“Thank you for the alligator.”
“He seemed resilient.”
“He is currently my most emotionally stable advisor.”
“I’ll update his title in the org chart.”
She left before I could regret being fond of her.
I opened my laptop.
The blank document waited, clean and white and professionally unforgiving.
I typed the title first.
Wilder Horizons Security Architecture Assessment
Professional. Clean. Useful.
No mention of the way Nick’s voice had gone flat when he told me my manifest had been accessed. No mention of his hand on the radio, his blood on a bandage, Sofia’s homecoming date sitting inside my calendar like a fixed point I had not removed.
Objective. Scope.
Phase One:Transfer and Manifest Protocol Audit
Phase Two:Vendor Credential and Access Review
Phase Three:Destination-Specific Risk Framework
Phase Four:Staff Escalation and Training Recommendations
Internal Lead: Gabriel Vaughn.
Executive Sponsor:Juliette Wilder.
Review:Summer Wilder.
The cursor blinked beside the next line.
Proposed Consultant:
I typed his name once.
Nicholas Mercer.
My pulse behaved badly.
I deleted it.
External consultant.
Safer. Colder. Less likely to make my composure act like Daisy near a promotion discussion.
The cursor blinked again.
I typed his name where it belonged:Nicholas Mercer. Then I spent forty-five seconds adjusting the kerning and the font weight, as if a serif could somehow camouflage the fact that I was inviting a man who knew my pulse into the center of my boardroom.
His contract at Mara Khaya ended in three months. I knew that because he had told me once in the careful tone of a man offering a fact instead of a hope. I also knew he wanted to be stateside more often, though he had phrased it like logistics and not longing, because apparently we were both insufferable.
