“Don’t lie to me, Ross.” She reaches out, her hand hovering near the sleeve of my shirt. Heat radiates from her. “I know how much pressure you’re under. Arthur is a monster. And you’ve been carrying this entire firm on your shoulders while everyone else just watches.”
“It’s the job,” I say, jaw set in a permanent clench. “It’s what we signed up for.”
“Is it?” She leans over the desk, her face coming into focus under the glare of the lights. I see the slight parting of her lips, the intensity in her gaze. “Yesterday I saw you in the breakroom with Chan. You were seconds from falling apart. You can’t keep doing this alone.”
“I’m not alone. I have a team.”
“Yes, and me.” She moves to the side of my chair, effectively pinning me between the desk and the glass wall. “But you’re not treating me like a teammate, Ross. You’re treating me like a deadline. You’re treating me like a problem you have to solve.”
I try to swivel my chair away, but she places a hand on the armrest, stopping the motion. Trapped, the office feels smaller. The glass walls press in, the blue light of the monitor reflecting in her eyes.
“The deadline is noon, Tabitha,” I say, my voice straining for a professional register. “If we don’t have the revised core specs, Arthur is going to lose his mind. We need to focus on the work.”
“I know your wife left.” Oh God.
She reaches out again, her fingers brushing the cuff of my shirt. It’s a tiny contact, a mere graze of skin against fabric, but it feels like a breach.
“I heard you,” she says.
The blood drains from my face. My heart does a slow, heavy roll. “What?” Oh no. Not now. I look away, staring at the dust motes dancing in the blue light. I want to disappear. I want todissolve into the pixels of the Dubai project. She heard all of it, including how I whispered her name instead of my wife’s.
She takes another step closer, her hip brushing the edge of the desk. “I heard what you said about Valentine’s. About what happened at home. How you thought of me during,”
“Not during, and I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”
“But I’m glad I did.” She leans in, the vanilla scent of her perfume becoming a suffocating cloud. “Because it confirms what I’ve been feeling for months. We’re the same, Ross. We both live for this. We both speak the same language. Your wife… she doesn’t understand the sacrifice. She doesn’t understand the beauty of the build. Though I do.”
I look back at her, and the panic finally takes hold. The gaze in her eyes isn’t sympathy. It’s a terrifying, misguided hunger. She thinks the slip was an invitation. She thinks my destruction is her opportunity.
“Tabitha, you don’t understand.”
“I understand everything,” she interrupts. She reaches up, her fingers grazing my jaw, tracing the line of my stubble. “I understand that you said my name because I’m the only one who’s truly there for you. I’m the one who stays. And I’m the one who’s going to help you fix this.”
She’s too close. I can feel her breath on my cheek. The office sounds, the phones, the footsteps in the hall, the hum of the printers, all fade into a dull roar.
I am frozen.
Tabitha doesn’t move back.
In fact, she moves in.
She slides around the corner of my mahogany desk with a predator’s grace, her hip brushing the edge where the wood meets the glass. She doesn’t care about the dropped files. She doesn’t care about the revised specs or the Emperor waiting inthe corner suite. She only cares about the wreckage in front of her.
She leans against the desk, her body mere inches from mine. One hand rests on the surface, fingers splayed near my own twitching hand, while the other hovers a hair’s breadth from my face.
“I know things are hard at home, Ross,” she says. Her voice drops to a register meant to be intimate, but it sounds like the scrape of an axe against stone. “I know she doesn’t get it. I’ve watched you for years. I’ve watched you give everything to these projects, and then I’ve watched you walk out that door like you’re going to a funeral. It’s not fair to you. A man like you needs a partner, not a weight.”
My jaw is so tight it feels like the bone might shatter.
I’m about to demand an apology when I realize this is all my fault. While I never did anything to lead Tabitha on, I’ve also been the one allowing my work to encroach upon my life.
“You think it’s a mistake, Ross, but it’s not. Your subconscious is trying to tell you what your ego is too afraid to admit. You don’t have to fight it.”
“Tabitha,” I croak. “You have this wrong.”
“Do I?” She smiles, a small, knowing curve of the lips that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Then why aren’t you pushing me away? Why are you sitting there looking at me like you’ve finally found a way out of the dark?”
The hell I am. She’s confused adoration with horror.
