Copy that Miss Amber

The conference room smelled like fresh coffee and old money. I took my seat at the head of the table, scrolling through the quarterly projections on my tablet without really reading them. Four years of running this company and these meetings still felt like a performance — one I was always expected to lead.The door opened and a few latecomers filtered in. I barely looked up. My mind was somewhere else, the way it always was these days. Hollow. Distant. Polite.Then I saw her.She was sitting at the far end of the table, pen in hand, scribbling into a leather-bound notebook. I assumed she was an intern — her posture was too careful, too eager to disappear. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking down, focused on her notes like they were the only thing in the room that mattered.But her face.My chest seized.The curve of her jaw. The slight downturn of her eyes when she concentrated. The way her hair fell just above her collarbone. It was impossible, and yet there he was — staring back at me from across a conference table, wearing eyeliner and a cropped blazer.Daniel.No. Not Daniel. I blinked, and the resemblance didn't disappear. If anything, it sharpened. The same high cheekbones. The same intensity in the way she held herself, quiet but unshakable.I forced my eyes back to my tablet. The numbers blurred. I pressed my thumb against the screen and swiped to the next slide without reading a single word.My heart was doing something it hadn't done in four years. Beating with purpose. Attention. A sick kind of hope I'd buried the day I lowered Daniel into the ground.I didn't know her name yet. I didn't need to. I just needed to survive the next forty-five minutes without staring."Amber?" My assistant, Claire, leaned in from my left. "You're on."Right. The presentation.I stood and adjusted my blazer. Every eye in the room turned to me — every eye except hers. She was still writing. Still focused on her notebook like the rest of us didn't exist.That annoyed me more than it should have.The presentation went smoothly. It always does. I've been giving these talks since I was twenty-three, back when Daniel was still alive and I thought the worst thing in the world was a missed deadline. I spoke about expansion into European markets, about sustainability initiatives, about the new ready-to-wear line launching in the fall. Words poured out of me like water from a faucet — automatic, rehearsed, empty.But my eyes kept drifting to the back row.She looked up once. Just once. Our eyes met for half a second before she dropped her gaze back to her notebook. Something flickered in her expression — not recognition, not interest. Just a quiet acknowledgment that the woman at the front of the room was speaking and she should probably pay attention.That was it. The meeting ended and people filed out. She was one of the last to leave, tucking her notebook under her arm and slipping through the door without a glance in my direction.I stayed seated. I needed a moment.Claire appeared at my side, gathering my tablet and the leftover handouts. "You've got a vendor call at two and the fabric preview at four. Do you want me to push anything?" "Claire." My voice came out rougher than I intended. "Who was that girl at the back? The one with the notebook."Claire glanced at the door, then back at me. "June. She's an intern — marketing division, started about two months ago. Why?" "She looks familiar." "Should I look into her background?" "No." I stood and adjusted my blazer. "Call her into my office. I want to meet her." Claire raised an eyebrow but didn't question it. She'd been with me long enough to know when I wanted answers and when I wanted space. This was neither. This was something else entirely. "Sure. When?" "Now." Claire nodded and left. I walked to my office on the fifth floor — floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city skyline, a white marble desk I never used, and a leather chair that cost more than most people's rent. Everything in here was designed to impress. Nothing in here felt like me.I sat down and stared at the door.What was I doing? I was the CEO of a multi-million dollar fashion house, and I'd just ordered an intern into my office because she had the same jawline as my dead husband. This was insane. This was unprofessional. This was every HR violation waiting to happen. But I couldn't help it. Four years of nothing — no spark, no curiosity, no reason to look twice at anyone — and then she walked into that conference room and something cracked open inside me. Not love. Not yet. Just... a door I'd sealed shut the day Daniel died, suddenly ajar.A knock came at my door."Come in."The door opened and June stepped inside. She looked even smaller standing in my office — the ceiling was high and the windows were massive, and she seemed swallowed by the space. She clutched a folder against her chest the way she'd clutched her notebook in the conference room. A shield."Ms. Lockwood? Claire said you wanted to see me."She didn't sit. I hadn't offered her a seat. I should have."Close the door," I said.She did, and the quiet that followed was heavy. The city hummed faintly beyond the glass. I studied her face from behind my desk — the cheekbones, the eyes, the way her lips pressed together like she was bracing for something.She was nervous. Of course she was nervous. The CEO had summoned her out of nowhere. I'd be nervous too."Have a seat," I said, gesturing to the chair across from me.She sat. Perched on the edge, really, like she was ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble."June, right?" "Yes, ma'am." "How long have you been with us?" "Two months. I'm in the marketing division, reporting to Sarah Chen.” “Sarah from digital?”She turned to face me fully. "Yes. I'm assigned to the digital team — social media campaigns, influencer outreach, that sort of thing." "Do you like it?" The question surprised both of us. She blinked, clearly not expecting the CEO to take an interest in her job satisfaction."I do, actually," she said, a small smile forming. "The work is creative but structured. I like having a framework to build inside of."I nodded. I understood that — the discipline of fashion design wasn't so different. You start with a silhouette, a fabric, a color palette. Then you push against those boundaries until something alive emerges."How long is your internship?" "Six months. I'm two months in." "Where did you study?" "Fashion Institute of Technology. Marketing and communications." FIT. My alma mater. I almost said it out loud but stopped myself. I was already asking too many questions. Claire would have been horrified — the CEO of Lockwood Designs interrogating an intern about her college education. That night,I didn't sleep. I sat in my apartment with a glass of wine and Daniel's photo on my phone. It was our wedding picture — him in a charcoal suit, me in the dress I'd designed myself, both of us laughing at something the photographer said. He had this way of making joy feel effortless, like happiness was just his default setting.I zoomed in on his face. The sharp jaw. The high cheekbones. The dark eyes that could make me feel seen from across a crowded room.Then I pulled up June's employee photo.Side by side, the resemblance was uncanny. Not identical — June's features were softer, more feminine — but the bone structure was almost the same. Like someone had taken Daniel's face and translated it into a different language.I put the phone down and finished my wine.The rational part of my brain knew this meant nothing. People look like other people. It's genetics, coincidence, nothing more. But the irrational part — the part that had been numb for four years — was waking up. Tingling with something I hadn't felt since before the accident.Hope? No. It wasn't hope. It was worse than hope.It was longing.And longing was dangerous. Longing makes you do stupid things — like stare at interns in the conference room, or call them or call them to your office for no specific reason, or sit alone in your apartment comparing their face to a dead man's.I needed to keep my distance. I needed to be professional. I needed to remember that June was a 21-year-old intern and I was her boss's boss, and that whatever I was feeling had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the grief I'd never properly processed.I poured another glass of wine. I lay in bed with my phone pressed against my chest,the ceiling above me was dark and familiar. I'd spent four years memorizing every c***k and water stain up there, lying awake while grief pressed down on my chest like a hand over my mouth.Daniel died in a car accident on a Tuesday. A drunk driver ran a red light. I was at the office. I didn't even get to say goodbye.And now — four years later — his face walked into my conference room wearing a blazer and taking notes.Coincidence. That's all it was. A cruel, impossible coincidence.But it didn't feel like coincidence. It felt like the universe was playing a joke on me, dangling a version of the man I loved just out of reach.The next morning I told myself to forget about it.I arrived at the office at seven, as always. Coffee in hand, sunglasses on, heels clicking against the marble lobby floor. The interns were usually in by nine, which gave me two hours of peace before I had to worry about seeing her again.Except she was already there.June was sitting at the kitchen counter on the third floor, a cup of tea between her hands and a stack of printouts next to her. She looked up when I walked past the doorway and gave me a small, polite nod."Good morning, Ms. Lockwood."Her voice was soft, a little nervous. Nothing like Daniel's. He was warm and confident, the kind of voice that made you feel safe even when the world was falling apart.This voice made me feel something else entirely."Morning," I said, and kept walking.I made it three steps past the kitchen before I stopped. Turned. Looked back through the doorway.She was already reading again, her brow furrowed in concentration. The steam from her tea curled upward, catching the morning light streaming through the window behind her.