They stood in silence for a moment, watching the endless red stream of taillights on the bridges below.
"I was a bastard in there," he said quietly, not looking at her. "The pressure… it doesn't excuse it, but it explains it. You stood your ground. Most people don't."
"It's a good layout," Isla said, choosing her words carefully. "The one you wanted. But mine was good, too. It was just… a different story."
He finally turned to look at her, his stormy eyes reflecting the city lights. "I know." He took a sip of his tea. "This job… it can make you forget that there's more than one way to see things. You… remind me."
The admission was so unexpected, so vulnerable, that it stole her breath. This wasn't about work anymore. This was about him, and her, on a rooftop in the dark.
The line they had been toeing since he brought her that first cup of coffee was no longer a line. It was a threshold. And they were both standing on it, looking across.
Chapter 4:
The Rooftop Confessional
The city hummed below them, a constant, low-frequency reminder of the world they’d momentarily escaped. The tea warmed Isla’s hands, but it was Luca’s confession that sent a different kind of heat through her.
“Remind you of what?” she asked, her voice softer than she intended.
He let out a long breath, a plume of white in the cool air.“That it’s not just about the sharpest angle or the most provocative headline. It’s about the feeling.” He gestured vaguely with his mug towards the glittering skyline.“You looked at those clothes and you saw poetry. I looked at them and saw structure. Both can be right. I just… forget that sometimes.”
“You have a lot of people relying on you to be sure,” Isla offered, leaning against the railing beside him. The metal was cold even through her blouse.“It’s probably easier to just be the general.”
“It is,” he admitted.“But it’s also lonely.” He glanced at her, a quick, sideways look.“You’re the first person in a long time who’s argued back with an idea that was actually better than mine.”
The compliment landed not as professional praise, but as something far more intimate. It was an acknowledgment of her as an equal, not just an employee.
“What was your first job?” she asked, wanting to keep him talking, to keep this version of him from disappearing back behind the glass wall of his office.
A genuine laugh escaped him, a rough, pleasant sound.“I told you. I stapled a sleeve to a trouser leg.”
“I thought you were joking!”
“I wish I was. It was for a menswear editorial. The stylist nearly fired me on the spot. I had to spend the entire night with a seam ripper, my fingers bleeding, unpicking my own catastrophic mistake.” He shook his head, a wry smile on his face.“I learned two things that night. First, to double-check everything. And second, that I loved this world enough to endure the humiliation for it.”
He told her more. Stories of being a gopher in Paris, of fetching impossible coffees for impossible editors, of the gritty, unglamorous underbelly of the industry that existed long before the sharp suits and the corner office.
In return, she found herself telling him about her own start—interning at a tiny, fiercely independent magazine in Edinburgh, writing about knitwear and local artists, a world away from the global powerhouse of Chroma.
“Why London?” he asked.“Why Chroma?”
She looked out at the Shard, a silver needle piercing the night sky.“For this. The scale of it. The chance to be part of the conversation, not just observing it from the sidelines.” She paused, then added,“And for the chance to work with people like you. The ones who set the standard.”
He was quiet for a long moment.“Be careful what you wish for,” he said, his tone light but his eyes serious.
The shared silence that fell between them was comfortable, charged. The air felt thin, electric. Isla was acutely aware of every inch of space separating them. Six inches. It might as well have been a mile.
Luca pushed himself off the railing, turning to face her fully. The city lights haloed his frame.“We should go. Big day tomorrow.”
Disappointment, sharp and sweet, pierced her. The spell was breaking.
But as she moved to follow him, he stopped, his hand gently catching her wrist. His touch was warm, his thumb resting lightly on her pulse point. She was sure he could feel her heart hammering.
“For the record, Isla,” he said, his voice a low murmur meant only for her.“Your layout was better.”
Then he released her, and walked towards the door, leaving her on the rooftop with the taste of Earl Grey on her tongue and the ghost of his touch on her skin. The battle lines of the office were gone, utterly erased. In their place was a new, uncharted, and terrifyingly beautiful territory.
Chapter 5:
