“There’s nothing to explain,” I say, cutting him off. “If this meeting is about projections, I’m happy to review them. Otherwise, I have deliverables due by end of day.”
His glare darkens. “You don’t get to dismiss me like that.”
“I do if this is not about work. Or have professional boundaries suddenly become optional again?”
He steps closer—not crowding me, not touching—but close enough that my body remembers him far better than my mind wants to.
“You’re angry.”
I laugh, the sound sharp and high. “What gave it away?”
“I want you to look at me.”
“Why? So you can tell me again why it didn’t mean anything? Or why I shouldn’t care what I saw yesterday?”
His jaw grinds. “I didn’t let her touch me.”
“You didn’t stop her.”
Silence blankets the room, and for the first time since he walked in, I see the crack in Donovan’s usually impenetrable armor.
“At work,” I say quietly, forcing distance back between us, “you don’t get to explain your personal life to me anymore. And I don’t get to react to it.”
“So this is punishment?” he asks, voice dangerously calm.
“No. It’s not. It’s survival.”
His gray eyes hold mine, unapologetically intense. “You don’t get to run from me, Sinclair.”
“Watch me.”
And for a long, razor-edged moment, neither of us budges an inch.
The hottest man in Manhattan. And the woman standing her ground in front of him.
Finally, he exhales and straightens his cuffs. “Very well,” he says coolly. “We’ll discuss Chicago.”
Donovan moves to the head of the table but doesn’t sit. He never does when he’s assertingcontrol.
He plants one hand on the back of a chair instead, posture relaxed, watch glinting under the LEDs as if we’re not standing on emotional fault lines.
“Chicago,” he says evenly. “Walk me through your revised market assumptions.”
I tap my tablet awake. Professional mask back in place.
Now this? This, I can do. Probably because I’ve been doing this my whole life—excelling while bleeding internally.
I talk about the original model for the Titan Industries expansion—the six-month stabilization that I’ve shortened down to four. I carry on about the updated labor cost data. The municipal incentives finalized last week. The revenue, which is down in the short-term and up in the long.
When I finally glance up, Donovan’s heated gaze is on me, unmoving.
I clear my throat. “Chicago isn’t the fast win everyone wants it to be. But it’s solid. Predictable. Scalable.”
“Predictable,” he echoes.
“Yes.”
Something flashes in his eyes—irritation, acknowledgment—but he lets it pass.
