Charlie
I saw the way they were looking at me, they had heard everything, every single word.
I walked through the office doors at eight sharp and knew within thirty seconds that something had shifted overnight. The receptionist smiled two seconds too late. The two analysts near the water cooler stopped talking the moment I rounded the corner. Davies found something urgent to look at on his phone the moment our eyes met across the floor.
I kept walking.
My secretary was already at her desk when I reached my office and she looked up with the specific brightness of someone who had been rehearsing normally all morning.
"Good morning Mr. Thorne, your nine o'clock has confirmed and…"
"Has anyone said anything," I asked her directly.
She blinked. "Sir?"
"To you, about me, about last night
