Chapter Four - She Finds Out
786 Words
I have a rule about surprises.
I hate them.
After what happened in that clearing three years ago, I decided: no more surprises. No more walking into situations unprepared. No more letting people have information about my life before I do.
Damien Voss just broke that rule.
* * *
It's Wednesday morning.
Day two.
I arrive at my desk at eight forty-five with coffee from the goods machine on floor thirty-one — Oliver gave me detailed directions yesterday, like he was sending me on a quest — and I open my laptop.
There is a message waiting.
Internal system. From the forty-second floor.
Sent at seven twenty-two in the morning.
Ms. Adkins. I need to speak with you today. Not about work. — D.V.
I stare at it.
Not about work.
Four words, and my heart is doing something embarrassing.
"You've gone pale again," Oliver says, without looking up from his screen.
"I'm fine."
"You said that yesterday, too."
"I was fine yesterday as well."
"The CEO messaged you before eight, didn't he?"
It's not a question.
I look at him. "How did you—"
"You have the same face you had yesterday when you got the Meridian assignment." He finally looks up. "The face that says something is happening, and you are refusing to have feelings about it."
I close my laptop.
"I'm going to get more coffee," I say.
"You literally just got coffee."
"Oliver."
"On the Meridian account," he says immediately. "Yes. Absolutely."
* * *
I replied to the message at nine-fifteen.
I'm available at lunch. — M.A.
His reply comes in four seconds.
Come to the forty-second floor at twelve-thirty. — D.V.
I look at the message.
The forty-second floor.
The place where this whole mess started.
Of course,
I think.
Of course, it's there.
* * *
At twelve-thirty, I stepped off the elevator onto the forty-second floor for the second time in two days.
It is exactly as I remember. Silent. Dark marble. That charged, waiting for quality in the air.
Damien is at his desk this time, not at the window.
He stands when I walk in.
I notice that. He stands.
"Ms. Adkins." He gestures to the chair across from him. "Please sit down."
"I'll stand," I say. "You said this wasn't about work."
"It's not."
"Then say it."
He looks at me for a moment. Something moves in his expression — respect, maybe. Like, he appreciates that I came here and asked for the thing directly instead of circling it.
"Lucas Vane contacted me," he says. "Yesterday. By phone."
The name hits me like cold water.
I do not let it show.
"He said it was personal," Damien continues. "He said he wanted to know if you were all right." A pause. "I told him you were an employee of Voss Industries and that if he wished to contact you, that was your decision to make — not his, and not mine."
Silence.
I look at him.
He looks back.
"You didn't tell me yesterday," I say.
"I found out late yesterday evening. I did not want to tell you by message. I wanted to tell you in person." Another pause. "I thought you deserved to know before it became something you found out by accident."
Three years.
Three years of building walls and keeping secrets and people deciding for me what I needed to know and when I needed to know it.
And this man — this person I have known for two days — came to me directly.
Told me the truth.
Gave me the choice.
"Thank you," I say.
My voice comes out steadier than I expected.
"What are you going to do?" he asks.
And that's the thing about him. He asks. He doesn't tell me. He doesn't decide. He asks.
"I'm going to call him," I say. "Today. And I'm going to be very clear."
Damien nods once.
"If he contacts me again," he says, "I'll let you know immediately."
"He won't need to," I say. "After today."
I turn to leave.
"Ms. Adkins."
I stop.
"For what it's worth," Damien says, behind me, "whatever he said three years ago — he was wrong."
I don't turn around.
I can't.
Because if I do, he might see that those four words just broke through something I have been holding together with both hands for three years.
"I know," I say.
And I walk back to the elevator.
And this time, when the warmth rises in my chest — that low, persistent, unwelcome warmth — I don't tell it to stop.
I just let it be there.
Just for a moment.
Just for the length of a forty-two-floor elevator ride.
- Writer
