~ Lily ~
Business trips have always followed the same predictable pattern.
Breakfast before sunrise. Meetings that blur into presentations. Lunches where nobody remembers what they ate because everyone is trying to read what everyone else is thinking instead. Dinner with clients. Hotel room and then the cycle repeats
But this one should have been no different.
Instead, by the second morning, I catch myself checking whether Hector has texted me before I check my calendar. The realisation is both comforting and alarming.
His message arrives while I’m sitting through a presentation about regional expansion.
Hector: Coffee after you’re done? There’s a place downstairs that doesn’t taste like hotel coffee.
I lower my phone beneath the conference table before anyone notices the smile thre
