered. Hard.
The room was very quiet.
"No," I said.
True.
Technically, completely true.
Something in his expression told me he almost believed it.
"Enjoy your weekend, Mr. Cross."
I walked out.
I made it to the elevator. Pressed the button. Stared at the doors.
They opened. I stepped in. I turned around.
The last thing I saw before the doors closed was Damien Cross, still standing in the corridor, watching me leave.
Still trying to place me.
The doors shut.
I exhaled for what felt like the first time in forty minutes.
He felt it.
He felt something, and he didn't know why, and neither did I and that was so much worse than if he'd felt nothing at all.
The elevator descended.
I stared at my reflection in the polished doors.
Two years of dreams.
One real room.
One competent person.
And the feeling… quiet, certain, devastating, that this was not an ending.
This was the beginning of something I had no idea how to survive.
- Writer
