By pride.
By money.
I’d hated it, every polished, artificial piece of the life my father tried to script for me, and I’d been determined to carve my own path. So I had.
“How long have you been in Seattle?” I asked.
“A year,” she said. “I moved here when I got the job at Sentinel.”
I paused, fork halfway to my mouth.
A year. That was nothing in this city…A year.
She’d worked for me for a year.
Jesus.
She’d been in my building—on my payroll, in my orbit—for twelve damn months, and I hadn’t noticed her the way I should’ve. Not until she got on the wrong elevator. Not until she looked up at me with those wide, startled eyes and turned the prettiest shade of red I’d ever seen.
And now she was sitting here in my grandfather’s bistro, licking salmon off her lower lip like she wasn’t unraveling me thread by thread.
That was nothing in this city. Most people didn’t last six months. Seattle chewed through transplants the way my father had chewed through assistants—quickly and without any remorse.
But Mira… she’d shown up every day, worked hard, and kept her head down until the day she couldn’t. The day she saved my company.
“Where are you from?”
She took a bite of her salmon, and the way she closed her eyes and moaned in appreciation had me hard in an instant. I’d never met anyone who I’d had this reaction to. I wasn’t able to make sense of it.
“Idaho.”
“That’s a change.”
She nodded. “I needed something different. There wasn’t much for me there, so after a couple years of community college, I enrolled in Western Washington. Transferred in with whatever credits I salvaged.”
I lifted a brow. “Bellingham.”
“Yeah.” She smiled faintly. “My family’s simple, and I never fit so I went somewhere I wasn’t looked at like I was freak. I worked part-time, lived in a tiny apartment with two other girls, and tried not to think about how many student loans I was racking up.”
She gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “It took me longer than it should have to graduate because I cut back part time. Rent went up, and I just got to the point I didn’t want to borrow anymore money. I kept at it, I just didn’t want to go home, so I made it work.
She said it so casually—like she didn’t realize how fucking impressive it was to uproot her whole life, chase a city this size with no connections, and land a job at a company that chewed people up as fast as it hired them.
“You took the job,” I said, my voice quieter than I intended.
“I did.” She reached for her wine again, swirling it gently. “Packed everything I owned in my car and drove here. Didn’t know anyone. Didn’t know the city. I was terrified.” Her cheeks warmed with a shy smile. “Still kind of am, sometimes.”
Something inside me shifted. So much for me finding something to not like about her. Something to help me get her out of my system.
She’d made a life out of stepping into discomfort and holding her ground.
“You made it,” I told her.
Her eyes lifted to mine, soft, searching. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I guess I did.”
For a moment, neither of us looked away.
Then I leaned forward, unable to help myself.
