Chapter Seven: Fractures in the Glass
1340 Words
(Elara’s POV)
The next morning, the office felt… different.
Not just tense or anxious or alive with the usual undercurrent of whispered politics. Something deeper had shifted—something quiet and invisible, humming beneath the walls, like the entire building had learned a secret it didn’t want to keep.
Every glance felt sharper. Every conversation too controlled, too careful. The sound of heels on tile, the soft hum of printers, the faint murmur of distant phones—all of it carried the same fragile rhythm, as if one wrong note might make everything fall apart.
And then there was me.
I couldn’t look at anyone without feeling the echo of last night beneath my skin. The man I thought I knew—Dean—was gone. In his place stood Klaus Hale, the ghost behind the glass, the name that made the entire company stop breathing when spoken aloud.
He’d told me the truth. Or at least, a fragment of it.
And that truth lived in me like a shard of broken mirror—reflecting every lie I hadn’t seen, every glance that had meant something different. I felt exposed, as if the walls themselves could see straight through me.
By mid-morning, the rumors had already started weaving their way through the cubicles. Not spoken directly, but hinted at in murmurs, in the weight of glances exchanged near the elevators.
“Leak traced to an external contractor…”
“Emergency board meeting last night…”
“Klaus Hale handled it himself.”
And then the whispers grew sharper, closer—cutting through the hum of the office until I could feel them brushing against my name.
“Did you see him?”
“Last night?”
“Who even is Dean?”
I tried to bury myself in my work, in the safety of sketches and lines—things that didn’t lie, things that made sense. But every pencil stroke trembled, every outline blurred. I couldn’t hold my focus. His name sat heavy in my chest, haunting every unfinished page.
By noon, the boardroom lights glimmered down the corridor like a warning beacon. The doors were closed, but through the tinted glass, I caught a glimpse of him.
Klaus Hale.
He stood alone at the far end of the long table, reviewing something on a digital display. Even from a distance, the intensity was unmistakable. Every motion was precise. Every movement, measured. He looked like a man carved out of order itself—cold, methodical, untouchable.
And yet… I remembered the man who used to wait by the maintenance doors at night. The one who smiled when I handed him coffee, who listened when I talked about the little things—dreams, art, everything that didn’t matter to anyone else.
Now that man was gone.
I wanted to stay hidden.
I wanted to walk in.
I wanted to forget everything and remember only him.
Instead, I waited.
By the time evening came, the storm had returned. It rolled in with a low, unending hum, rain smearing the view of the city beyond the glass. Most of the office had gone home, leaving behind the quiet rhythm of raindrops and the distant hum of machines.
I sat alone on the design floor, reviewing a presentation for a waterfront project. My hand hovered over the tablet screen, tracing lines that refused to stay straight. I was exhausted. Not from work—but from feeling.
That was when I felt it. The shift in the air. The quiet weight of presence.
“Klaus.”
His voice didn’t need volume to fill a room.
He stood beside my desk, one hand resting lightly against the table’s edge. His hair was damp from the rain, his suit darker than usual, and there was something in his eyes—something caught between fatigue and restraint.
He looked less like a CEO and more like a man who hadn’t slept in years.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said softly, gaze flicking to my sketches.
“And leave you alone in your fortress?” I murmured, managing a weak smile. “Not my style.”
He almost smiled back—but didn’t. His eyes lingered on me instead, tracing the unease I couldn’t hide.
“You saw the board meeting,” he said finally. “Heard my name.”
I nodded. “I did. And now everything makes sense. You’re… Klaus Hale.”
The sound of it in my own voice still felt wrong, like saying the name of a stranger I’d once loved.
He exhaled, long and quiet. “I am. And I’ve been lying by omission. Every night I spent as Dean, every moment I said something true but not honest—it was part of a role I couldn’t step out of.”
“For your safety,” I said bitterly, “or for your control?”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away. “Both. But mostly for you.”
“Don’t,” I whispered. “Don’t make this sound noble.”
“It wasn’t,” he admitted. “It was cowardice dressed as caution. I thought if I could keep both halves of my life separate—Klaus Hale in the daylight, Dean in the shadows—maybe I could have something real in between.”
“And I was that something real,” I said quietly.
He hesitated. Then nodded. “Yes.”
The rain pressed harder against the glass. The sound filled the silence between us, soft and relentless.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The distance between us wasn’t much—a few feet, a desk, the ghost of everything unsaid. But it felt like miles.
“I don’t want to be a mistake,” I said finally, the words trembling.
He took a slow step closer, his eyes never leaving mine. “You’re not a mistake,” he said. “But being near me… it will cost you things you don’t even realize yet.”
I met his gaze, unflinching. “Then maybe I’m ready to lose them.”
Something flickered in his expression—longing, pain, disbelief. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do,” I said softly. “I just can’t unfeel this.”
He looked at me for a long time, as if searching for something—doubt, fear, anything that might make it easier to walk away. When he didn’t find it, he sighed.
The moment stretched, delicate and dangerous. His hand lifted slightly, almost reaching for me, but the sharp buzz of his phone shattered the quiet.
He turned away, answering it in a tone that belonged to Klaus Hale—the man of power, of precision, of distance. The mask slipped back on effortlessly.
“Yes,” he said, voice calm again. “I’ll be there.”
When he hung up, the softness was gone.
“I have to deal with this,” he said. His tone was final, professional. “You should go home.”
I nodded, though my heart sank. “Be careful,” I whispered.
He looked at me then—really looked. And for a fleeting second, Dean was there again, behind the eyes of Klaus Hale.
“You too,” he said quietly.
Then he was gone.
The corridors felt emptier than ever. The hum of the lights seemed distant, the storm outside steady and unrelenting. I stopped by the window, my reflection merging with the city’s reflection—the fractured lights, the shifting glass.
My fingers brushed against the cold pane. Tiny beads of rain rolled down the surface like veins of silver.
It was strange, how glass could hold so much beauty and still break so easily.
That was how I felt now—transparent but fragile, trying to hold the shape of something already cracked.
Because now I knew.
Nothing about Klaus Hale would be easy.
Nothing about him would ever be safe.
And still, in the quiet between thunder and rain—
I was already falling.
- Writer
