He walked away, and I stared at my coffee and tried to convince myself that I hadn’t just told the biggest lie of my life.
Lunch arrived at noon.
For everyone. Again.
The entire newsroom floor descended into chaos as delivery people streamed in carrying bags and boxes, enough food to feed an army. Jack Specter, apparently, had decided to be generous again.
‘Boosting morale,’ I thought sourly. ‘Being a good boss.
People were gathering in clusters, opening containers, exclaiming over the quality of the food. It was good—I could smell it from my desk, something savory and rich that made my stomach growl despite my determination to ignore it.
I wasn’t going to eat it. I wasn’t going to accept anything from him, not even something as simple as lunch.
But then Alice walked past my desk with her container, shooting me a look that clearly said‘too good to eat with the rest of us?’
Ethan was already halfway through his meal, and everyone else was eating and laughing and I was sitting there like the weird one, the difficult one who couldn’t just accept a free lunch without making it a whole thing.
Fine.
I grabbed a container labeled “Pauline Wells” I raised a brow, craning my neck to see if the others also got their names written on theirs.
It was just mine.
I opened the lid and my heart skipped.
Grilled chicken salad. Extra avocado. No tomatoes. Dressing on the side. A small container of those honey-roasted almonds I used to be obsessed with, tucked into the corner like an afterthought.
This wasn’t the same meal everyone else had gotten.
This was my meal.
The one Jack used to order for me in college, when he’d show up and drag me away from whatever paper I was writing because I forgot to eat again.
My throat tightened. My eyes burned as I blinked back memories I didn’t ask for.
Don’t, I told myself.Don’t you dare.
But the memory was already surfacing, warm and unwanted.
“You’re going to make me gain weight,” I complained, even as I reached for another piece of the grilled chicken he’d brought over.
Jack looked at me with a soft smile. “That’s a good thing.”
“A good thing?”
“You skip meals constantly. You forget to eat when you’re working.” He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers brushing my cheek. “I want you healthy, Pauline. That’s all.”
“That’s very presumptuous of you. Assuming I need taking care of.”
“Everyone needs taking care of sometimes.” His thumb traced my jaw, gentle and slow. “Let me. It makes me happy.”
“Fine,” I whispered. “But only because the chicken is really good.”
He laughed, soft and warm, and pulled me against his side. “I’ll take it.”
I blinked, and the memory dissolved.
The newsroom came back into focus—the hum of computers, the sound of colleagues chatting and laughing over their free lunch. I was sitting at my desk with a container of food that shouldn’t exist, that proved Jack Specter still remembered what I liked to eat after seven years.
