He addressed the staff about budget allocations, standing at the front of the conference room with that easy authority. His eyes moved across the assembled journalists, making contact, holding attention. He asked Gerald about the investigative team’s progress. He complimented one of the senior editors on her fresh perspective. He made a joke about quarterly projections that made everyone laugh, and since when did Jack Specter crack jokes in meetings?
When his gaze swept toward my section of the table, it didn’t pause. Just continued smoothly past, like I was empty air.
I sat there with my pen frozen over my notepad and felt something cold settle behind my ribs.
The meeting ended. I gathered my things slowly—papers I didn’t need, notes I’d barely taken—giving him time to approach. To say something. To acknowledge that I existed in his universe.
He walked out without a backward glance.
I stood in the hallway afterward, watching him disappear around the corner, and tried to understand why this felt like being erased.
By Wednesday, I’d developed a theory.
Jack Specter had somehow mastered the art of making me invisible while remaining perfectly visible to everyone else. It was almost impressive, if it wasn’t making me slowly lose my mind.
I tested it. I’m not proud of this, but I tested it.
I positioned myself by the coffee machine when I knew he’d be coming through. He walked past, poured himself a cup from the pot I was literally standing next to, and left without a glance. No excuse me. Nothing.
I lingered in the hallway outside his office, pretending to check my phone. He emerged, spoke to his assistant about rescheduling a meeting, and walked right by me—close enough that I caught the scent of his cologne—before continuing on like I was wallpaper.
I even tried the direct approach. I had a legitimate reason: a progress report on the data that Gerald wanted submitted to the executive team. I printed extra copies.
His assistant waved me through. “He’s free. Go ahead.”
I stepped inside. Jack was behind his desk, reviewing something on his laptop. He looked up when I entered, and for one heart-stopping second, his eyes met mine. I felt it—that electric current that had always run between us, that awareness that made my skin prickle and my breath catch.
Then his expression went blank. Polite. Professional.
“Wells.” Not Pauline. Just Wells. Like I was any other employee. “What can I do for you?”
I handed him the report. “Gerald wanted you to have this. Progress update on the investigation.”
He took it and flipped through the pages with efficient attention. I stood there watching his hands—capable, elegant hands that I remembered on my face, in my hair, pressing against the small of my back—and waited for something.Acknowledgment. A question. Any indication that I was more to him than a delivery service.
He set the report down and looked up with those blue eyes that gave away absolutely nothing.
“Anything else?”
My throat felt tight. “No.”
“Then you can leave.”
Four words. Delivered without malice, without heat, without anything at all. Just a dismissal. Clean and complete.
I walked out of his office with my spine straight and my face composed and my heart somewhere around my shoes. His assistant gave me a sympathetic look that suggested I wasn’t the first person to leave that room feeling quietly demolished.
Back at my desk, I stared at my computer screen without seeing it.
He was giving me exactly what I asked for.
So why did my chest ache like something had been carved out of it?
The days blurred together.
And when Jack came to the office, he interacted with everyone else normally—he was present, engaged. Just not with me.
With me, he was a wall. Perfectly polite, professionally appropriate, and completely impenetrable.
