I settled at my desk and pulled up my files.
The new owner didn’t show on Monday. Or Tuesday.
By Wednesday, the mystery had become its own kind of torture. People jumped every time the elevator dinged, and conversations stopped mid-sentence when unfamiliar footsteps approached. Gerald’s complexion had progressed from red to purple—a color I was beginning to associate with imminent cardiac events.
I kept my head down and focused on my screen.
Thursday evening, Ethan found me still at my desk, surrounded by folders stacked so high they blocked my view of the window.
“Don’t tell me you’re planning to sleep here.”
I looked up. He was holding two cups of coffee, steam curling from the lids, watching me with an expression caught somewhere between concern and amusement.
“Sleep is for people who aren’t trying to prove themselves to supervisors who hate them,” I said.
He set one of the cups in front of me and pulled a chair over without asking. “What are we working on?”
“We?”
“I’m here. I have coffee. Might as well make myself useful.” He surveyed the chaos on my desk with raised eyebrows. “This is the gang thing Alice gave you?”
“The gang thing Alice dumped on me so she could focus on stealing my leads. Yes.”
“Charming woman.”
“The absolute best.”
We worked in silence for an hour, maybe more, sorting through the mess and organizing by date and location and connection type. He was good at this, I realized. Patient. He didn’t try to fill the quiet with chatter, just worked beside me and occasionally pointed out something I’d missed.
“Here.” He slid a page toward me. “This name appears twice. Different contexts, but look at the dates.”
I looked. He was right. The same name, two separate incidents, three weeks apart. It could be coincidence, or it could be the thread I’d been searching for.
“Ethan.” I stared at the page. “This might actually be something.”
“You’re welcome.” He grinned, leaning back in his chair. “You can buy me dinner sometime. To celebrate. When you crack the story.”
He held my gaze a beat too long, and I felt the weight of it, casual words but was asking me something, and we both knew it.
I should have felt excited. He was kind and funny and present, everything that should have been appealing. But my chest stayed quiet. No flutter, no spark, just a mild warmth that didn’t quite reach anywhere important.
“Maybe,” I said.
He smiled like that was enough.
Friday morning, the energy in the building shifted.
I felt it the moment I stepped off the elevator. People were moving faster, standing straighter. Someone had vacuumed. The executive floor, usually quiet as a library, hummed with activity visible even from three stories below.
He was here. The mysterious new owner had finally decided to grace us with his presence.
Whispers followed me to my desk. Young. Handsome. Currently holding court somewhere upstairs. Half the women in the building had suddenly remembered urgent business on the top floor.
I rolled my eyes and opened my laptop.
Twenty minutes later, Alice appeared at my desk.
She was smiling—not her usual smile, the one that meant she was about to make my life difficult. This was something else, something smug and satisfied that made my stomach tighten with warning.
