Until He Sees Me - Broken Yet His

Chapter 12 - Late Night Encouter

It’s past ten when I finally look up from my laptop. The office floor is a ghost town, empty desks stretching in neat rows, only the low hum of the AC filling the silence. It’s too cold, that sterile kind of chill that seeps into your bones after hours under fluorescent lights. Beyond the windows, Miami traffic glitters twenty stories below, red and white streams of light moving like a heartbeat the city refuses to let me forget.

The glow of the screen burns my eyes. I rub them until colors dance across my vision, dizzy little sparks that blur the lines of the document I’ve been staring at. My pen rolls off the desk and clatters to the floor, the sound so sharp in the silence that I flinch like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t.

This permit situation is killing me.

Three days. Three f*****g days chasing signatures for the outdoor lighting at The Azure. On paper, it looked straightforward, a minor step in a grand project. In reality? Every department passes me off to someone else, like I’m a problem they’d rather not touch.

Back home, Daniel would’ve cracked this in an afternoon. He knew everyone, had numbers on speed dial, could slice through red tape like it was butter. I don’t have connections here. I’m drowning in names I can’t pronounce and procedures that feel designed to make me fail. Each rejection adds another stone to the weight already pressing down on my chest.

I flip through my notebook again, pages and pages of crossed-out numbers, phone calls logged with arrows pointing to nowhere, notes that may as well be written in another language. The opening is less than four months away. Four months that suddenly feel like four minutes, and if I don’t get these permits, half my design dies before it’s even born.

The knot tightens in my chest, familiar, suffocating. The same one I felt every time Mom shot down an idea before I could finish explaining. Every time Dad interrupted with a correction I hadn’t asked for. Every time someone reminded me I wasn’t quite enough.

‘Figure it out yourself, Emma. Nobody’s going to hold your hand.’

The words echo like a curse. I bury my face in my hands, fighting the burn behind my eyes, the way my throat wants to close. Not here. Not now.

I’m about to dive back into another useless search when footsteps echo down the hallway. My head snaps up. At this hour, it can only be security. Nobody else stays this late. Nobody sane, anyway.

But the steps don’t pass by. They stop. Right outside my door.

A soft knock. And before I can answer, the door opens.

My heart lurches violently.

Massimo De Luca.

Even at this hour, he looks maddeningly composed. His tie is loosened, his sleeves rolled up, but there’s nothing casual about him. He carries that same controlled power, the kind that fills the room before he even speaks. His presence cuts through the silence, sharp and immediate, like I’ve been caught in the beam of a spotlight.

“Miss Miller.”

His voice is calm, but his eyes sweep over everything, the disaster zone of papers, empty coffee cups, the scribbled notes littering my desk.

“Mr. De Luca.” My voice comes out smaller than I want, rough from too much caffeine and too little sleep. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

He steps inside. Suddenly the office feels smaller, air tighter, the walls leaning closer.

“I could say the same. It’s nearly eleven.”

Heat crawls up my neck as I scramble to stack papers, painfully aware of how chaotic everything looks. A sticky note clings stubbornly to my wrist, and I peel it off with too much force. “Just finishing some research.”

He moves closer, and that faint, expensive cologne wraps around me, tugging me straight back to our first meeting, to the way my pulse betrayed me before my brain could catch up. His gaze drifts to the papers I’m trying so hard to hide.

“Research on what?”

“Nothing important. Just project details.”

“Emma.”

The way he says my name, measured, deliberate drags my eyes to his. There’s no escaping that look. His expression is unreadable, but I catch something flickering beneath it. Concern? Frustration?

“What’s wrong?”

The question knocks the air from my lungs. Nobody ever asks me that. Not really.

“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s under control.”

One eyebrow arches, and the disbelief in his face makes me flush hotter.

“You’re here at almost eleven. Surrounded by legal documents. With enough coffee to keep a small army awake. That doesn’t look like control.”

I shift under his gaze, cheeks burning. Of course he sees through me. Of course he does.

“It’s just… permit issues. For the lighting. Minor complications.”

“What kind of complications?”

I hesitate. A part of me wants to spill everything, let him cut through this mess in a single phone call. But the louder part, the one trained by years of being dismissed, of being told I can’t handle anything won’t let me.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I’m sure you can,” he says softly. “But that doesn’t mean you should handle it alone.”

The words hang in the air, heavy, tempting. I want to say yes. God, I want to. But accepting help feels like proving every critic right, that I can’t do this, that I’ll always need help.

Something flickers in his expression—disappointment, maybe frustration. He steps closer, lowering his voice.

“Emma, I’ve got connections here. One call, and those permits disappear. Why make this harder than it needs to be?”

Because that’s what I do. Because asking for help has always ended with me feeling smaller, weaker.

“I appreciate it,” I manage, careful, steady, “but I’d rather handle my own responsibilities.”

His eyes hold mine for a long, unblinking moment, like he’s peeling me apart layer by layer.

“Your responsibility is to deliver a successful event,” he says finally. His voice is firm now, unyielding. “If permits stand in the way, then fixing them becomes my responsibility too.”

The logic slices clean. Irrefutable. But my pride twists it, warps it into something ugly, failure.

“I’ll have it sorted by tomorrow,” I blurt, the words tasting like desperation.

“Will you?”

The sting is immediate, sharp. No, I won’t. We both know it. But I can’t admit that, not to him.

“Yes.”

He studies me another moment, then nods slowly. I can tell he doesn’t believe me.

“All right. But remember this” He pauses at the door, gray eyes steady, voice low. “Non c’è vergogna nel chiedere aiuto. There’s no shame in using the resources available to you. That’s what successful people do.”

And then he’s gone.

The room feels colder without him, the silence deafening. I stare at the door long after it closes, pulse still racing, his words replaying in my head like a broken record.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. We weren’t supposed to collide like this.

The worst part, the one I can’t ignore is that for a split second, I wanted to let him fix everything. I wanted to let go, to lean on someone, even if it was him, but I can’t.

I slam my laptop shut harder than I should, the sound too loud in the empty office. No. I don’t need his help. I don’t need anyone.

The clock reads 11:23 when I finally pack up. My body feels heavy, my mind buzzing like static. Tomorrow I’ll try again. Tomorrow I’ll prove I can handle this.

But as the elevator carries me down to the empty parking garage, his words echo, relentless.

There’s no shame in asking for help.

Maybe not for him. For men like Massimo, power is a language they’re born fluent in. But for me, for the girl who’s been told her whole life she’s not capable, asking for help feels like surrender.

Even if I’m already drowning.

I grip my keys tighter, nails biting into my palm. Not sure I’m ready to accept that I have to surrender and admit that I cannot do it.