My chest tightens, my pulse punches low.
I’ve stared down billion-dollar deals without a flicker. Yet here I am, undone by the way she’s looking at me.
Her lips part with the faintest smile, and I feel something shift. As if a crack just opened in the walls I’ve spent a lifetime fortifying.
She remains silent for a moment, and I worry that we’ve sprung too much on her at once. We can be an intimidating bunch of men, but that’s not who we truly are.
The holidays are a storm I’ve never escaped—companies desperate to cut ties before the year turns, contracts burning at both ends.
Normally I muscle through it alone. This year, though, I need someone. And for reasons I don’t care to name out loud, it has to be her.
Her silence pulls me back to memories I don’t often touch. My father and I at the kitchen table, ledger books open, his big handguiding mine across numbers. “Be steady,” he’d say. “Be sharp. And never let them see you sweat.”
He gave me everything he had. My mother gave me nothing at all, unless you count the parting lesson that people you trust most are the quickest to leave.
So I built walls. Women came and went. My bed was warm enough, my office busier still, but the nights were cold and too quiet. I told myself I liked it that way—work was cleaner, steadier, less messy than love.
Until this woman with blue-fire eyes walked into my boardroom and smiled like she belonged here.
She smiles widely and stands from the chair. “I am up to the challenge. I won’t let you down, Mr. Clark,” she exclaims. She walks around the filled chairs and meets me at mine, causing me to stand and look down at her short stature.
Elizabeth holds out her hand, and I take it into mine for a gentle shake. Her skin is soft and feels perfect against mine. With a noticeably large smile, she nods at the other men and exits the office, leaving me completely speechless.
Few things in life leave me in such a state, and it’s odd not to have the normal complete control that I’m used to.
Maybe this is a sign for me to keep my head up and pay attention to things around me from now on, because she completely caught me off guard.
As I continue to stare at the door she just exited through, I feel a hand patting down on my shoulder. “Well, what do you think? Does she meet the Clark standards?” Turning, Chase grins in myface, and it takes all I have not to laugh out loud, but as the office empties and it’s just us, I let a few chuckles out.
“Man,” I begin. “I can’t believe I haven’t noticed her for a year. I must really be on autopilot around here.”
“Well, just know that your best friend came through for you…again.” Laughing, Chase leaves the office, and I’m left alone to collect my thoughts.
Chase has been my anchor for a decade. He’s loyal, sharp, forged under my father’s hand as much as mine. I’d trust him with my life, which is why his choice to put Elizabeth in my path instead of stepping in himself feels too convenient.
He knows exactly what he’s doing. And I can’t bring myself to care. For the first time in years, I’m looking forward to Monday.
As I step out of the conference room, I catch sight of her near the front desk, animated, telling the other women about her meeting.
She glows. Not in some delicate, girlish way, but in a way that makes the air bend toward her. Laughter follows her like a current. Heads turn.
My chest tightens with a sharp, unrelenting certainty: she will never be invisible to me again. I won’t allow it.
3
ELIZABETH
I want to scream. I want to dance down the street like some Broadway extra. I want to cry, but in the good way; the mascara-smudging, clutch-your-chest kind of way.
By the time I kill the engine and jog up the cracked steps to our apartment building, I’m still buzzing.
A promotion. An actual promotion.
For a year I prayed for something, anything, and it happened today when I least expected it. Hard work, dumb luck, fate… who cares? I’ll take it.
Even the miserable climb to the third floor feels easy tonight. My boots click against the concrete, my bag bounces on my shoulder, and for once, I don’t curse the dead elevator. The pep in my step could carry me all the way to the roof.
Halfway up, I dig into my tote and find the little foil-wrapped truffle I stashed from the office spread. Victory chocolate. I pop it into my mouth, let the dark sweetness melt slow on my tongue, and of course, my mind slides right back to Jonathan Clark.
