By the time Elena reached her office, the story had already made its way through the floor in the particular hushed, gleeful way office gossip always traveled — Bella Reyes was in Alexander's office, the door was closed, and no one had seen Elena's reaction yet, which meant everyone was very carefully pretending not to be waiting for it.
Elena set her bag down, opened her laptop, and did not go find out.
It took forty minutes. She was halfway through a media brief when Alexander appeared in her doorway, jaw set in the particular tight line that meant he'd rather be doing almost anything else.
"You heard," he said.
"The whole floor heard." Elena didn't look up from her screen, though she wasn't reading a word of it. "How was your reunion?"
"Brief. And not remotely what it apparently lo
