His Cybernetic Secretary

20. Chrysanthemum

By the end of her first week, Chrys had learned that Holden Minerals was considerably more complicated than the job description had suggested—and considerably more interesting. She had also learned that Mara Vale and Elias Grant were quickly becoming her favorite people in the building.

The two security officers had taken to her almost immediately, each in their own way. Mara was sharp, confident, and observant, with an uncanny ability to notice everything happening around her without appearing to look at anything at all. Elias was quieter, thoughtful, and possessed the kind of dry humor that seemed to appear at precisely the right moment. Between the two of them, Chrysanthemum had found an unexpected sense of comfort on the twelfth floor, and when she called to check in with the kids they were floored to hear she had made friends.

She had also made herself useful.

Very useful.

By Friday afternoon, she had stopped thirty-four separate attempts to breach Holden Minerals’ mainframe. Eleven had originated through offshore networks, several had been sophisticated enough to make even the existing security team nervous, and none had made it farther than the digital walls Chrysanthemum had quietly constructed around the company’s most sensitive systems.

SYS: WEEKLY PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT: EXCEPTIONAL.

Thank you.

There was a brief pause.

SYS: YOU ARE WELCOME. I WAS COMPLIMENTING MYSELF.

Chrys smiled despite herself. Of course you were.

SYS: WE ARE A TEAM.

That doesn’t make it less annoying.

*SYS: I AM LEARNING THAT HUMANS SOMETIMES RESIST POSITIVE AFFIRMATION.

She almost laughed.

Mara had caught her talking to herself twice already. The first time, she’d simply raised an eyebrow. The second time, she’d leaned against the security desk and said, “You know, if you start answering yourself out loud, I’m charging you rent.”

Chrys had liked her immediately.

Her work hadn’t stopped with cybersecurity. She had negotiated fifty-seven new drilling sites during her first week, thirty of them through an approach nobody had initially thought to take. Chrys had found landowners who were struggling beneath mounting land fees, buried in financial filings, property records, legal notices, and information hidden throughout the deeper layers of the internet. They weren’t necessarily looking to sell. Many simply couldn’t afford to keep what they had.

Holden Minerals gave them another option.

The company purchased the land, relocated the families to clean, safe properties, and provided enough financial support for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. It was still a business transaction, but one where the people on the other side didn’t have to walk away ruined. Times were difficult, and Chrys understood that more than she expected.

SYS: EMPATHY RESPONSE DETECTED.

Don’t make it weird.

*SYS: I AM MERELY OBSERVING YOUR HUMAN EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

You’re becoming insufferable.

SYS: THANK YOU.

She smiled again.

Then her thoughts drifted somewhere they had been going far too often.

Xavier.

He had been gone since the morning after that evening in the office.

She remembered it with uncomfortable clarity. The tension between them had been building all night, until something inside him had finally seemed to snap. Not violently. Not toward her. If anything, it had looked like a man suddenly realizing he was losing control of something he desperately needed to keep contained. He had shut himself off from her so completely that Chrysanthemum hadn’t known what to do with the sudden absence of him.

So she’d stayed.

She’d worked for several more hours after he’d left, telling herself it was because there was work to finish. What she hadn’t known was that Xavier had continued watching her through the building’s security system long after he had disappeared from the floor. He had watched her move from desk to desk, watched her work, watched her pause to stare at the city through the glass, and watched her finally leave the building alone in the early hours of the morning.

She hadn’t known.

And somehow, knowing it now made her chest feel strangely tight.

Then Xavier had returned.

And the moment Chrys stepped onto the thirteenth floor, she knew he was there.

He stood near the windows, his back partially turned toward her, dressed as impeccably as ever. There was something different in his posture, though. A tension she recognized now. Something restrained.

She kept her distance. If he had needed space, she would respect it.

That was what she told herself as she approached.

“Chrysanthemum.”

She loved the way her full name dripped like honey from his lips. She stopped and turned toward him. “Yes?”

Xavier looked at her for several seconds before speaking. “I owe you an apology.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “For what?”

“For the way I left things.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

“I do.” His voice was quieter than usual. “I shouldn’t have shut you out like that.”

Her system immediately responded.

SYS: EMOTIONAL RESPONSE DETECTED.

Not now.

She kept her expression neutral.

Xavier stepped closer. “I wasn’t handling the situation well.”

“I understand.”

The answer seemed to frustrate him more than anything else could have.

“You’re not going to ask why?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Chrys gave him a small, almost apologetic smile. “Because if you wanted me to know, you would tell me.”

Something shifted in his expression.

She turned toward the elevator. “I have work downstairs.”

“Chrys.”

She stopped.

When she looked back, Xavier was already moving toward her.

His hand closed gently around hers.

The contact was nothing.

It was everything.

Every system in her body seemed to come alive at once. Her breath caught, her pulse accelerated, and a strange electric warmth raced beneath her skin.

SYS: CONTACT DETECTED.

SYS: NEURAL SURGE DETECTED.

The plates brightened.

SYS: CORE RESPONSE EXCEEDS NORMAL PARAMETERS.

Xavier froze.

His eyes dropped from hers to the faint glow spreading beneath her skin, then back to her face. He’d seen it. There was no hiding it.

The system had betrayed her before she could.

Another pulse of light traveled beneath the delicate plating at her throat, responding to the contact of his hand as though every circuit in her body had suddenly recognized something it couldn’t explain.

Xavier’s expression changed.

Not surprise anymore. Recognition. His eyes darkened as he realized the truth; she was affected by him, and just as profoundly as he was affected by her.

His thumb remained against her lip, barely touching now. Chrys’ breathing became shallow.

SYS: CONTACT IS CAUSING UNSTABLE SYSTEM RESPONSE.

I know.

SYS: RECOMMENDATION: DISTANCE IMMEDIATELY.

Xavier’s gaze held hers.

Neither moved.

The glow beneath her skin pulsed once more.

His eyes followed it.

Then he looked back into hers, and something almost dangerous settled across his face.

He knew now, and somehow, that was infinitely more terrifying than not knowing.

Chrys caught his wrist gently and lowered his hand. She stepped backward. Neither of them spoke.

She turned toward the elevator, every circuit still humming beneath her skin.

Just before the doors closed, she looked back.

Xavier hadn’t moved.

His eyes were still fixed on her.

On the faint glow disappearing beneath her skin.

The elevator doors slid shut.

SYS: CHRYSANTHEMUM?

What?

A pause.

SYS: I BELIEVE WE MAY HAVE A PROBLEM.

She stared at her reflection in the polished elevator doors.

Her lips still tingled.

“I know.”