the encounter
1409 Words
I saw a man rush toward the door at the far end of the lobby—was that an office? My chest lurched. I was supposed to be on the forty-sixth floor; the delivery slip said the last door in the lobby. That’s where he went. Should I go back? Maybe tell the manager? But what would I even say? He still hadn’t forgiven me for rejecting his foolish love proposal. My hands began to tremble.
A woman burst out of the office, tears streaking her face as she ran past me. My pulse hammered. Why did I always run into this man?
I moved slowly toward the door, every step heavy. Just as I reached out to push it open, someone else did—too fast. The tray tipped. Hot coffee lanced across the air and landed in a dark, steaming arc on a man’s suit and on the marble floor. Time slowed. The sound of porcelain striking tile was obscene in the hush that followed.
“What the hell?” His voice cracked like thunder. I started crying at once.
It was him—Howard—standing inches away. Not just the rumor, not the story told in whispers, but the man himself: rigid, furious, the same cold presence I had felt in the lobby before, only closer and impossibly larger in my world. Oh no. I can’t lose this job too.
I stepped backward instinctively. He advanced, each movement a deliberate promise of danger. My back met the lobby’s chill wall and for the first time I understood how small I was in his world.
He stopped in front of me. So close that his cologne—leather, citrus, something expensive—filled my head and made my knees go weak. A part of me felt absurdly, ashamedly—pulled toward him; another part screamed to run. My body betrayed me: my legs wobbled, my stomach fluttered with a swarm of terrified butterflies. This is wrong, I told myself. You should hate him, not—what is this in your chest?
His eyes traveled from the dark stain on his shirt to my face, slow and precise, like a blade scanning. I tried to look away, but it was as if something held me there, a magnetic tug I didn’t want to admit.
His finger brushed my lower lip. It was a light, casual graze, and I reacted before I could think—my tongue, stupid and obedient, met and licked his fingertip. The motion pulled us both into a silence so loud I heard my own breathing.
Howard snapped himself together as if embarrassed by the flicker of something he hadn’t meant to feel. He clenched his jaw and, with a swift, hard movement, seized my jaw and forced my eyes up to his.
“Don’t ever come up here again,” he said, each word a measured drop of ice. “Do you understand that? You are really bad at handling liquids.” His voice was menacing, deliberate, as though he was counting syllables on purpose.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, voice small. “I didn’t mean to ruin your—”
“Shut up and get out. Now.” The command cut me off.
I felt anger weld itself inside me, burning hot and ridiculous. How dare he stand there and threaten me like that? “Don’t just think so high of yourself,” I heard myself say. The words were louder than I intended. “You might be rich and powerful, but that doesn’t give you the f*****g right to make other people’s lives miserable. You’re just a living monster.”
For a heartbeat his expression shifted—surprise, maybe. Then the cold mask slid back on.
He turned, then stopped. Before he left, he stepped forward and his hand closed around my throat. I couldn’t breathe. Panic clawed through me as his fingers tightened like a vice; I shoved and clawed at him, but he was stronger. I tasted metal and hot fear and couldn’t find air. People blurred around us, distant and irrelevant. My fingers scrabbled at his wrist; he only gripped harder.
“Yeah,” he whispered into my ear—intimate and poisonous—“I’m a monster. So watch out. I will make your life more unbearable from now on.” Then he let go.
I crumpled to the floor, clutching my throat, salt-hot tears spilling down my face. The world tilted. I scrambled up and ran—out of the lobby, down the building steps, away from the place where my chest still stuttered from his hands.
Outside, the air hit me like hope and shame at once. I pressed both palms against my windpipe until my breathing steadyed. My legs trembled as if I had run a long race. My cheeks were wet. My whole body hummed with adrenaline and humiliation. I didn’t know where I was going; I only knew I had to put distance between me and Howard, because the thought of running into him again—of being so near that his breath brushed mine—made something in me shiver with a terrible, confusing ache.
I had lost my footing with more than just a tray.
…My whole body hummed with adrenaline and humiliation. I didn’t know where I was going; I only knew I had to put distance between me and Howard, because the thought of running into him again—of being so near that his breath brushed mine—made something in me shiver with a terrible, confusing ache.
I burst out of the glass doors, desperate for air, desperate to disappear. My shoes clattered against the marble of the grand entrance, but then—
Thud!
I slammed into something. Hard. Solid, unyielding.
I staggered back, clutching my chest, thinking I had run into a wall. But no—this wasn’t a wall. It was a man.
Slowly, breathless and trembling, I looked up.
He was tall—easily over six feet—with broad shoulders that filled the space in front of me. His presence was overwhelming, but not in the suffocating way Howard’s had been. No, this man radiated something else—something commanding yet strangely calm. My gaze traveled upward until it met his eyes.
Blue.
The kind of blue that didn’t just look at you—it pierced through you, leaving you bare. They were intense, startling against his sun-kissed skin, and for a moment I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
“Easy,” he said, his voice deep, smooth, edged with curiosity. He steadied me with one large hand at my elbow. His touch was firm but gentle, a direct contrast to the brutal grip still lingering on my throat from Howard.
The scent of him—fresh, clean, something woodsy—wrapped around me, and my stomach twisted with another rush of nervous butterflies. My body betrayed me again, reacting before my mind could catch up.
“I—” My words tangled. My lips trembled. I should’ve stepped back, apologized, anything—but I couldn’t tear my eyes from his.
He tilted his head slightly, studying me as though I were a puzzle dropped into his path. His gaze dipped, catching the faint redness around my throat, the dampness of my lashes, and his expression hardened with something that looked too much like concern.
“What happened to you?” he asked, voice quiet but sharp, as though he already suspected the answer.
I shook my head quickly, tears threatening again. “N-nothing. I just… I need to go.”
But when I tried to move past him, his arm shifted ever so slightly, blocking my way. Not forceful. Just protective.
And in that moment, my heart raced in a way that terrified me. Because it wasn’t just Howard’s face that would haunt me tonight—it was this stranger’s piercing blue eyes.
The city had just become more dangerous.
And more complicated.
- Writer
