Hi, Mr Barry

Monday Morning

I dressed carefully that Monday morning.

Not in the way I dressed for nights out or university seminars or Ben’s family adjacent events that thankfully no longer concerned me. This was different. This was the kind of dressing that meant something. First impression dressing. The kind where you stand in front of your wardrobe for twenty minutes and then put on the first thing you considered anyway.

Black tailored trousers. White silk blouse. Heels that said I’m serious but not desperate. Hair down because up felt like I was trying too hard and I refused to try too hard.

I stood in front of my mirror.

Ava Collins.

Ashford Industries intern.

New chapter.

I repeated it to myself like a quiet promise and picked up my bag.

The Ashford Industries building was the kind of architecture that made a statement before you even reached the door.

Forty floors of glass and steel rising out of the city centre with the particular arrogance of a building that knew exactly what it was. The kind of building that made you straighten your spine slightly as you approached it whether you intended to or not.

I intended to.

I pushed through the main doors.

The lobby was vast and deliberately understated in that way that only truly expensive things manage. Marble floors. High ceilings. A reception desk staffed by two women who looked like they’d been specifically selected for their ability to make visitors feel simultaneously welcome and inadequate.

I approached.

“Ava Collins.” I said. “Intern placement. I have a nine o’clock.”

The woman on the left smiled efficiently and typed something.

“Welcome to Ashford Industries Miss Collins. Someone from HR will be down shortly to take you through orientation. If you’d like to take a seat.”

I took a seat.

Crossed my ankles.

Looked around.

The lobby had that particular quality of controlled motion. People moving with purpose. Conversations held at professional volumes. Everyone looking like they had somewhere important to be and the competence to get there.

I felt a small electric charge of excitement despite myself.

This was it.

This was exactly the kind of place I’d been working toward. Not because of the money or the prestige though I won’t pretend those things were irrelevant. But because of what it represented. Proof that Ava Collins from a stretched grocery budget and a mother who smiled through everything could sit in a lobby like this and belong there.

I belonged there.

I was still quietly telling myself that when the elevator doors across the lobby opened.

And the world did something strange.

It didn’t stop exactly.

Everything kept moving. The lobby continued its controlled motion. The reception women continued their efficient typing. The revolving doors continued their rotation.

But something in my personal atmosphere shifted so completely and suddenly that I genuinely wondered for a moment if I was still sitting upright.

He walked out of the elevator like he owned the building.

Which of course he did.

Dark suit today. Charcoal. Perfectly fitted in the way that quietly announced money without saying a word about it. He was looking down at something his assistant was showing him on a tablet. Expression focused. Unhurried as ever.

Barry.

My Mr Barry from the hotel suite.

Barry with the warm hands and the unhurried voice who f****d me to space and back.

Yep……That Barry.

Walking through this lobby.

Oh God no.

The thought arrived with devastating clarity.

Oh absolutely not.

He hadn’t seen me yet. He was still focused on whatever his assistant was showing him. They were moving toward the reception desk. Moving toward—

Move Ava. Stand up. Leave. Walk out those revolving doors and email the placement office and tell them there’s been a mistake and go work at literally any other company in this city.

I did not move.

I sat completely still in that lobby chair while every functioning part of my brain screamed at me and my body simply refused to cooperate.

His assistant said something to the reception team. Barry glanced up briefly to acknowledge the exchange.

And found me.

Time does a particular thing in moments like that.

It doesn’t stop. That’s a romantic exaggeration. What it actually does is sharpen. Every detail becomes unreasonably clear. The distance between us. The exact expression on his face. The precise moment recognition moved through his eyes.

He knew immediately.

Of course he did.

I watched him know.

And I watched him do something I would only understand much later.

In the space of perhaps two seconds Barry Ashford’s expression moved through recognition and something more complicated and then settled into a composure so complete that if I hadn’t been watching his face at exactly that moment I would have missed all of it.

He crossed the lobby.

Stopped in front of me.

I stood up because sitting while he stood felt like a disadvantage I couldn’t afford.

We looked at each other.

“Miss Collins.”

His voice was exactly as I remembered it. Low. Unhurried. Giving nothing away.

“You work here.” It came out less like a question and more like an accusation. Which was arguably unfair given that this was his building.

“I own here.” He said it simply.

The floor did something unsteady beneath me.

“You’re Barry Ashford.”

“I am.”

“As in Ashford Industries Barry Ashford.”

“There’s only one.”

I stared at him.

He looked back at me with that composed expression that I now desperately wanted to reach through and shake something human out of.

“You didn’t tell me.” I said quietly.

“You didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t—” I stopped. Lowered my voice because we were standing in his lobby and his staff were everywhere. “I didn’t think I needed to ask if the man I met in a club owned the company I was interviewing with.”

“That’s a fair point.”

“That’s—” I exhaled through my nose. “Yes it is.”

A silence stretched between us.

He was watching me with that focused quality again. Reading my face the way he had across the club that first night. Taking inventory.

“This is going to be a problem.” I said.

“Is it?”

“I just slept with my employer.”

“Technically you slept with a stranger.” He said. “The employer part came after.”

“That’s a very specific distinction.”

“I find specificity useful.”

I looked at him for a long moment.

He looked back.

Completely composed. Completely unruffled. Like a woman he’d spent the night with showing up in his lobby on a Monday morning was simply a variable he was calmly assessing.

Meanwhile I was performing an internal calculation that involved approximately fourteen different panicked thoughts occurring simultaneously.

“I should go.” I said. “I should find the placement office and request a transfer to a different company and pretend this—”

“The placement office opens at ten.” He said. “Your orientation begins at nine.” He glanced at his watch. “In four minutes.”

I stared at him.

“Are you seriously suggesting I just—”

“I’m suggesting.” He said carefully. “That what happened between us was between two adults who owed each other nothing. And what happens here is a professional arrangement between an intern and a company.”

“You’re telling me to just act normal.”

“I’m telling you that you earned this placement Miss Collins. On merit. Independently of anything else.”

Something about the way he said that. Certain. Direct. Like he’d already considered every angle and arrived at the cleanest version of the truth.

I hated how much it steadied me.

“You’ll have a supervisor.” He continued. “You won’t report to me directly. Our paths may cross occasionally in a professional capacity.”

“Occasionally.”

“This is a large building.”

“Right.”

“And forty floors.”

“Yes I can see that.”

He almost smiled.

That almost smile.

The same one from the club that crept up on you before you were ready for it.

“Miss Collins.”

“Mr Ba……Ashford.” I corrected myself because calling him that name gave me memories I most likely want to bury.

“Welcome to Ashford Industries.”

He extended his hand.

I looked at it for exactly as long as I had in the club that first night.

Then took it.

His hand was warm.

Of course it was.

“Thank you.” I said.

He held my hand for one second longer than professional.

Then released it. Turned. Walked back toward the elevator with his assistant falling into step beside him already talking about something on the tablet again.

At the elevator he didn’t look back.

The doors closed.

I stood in the lobby of Ashford Industries.

Heart somewhere in the region of my throat.

Act normal he said.

Normal my foot. Because none of this is normal.

Orientation lasted three hours and I remember absolutely nothing.

My supervisor was a brisk efficient woman named Sandra who showed me my desk and explained my responsibilities and introduced me to the team with the energy of someone who had done this many times and found it mildly tedious. She was perfectly nice. I liked her immediately despite hearing almost nothing she said.

My desk was on the twenty second floor.

Barry’s office was on the fortieth.

Eighteen floors between us.

I told myself this was fine. Eighteen floors was practically a different building. I could work here for the entire internship and never have a reason to go above the twenty fifth floor and everything would be perfectly professional and completely fine.

I sat at my new desk.

Opened my laptop.

Told myself to focus.

My phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

I frowned. Looked around the office. Opened the message.

“The coffee on the twenty second floor is terrible. There’s a better option on the thirty ninth. Sandra will show you if you ask her”.

I stared at the message.

Typed back slowly.

“How do you have this number?”

The reply came within seconds.

“Intern files”.

“That seems like an abuse of your position.”

“Noted.”

“I’m going to ignore this message.”

“That seems wise.”

“Stop texting me.”

“Of course. Enjoy the terrible coffee.”

I put my phone face down on the desk.

Picked it up again.

Put it face down.

Looked at the ceiling.

Eighteen floors.

This was going to be a big problem.