Page 82 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

I know it the moment he comes out of his office at 9:15 and walks to my desk for the morning briefing. He stops in the same place he always stops. He's in the same suit he'dwear on any Monday. His expression is composed and professional and there is nothing in his manner that any person on this floor could point to and call different.

But I know his face. I know every register of it. The remove that used to live in his eyes when he looked at me — that careful, managed distance — is gone. What's there instead is warmer and more direct and it lands in my chest every time I look up and find it.

"Nakamura call is confirmed for 11:00," I say.

"The foundation board prep needs your sign-off before Thursday. Keith flagged a scheduling conflict on the Vertex review — I've proposed two alternatives, both in your queue."

"The Vertex conflict," he says.

"Which alternative works better for the client?"

"Wednesday at 2:00. The Friday option pushes too close to their quarter-end."

"Wednesday it is." He takes the briefing folder I extend. Our fingers don't touch. We are professional. Entirely, impeccably professional.

"Anything else?"

"Clara Reeves sent a follow-up," I say.

"She wants to schedule the in-person meeting. I have three available windows this week."

He looks at me for a moment.

"Schedule it," he says. "Whatever works for her."

He goes back to his office. I turn back to my screen.

I am aware — acutely, constantly — of how I am perceived in this building. I have now spent eight monthsin total, establishing myself as someone who is here because she earns her place. I have watched how the floor looks at me. I have felt the weight of every room I've walked into at his side and made sure the work was always the clearest thing in that room. That doesn't change because my personal life has. If anything it matters more now.

The last thing I will ever be is the woman who got somewhere because of who she's sleeping with. I carry that with me through the whole day.

Clara's email arrives at 2:30. I've been expecting it — she mentioned following up after our call and her timeline is exactly what I anticipated. I open it and read it twice and then I minimize the window and I sit with what it says for a moment before I do anything else.

She isn't proposing a casual informational meeting. She's proposing a role. Not a vague conversation about possibilities — a specific position on her portfolio team, an analyst-level entry point that would put me at the intersection of enterprise tech and venture investment with a direct line to the kind of work I've been absorbing through Logan's world for eight months. She wants to meet Thursday to discuss it in detail.

I read it a third time.

This is what I came to San Francisco for. Not this specific thing — I didn't know this specific thing existed eight months ago. But this category of thing. The proof that I belong in this world on my own terms, not as anyone's assistant, not as an extension ofsomeone else's orbit. A seat at the table that has my name on it because I earned it.

I close the email. I open it again. The complication is obvious and I don't pretend it isn't. Accepting this role means leaving Drake Industries. It means stepping out of the executive assistant position and into something entirely independent of Logan — professionally, structurally, completely. It means that the working relationship we've built over eight months ends and something else begins.

I don't know what that something else looks like. I don't know if a relationship between us survives without the professional architecture that created it. I don't know if he'll see this as me choosing my career over what we have or as something that has nothing to do with what we have.

What I know is that I'm not going to make this decision based on what it means for us. I made that promise to myself in Maggie's apartment weeks ago — I was going to fight for both. The career and the relationship. I'm not sacrificing one for the other.

I close the email. I sit with it until 5:00. Then I go home and I change and I take a car to his building.

***

He opens the door in a dark shirt and gray trousers — the at-home version of Logan Drake that I've only been seeing recently, and which still catches me slightlyoff guard every time. Less armor. More human. He steps back to let me in.

The penthouse is exactly what I expected and nothing like what I expected simultaneously. Floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of the living room, the city spread out below in every direction. Spare, deliberate, every object chosen rather than accumulated. A kitchen that looks used — actually used, not staged. A dining table set for two.

He cooked.I look at the table and then I look at him.

"You cooked," I say.

"Don't make it a thing," he says. He moves toward the kitchen.