The Interview
835 Words
The studio lights were warm, almost too warm, but Leeore showed no discomfort.
He sat with perfect posture, hands resting lightly, expression calm in the way only practiced discipline could create. Across from him, Susan smiled into the camera with professional ease, papers neatly aligned on her lap.
“And that is how you expanded your engineering firm across multiple regions,” she said. “Very impressive, Mr. Leeore.”
A slight nod. “We focused on systems that solve real problems. Growth followed clarity.”
Simple. Controlled. No wasted words.
Terry, seated just off camera, kept her eyes sharp. She had already briefed Susan earlier. No personal questions. No history. No emotional territory. Leeore never shut down harder than when that line was crossed.
But interviews always had their own hunger.
Susan shifted slightly. Her tone softened, almost carefully casual.
“You’ve achieved a lot,” she said. “But I think our audience is also curious… is there someone special in your life?”
Terry stiffened instantly.
Her pen stopped mid note.
No. That question was not in the list.
Her gaze flicked toward Susan, warning already forming in her expression.
But it was too late.
Susan had already asked.
A quiet pause fell over the studio.
Leeore did not move.
Not immediately.
His expression remained intact, but something in the air changed. Subtle. Like a room holding its breath without realizing it.
Terry leaned forward slightly, whispering under her breath. “I told her not to go there…”
Susan waited, still smiling, unaware of the weight she had just dropped into the room.
Leeore finally looked down, just for a moment.
A single blink longer than usual.
When he spoke, his voice was steady, but lower than before.
“I prefer to keep my personal life separate from my work.”
A polite answer. The kind that ends conversations without offense.
But it did not end anything inside him.
For a fraction of a second, something uninvited surfaced.
A memory. A face. A moment that did not belong in a boardroom or a television studio.
Then it was gone again.
Terry exhaled slowly, relieved but uneasy. She had seen that pause before. And it never meant nothing.
Susan smiled lightly, trying to recover the flow. “Of course. We respect that.”
Leeore gave a small nod.
But his hands, resting so calmly on his knee, had tightened just slightly.
And for reasons he would not name out loud, the interview suddenly felt harder to breathe through than any business negotiation he had ever won.
After the interview ended, the studio lights dimmed and the crew slowly broke formation, but Leeore remained composed as he stood first. He adjusted his suit with quiet precision, gave a brief nod to the staff, then walked out without looking back.
Terry followed a few steps behind, tablet clutched tightly to her chest. Her mind replayed the moment Susan asked the question she had clearly been told to avoid. Her stomach stayed tight, expecting consequences.
In the hallway, Leeore stopped.
Terry froze instantly.
His gaze landed on her, sharp and unreadable. The kind of look that made even confident people second guess themselves. She braced for it. A warning. A reprimand. Something about control being broken.
Instead, his voice stayed calm.
“Send me my next schedules.”
Terry blinked, caught off guard. “Yes, sir. Right away.”
She quickly checked her tablet, forcing her hands to stay steady. “Board meeting at four. Engineering review after that.”
“Noted.”
That was it.
No anger. No mention of the interview. No sign he even cared about what just happened.
And somehow, that silence made Terry more uneasy than any scolding would have.
She hesitated, guilt finally pushing through her restraint. “Sir, about earlier I did try to prevent the question I informed them—”
“Continue with your duties,” Leeore said, not harsh, but final.
Terry stopped speaking immediately. “Yes, sir.”
He turned and walked toward his office.
Terry stayed behind for a moment, swallowing the apology she never got to finish. Relief and guilt mixed together in a way she did not like.
Leeore entered his office and closed the door behind him.
The room was quiet, glass walls showing the city moving endlessly outside. Everything looked organized, controlled, predictable. Just like him.
He loosened his tie slightly and sat behind his desk. A file waited for him, already prepared by his assistant.
He opened it.
Reports. Numbers. Projections. Decisions that normally came naturally.
His eyes moved across the pages, but nothing stayed in focus.
The interview question lingered longer than it should have.
Someone special.
He turned another page.
Nothing registered.
Leeore paused, fingers resting lightly on the file. His expression remained composed, but his thoughts were not.
For a brief moment, the clarity he had built his entire life on felt slightly out of reach.
And he hated that he could not explain why.
- Writer
