Hailey’s POV
I spent the next two hours buried in work, the kind of frantic, soul-numbing productivity that only happens when you’re running from your own thoughts. Emails blurred together. Reports stacked up on my tablet, numbers bleeding into charts, charts into projections. I answered questions I barely registered, approved things I’d already reviewed twice before, signed my name more out of muscle memory than intention.
Anything to avoid replaying the morning.
Anything to stop hearing Maxwell’s voice, low, controlled, edged with something dangerously close to regret. Anything to erase the image of Gio standing there, small and quiet, watching us with those too-smart eyes, like he’d felt the shift before either of us admitted it had happened. Like he knew something fundamental had cr
