Chapter Three: Unspoken Rules
1363 Words
Chapter Three: Unspoken Rules
Isla hadn’t slept.
Well, not technically. She’d closed her eyes around 3 AM and woken up forty minutes later with the imprint of her laptop keyboard on her cheek, along with a fresh wave of regret.
Regret because she’d allowed herself to see Adrian Maddox last night—not just as a cold CEO or an inconvenient landlord, but as a man who had once lost something. Someone.
A garden. A mother. A memory.
She hated how much that had stayed with her.
Now, sitting at her desk with her third cup of coffee in hand and her hair frizzing from the rain she walked through that morning, Isla felt…exposed. Raw. And somehow, entirely off her game.
“You look like a haunted intern,” Jules, her favorite coworker and best friend, said as he passed her desk with a doughnut in hand.
“I feel like I aged ten years overnight.”
“Please. You’ve had that existential crisis look since you walked in here three months ago.”
Isla managed a half-smile. “Do I still have the keyboard lines on my face?”
“Only emotionally.”
She sighed and took a sip. The warm caffeine barely touched her exhaustion.
Jules slid into the chair across from her. “Okay, spill. This is more than creative fatigue. This is man trouble.”
She snorted. “You wish it was that simple.”
“Oh, sweetie, it never is. Let me guess—tall, emotionally unavailable, and brooding?”
“He owns the building.”
Jules blinked. “Oh no. The Maddox guy?”
She nodded.
“The one with the bone structure of a fallen angel and the personality of cold metal?”
“Yes.”
Jules leaned closer, eyes wide. “Did you sleep with him?”
“God, no!” she hissed, glancing around. “He told me a tragic story about his dead mother and then looked at me like he was trying to rewrite my DNA with eye contact.”
Jules gave a slow whistle. “So foreplay, basically.”
“Jules.”
“I’m just saying, emotional vulnerability from a billionaire? That’s practically a marriage proposal.”
She covered her face. “Don’t make this worse.”
But as ridiculous as it sounded, the problem wasn’t that Adrian Maddox was suddenly more than a rich annoyance. It was that Isla wasn’t sure she could go back to seeing him that way.
Because that moment in the office, when he’d confessed something real—she had changed.
And she didn’t like it.
---
By midafternoon, the design pitch was due for a preliminary review. Isla had put the final touches on the presentation, knowing full well that every detail would be picked apart by the man whose name was literally on the deed.
Melinda stood at the head of the smaller conference room, already sweating in her heels. “Let’s keep this efficient,” she whispered before Adrian walked in. “Smile. Be polite. Don’t challenge him.”
Isla didn’t respond. But her silence was probably louder than any promise she could’ve made.
Adrian entered without ceremony, crisp in a charcoal suit, hair slightly wind-blown like he’d just stepped out of a helicopter—though he probably had.
His gaze swept the room and landed, as always, right on her.
“Let’s see it,” he said simply.
Isla stood, clicker in hand, and began her presentation.
She showed the new logo design—modern serif with subtle curves, framed in a rectangular badge that nodded to the building’s architecture. The colors had changed, too—cool tones with hints of warm gold, symbolizing elegance with approachability. She even mocked up versions of new signage, window decals, and business cards.
Adrian said nothing.
Melinda smiled too hard. “Very professional, Isla. We aimed for clean and timeless, and she delivered.”
“I wasn’t aiming for clean and timeless,” Isla said, surprising even herself. “I was aiming for honest.”
She turned back to the screen. “This building has character. It has corners and cracks and stories built into its foundation. It deserves more than sterile branding. It deserves something true.”
Adrian raised an eyebrow. “And truth is…green and gold?”
Isla met his gaze. “Truth is contrast. Like this building. Like you.”
Silence. Long and sharp-edged.
Then—he stood.
“I want to speak with Ms. Carter. Alone.”
Melinda’s eyes darted. “Of course.”
Everyone filed out quickly, eager to escape the tension.
Adrian waited until the door clicked shut before speaking.
“You’re either brave or reckless.”
“Usually both,” she replied.
He stepped closer. “You don’t filter anything, do you?”
“Should I? You clearly don’t.”
He stared at her for a long beat. “You challenged me. Again.”
She lifted her chin. “Because I believe in what I made.”
“I know.” His voice was quieter now. “And that’s why it worked.”
She blinked. “Wait—what?”
“I’m approving it.”
She blinked again. “Are you feeling okay?”
He didn’t smile, but his eyes held something like amusement. “Don’t get used to it.”
Her lips parted. “You liked the presentation?”
“I liked that you didn’t pander.”
That stunned her into silence.
Adrian reached past her and clicked off the monitor, the closeness between them electric. She could feel the heat of him, the scent of his cologne—sharp and woodsy, like some forbidden forest you weren’t supposed to wander into.
“Most people tell me what I want to hear,” he said. “You don’t.”
She swallowed. “Is that…a compliment?”
“Take it however you like.”
His hand lingered on the remote, his gaze on her lips for a fraction of a second too long.
Isla’s heart thudded. “You’re playing with fire.”
His voice dropped. “Maybe I like the burn.”
A beat passed.
Then, mercifully—or not—the door creaked open.
Melinda peeked inside. “Is everything alright?”
Adrian stepped back. “Perfect.”
---
That evening, Isla wandered into her favorite bookstore two blocks from her apartment—the kind with creaky floors, tiny paper bookmarks, and a bell that jingled whenever you walked through the door. She needed space. Distance. Sanity.
She didn’t expect to find him there.
Adrian Maddox, browsing the psychology section, one hand tucked into his coat pocket, the other flipping through the pages of a hardcover like he did it every day.
She froze.
He looked up.
And for the first time, he smiled.
A real one. Small. Tired. But real.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, stepping closer.
“I read,” he said simply.
“In between soul-crushing meetings?”
“I’m multi-talented.”
She tried not to laugh. Failed.
He held up a book. “This one’s about personality types.”
She raised a brow. “Trying to understand your own lack of one?”
His grin widened. “Maybe.”
They stood there, in the narrow aisle, surrounded by paper and quiet. No conference tables. No work pressure. Just… space.
“You ever think about what you’d be doing if you weren’t… this?” she asked softly.
He looked around. “You mean rich, emotionally repressed, and annoying?”
She smirked. “Yeah. That.”
He looked down at the book. “Maybe I’d teach. Or renovate old homes. Something quiet. Something real.”
Her heart ached. “You don’t think what you do now is real?”
He hesitated. “I think sometimes I forget how to make it feel that way.”
She didn’t reply. Just reached for a nearby copy of The Little Prince and held it out to him.
“Start with this,” she said. “You might remember.”
He took it. “I haven’t read this since I was a kid.”
“You’re overdue.”
Their fingers brushed.
And something shifted.
Again.
- Writer
