“Iknow.” I step closer, lowering my voice. “I’m going to fix it. I just need—”
“More time.” Her voice is emotionless. “Right.”
“Bree—”
“It’s fine.” She presses her laptop against her side. “I knew what I was signing up for when I left that document on your desk. I guess I’d hoped...” She shakes her head and walks back toward her desk.
I watch her retreat. The rigid set of her shoulders. The way she doesn’t look back.
I’llmake it right.
Because she just saved my company, and all I’ve given her in return is more invisibility.
That’s going to change.
Soon.
I just hope it’s soon enough.
22
Bree
It’s 11 PM on Thursday night, and I’ve officially lost all feeling in my lower back.
Monday’s board vote feels like it happened in a different lifetime. Some distant era when I still had functional vertebrae and remembered what sunlight felt like.
My proposal passed.
Hooray.
Didn’t even get credit, but whatever.
Celebration lasted about thirty-three seconds before we were drowning in implementation logistics.
Tuesday was donor outreach strategies and legal entity structuring.
Wednesday was financial modeling and regulatory compliance checklists.
Today was... honestly, I’m not even sure what today was. Fourteen hours of implementation details, legal frameworks, donor communication templates, and enough coffee to give a horse cardiac arrhythmia. A blur of Excel spreadsheets and increasingly unhinged sticky notes to myself.
My eyes are doing that thing where they feel like they’re coated in sand, and I’m pretty sure I’ve read the same paragraph about “fiduciary oversight mechanisms” four times without absorbing a single word.
Nico is at seated at his desk in his glass-walled office, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms in that distracting way. The scars on his face catch the lamplight as he frowns at his laptop, and I watch his jaw work while he reads something that’s clearly pissing him off.
He glances up, sees me gazing at him. Then he closes his laptop and stands. He walks out of his office until he’s standing next to my desk.
“You’re still here,” he says.
“Astute observation.” I stretch my arms over my head, feeling my spine crack. “I was actually thinking of taking up residence under my desk. Really commit to the whole invisible secretary aesthetic.”
Guilt flickers across his expression.
“Come back to my place,” he says suddenly.
I blink. “What?”
“My apartment.” He closes his laptop, and I watch the muscles in his forearms shift as he does. “We can work there.”
