Chapter Six: The Distance Between Names
1265 Words
(Elara’s POV)
“Mr. Hale.”
The name cracked through the air like lightning splitting glass.
It echoed off the marble walls, slid under my skin, and left me cold.
He didn’t even flinch.
Dean—no, Klaus—stood there in the glow of the boardroom lights, a picture of stillness in the middle of chaos. The same hands that once brushed dust off a mop now rested calmly on the edge of the conference table, commanding attention without saying a word.
It was him.
It had always been him.
The realization rooted itself deep in my chest, spreading slowly like frost. Everything I’d known about him—about us—shattered and rearranged itself into something unrecognizable.
The air inside the corridor thinned, pressing against my ribs until every breath hurt. I should have left. I should have turned and walked away, pretended I hadn’t seen what I saw. But my feet refused to move.
“I want every department reviewed,” his voice carried, low and deliberate. “No one outside this room knows what happened tonight. Not yet.”
“Yes, Mr. Hale.”
The others murmured their agreement, their voices blending into a blur. I didn’t hear any of it—only his. The same cadence that once whispered, The night keeps me, as if the world outside the janitor’s wing was something he could never belong to.
But now, that voice belonged to someone untouchable.
He leaned over the stack of files spread across the table, his expression composed, his movements controlled. A man built from precision, forged by power. Not the one who had studied my sketches with soft curiosity, who smiled like he was remembering what it felt like to believe in something gentle.
When the meeting finally adjourned, he was the last to move. The others filed out quickly, careful not to make eye contact. He lingered—his fingers resting lightly on the back of a chair, his gaze somewhere far away. Then he turned toward the hallway.
Toward me.
Panic shot through me like an electric current. I pressed myself against the wall, hidden half in shadow. His footsteps echoed—measured, steady, unhurried. When he stopped, the air trembled.
He was only a few feet away.
For one impossible moment, I thought he’d seen me. His eyes flicked toward the glass panel beside the door, catching my reflection in the dark surface. Time slowed. My pulse roared in my ears.
But then he just exhaled—a quiet, weary sound—and kept walking.
The elevator doors closed behind him with a soft chime, sealing the space he left behind. I was alone again—with nothing but the sound of my own heartbeat and the echo of everything I shouldn’t have heard.
By the time I stumbled outside, the rain had turned heavier. It fell in sheets, blurring the city into a wash of silver and light. My coat clung to me, soaked through, but I didn’t move.
Klaus Hale.
I whispered it into the rain, the syllables unfamiliar in my mouth. It didn’t fit the man I’d known. It was too powerful. Too distant.
I remembered the warmth in his voice when he’d said my name for the first time, the quiet curiosity in his eyes when I’d told him about the sketch I could never finish. The memory of those moments felt like standing in the doorway of a dream I could never re-enter.
Which one was real—the man in the shadows or the one in the suit?
And what did that make me?
The girl who’d fallen in love with a ghost wearing someone else’s skin?
Sleep never came. Neither did peace.
By morning, the whispers had already reached every corner of the building. Mr. Hale was here last night. He called an emergency meeting. Something’s going on. The air was charged, every employee moving faster, speaking softer.
When I caught my reflection in the elevator’s mirrored wall, I barely recognized myself. My eyes looked… different. Like something inside me had shifted.
The doors opened to the executive floor before I even realized which button I’d pressed.
He was there.
Standing beside the reception desk, speaking with Adrian Cross—the CFO whose name was usually only spoken in warning. Adrian’s voice was tight with frustration, his fingers drumming against a folder.
“…someone tampered with the system logs,” Adrian said. “If we hadn’t caught it—”
“We’ll deal with it quietly,” Klaus interrupted. “No one outside this floor learns a thing.”
His tone left no room for argument. And then, as if drawn by instinct, his gaze found mine.
For a moment, the entire floor seemed to vanish—the people, the noise, the light. It was just us, staring at each other from across the room. His expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes flickered. Recognition. Regret. Something else I couldn’t name.
“Elara,” he said, his voice low but steady. “A word.”
Every instinct screamed for me to turn and walk away, but my body moved on its own.
He led me into a small glass office overlooking the rain-soaked city. The door clicked shut, and suddenly the silence between us felt too loud.
“You shouldn’t have been there last night,” he said quietly.
“You shouldn’t have lied,” I replied before I could stop myself. The words came out sharp, slicing through the calm.
He looked away, his jaw tightening. “You’re right.”
The honesty in his tone startled me. No excuses. No mask. Just quiet admission.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why pretend to be someone else? Was I just part of whatever game this is?”
His eyes lifted to mine—storm-gray, steady, impossible to read. “No. You were never part of the plan.”
“Then what was I?”
He hesitated, then stepped closer. The faint scent of rain still clung to his clothes, grounding me in a reality I wasn’t sure I wanted.
“A mistake,” he said softly. “A mistake I kept making.”
Something inside me fractured. Because he wasn’t saying it like it was something he regretted—he said it like it hurt.
I wanted to be angry. I wanted to hate him for all the lies and secrets. But the truth was, even now, part of me wanted to reach for him.
“Dean,” I whispered, and his expression shifted—as if the name itself drew blood.
“That’s not who I am,” he said.
I shook my head. “It’s the only version of you that felt real.”
He flinched, almost imperceptibly.
Outside, thunder rolled across the sky, lightning painting the city in pale white. The world seemed to hold its breath.
Finally, his voice broke the silence—softer now, almost human. “I can’t undo what I’ve done, Elara. But you deserve the truth.”
He paused, as if weighing every word. “I went undercover to find whoever’s betraying this company. But somewhere along the line…” His voice trailed off. “I stopped seeing it as a company. I started seeing you.”
The confession hung in the air, fragile and heavy all at once.
And in that moment, the distance between Dean and Klaus didn’t feel like the difference between lies and truth anymore. It felt like the space between one heartbeat and the next—small, impossible, and too late to cross.
- Writer
