Movement caught my eye. The elevator doors opening. Jack stepping out with his assistant trailing behind him, heading toward his office on the far side of the floor.
He looked up.
Our eyes met.
Everything faded. There was only him, standing there in his stupid perfect suit, looking at me like he was waiting for something.
I held his gaze for one second. Two. Three.
Then I looked away.
I picked up my fork and stabbed a piece of chicken with more force than necessary.
“Pathetic,” I told my heart. “You’re so cheap. So easily impressed. He buys you lunch and suddenly you’re ready to forget everything?”
My heart didn’t answer. It was too busy doing something very inconvenient in my chest.
I ate the salad. Every bite. And it tasted good.
By the time I finished the progress report and formatted it to Alice’s exacting specifications, the office had emptied around me. The sun had set. The city outside the windows had transformed into a glittering sprawl of lights and shadows.
I gathered my things and headed for the elevator, already running through my plans for the evening. My source had finally agreed to meet. An address scribbled on a napkin, a time, a promise of information that would crack the story wide open.
It was probably a bad idea. My grandmother would call it a terrible idea. But terrible ideas were sometimes the only ones that paid off.
The elevator doors opened.
Jack was inside.
His eyes found mine immediately—like he’d been waiting for me, like he’d known I would appear at this exact moment.
“Pauline.” He said gently. His tone soft in a way that made a traitorous part of me respond to the sound of it in his mouth.
I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. “Specter.”
“It’s late.”
“I can see it.”
“You were here before I arrived this morning and you’re leaving after me. That’s a long day.”
“Some of us have to work for a living.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. Just watched me with those blue eyes that dismantled something inside me. “Let me drive you home.”
“No.”
“It’s late,” he repeated. “The parking garage isn’t well lit. It’s not safe for you to be walking alone.”
“I’ve been walking alone for twenty-nine years. I’ll survive.”
“Pauline.”
“I have somewhere to be.” The words came out sharp and defiant. I didn’t soften them. “Thank you for the concern, but I’m fine.”
The elevator reached the lobby. The doors slid open. I walked out without looking back, feeling his eyes on me the whole way—burning between my shoulder blades like a brand.
I shouldn’t still feel like this. I shouldn’t still react to him like I was that stupid younger version of myself, the girl who thought his attention meant something, who believed that being seen by Jack Specter was the same as being valued.
