Chapter 9
Ross
My office is a fishbowl for the exhausted. As I sink into my Aeron chair, the mesh seat groans under a weight that feels far heavier than my own. The monitor glares like a blue eye, staring me down. On the screen, the Dubai project sits in a three-dimensional rendering: a cantilevered monstrosity that looks less like a building and more like a silver thorn tower, poised to pierce the sky. Beautiful in its own way.
The blueprints are spread across my desk. But when I look at them, my cynical self feels nothing but cold revulsion. This is what I almost traded Margot for, this series of geometric calculations and sustainability specs. I pick up my coffee mug, but the liquid inside is a dark, oily film, cold since yesterday.
The “nuclear solution.” Chan’s words hum low in my brain. To walk away from the partnership, the corner office, the life Arthur Keane dangles like a golden carrot, it’s the only currency I have left to buy her back.
Last night, I found myself parked down the block from Wren's place at two in the morning, the engine idling. I stared at her dark window until my vision blurred, my hand hovering over the car door handle. Every instinct screamed at me to go to her, to beg. But I couldn’t go to her empty-handed. I couldn’t show up with mere apologies, I’d already done that.
I need the win, the title, the security, the proof that I did it all for her. Until I can lay that at her feet, I have no right to knock.
I check my watch. 8:12 a.m. The seconds hand sweeps in a jagged, stuttering motion.
My fingers twitch on the keyboard. I try to focus on the north-facing atrium, but the numbers remain static. Yet every time I close my eyes, I see the ghost of Margot’s face in the bedroom. I hear my own voice betraying her.
Tabitha.
Focus, Ross.
But there’s no time, the door to my office opens.
I don’t look up immediately. I assume it’s an intern with a fresh set of site plans, or a courier with a delivery. But the air in the room changes. It sharpens. The scent of vanilla and expensive stationery drifts across the desk. Not a courier.
I glance up.
Tabitha Moreno stands in the doorway. She is, as always, a masterpiece of professionalism. Her dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail so tight it looks painful, her sharp features sharpened by the harsh fluorescent lights. She wears a charcoal blazer that fits as if tailored.
When I notice the stack of thick folders against her chest, I relax.
Good, because I don’t have the emotional capacity to discuss anything but work right now.
She doesn’t speak at first. She only studies me, her eyes tracing the wreckage of my face, the rumpled mess of my shirt, the desperation I can no longer hide behind a monitor.
Then she steps inside.
“What do you need?” I ask.
Rather than answer, she reaches behind her, her hand finding the handle. She pulls the door shut before twisting the lock.
Click.
The sound is as loud as a scream, Margot’s scream inside my head. It echoes off the glass walls, a definitive, percussive end to my privacy. My pulse quickens.
“Ross,” she says. Her voice is calm, but there’s a resonance I haven’t heard before.
“Tabitha,” I say, and the name feels like a hot coal in my mouth. Immediately, I want to spit it out.
I pull my hands back from the keyboard, fingers curling into fists. “The door. Why did you lock it?”
“We need to talk about the Dubai adjustments,” she says, ignoring my question. She walks toward the desk, stride confident, and sets the folder down on top of my blueprints, covering the north-facing atrium with a stack of new demands. “Arthur is leaning on the engineering team. They want to shave another four percent off the structural steel in the core. It’s a gamble.”
“Everything is a gamble,” I mutter. I check my watch again, 8:14 a.m. Two minutes feels like two hours.
She moves closer, circling the edge of the desk. “You look terrible. Did you sleep at all?”
“I’m fine,” I snap, not to be rude, but because she’s not my wife, and that’s the only woman I want. “Been a long night. The specs are almost done.” I reach for the mouse, trying to look busy, trying to retreat into the safety of the Silver Thorn Tower.
