The office always felt colder on Mondays.
Not literally — the thermostat was programmed for comfort — but in that hollow way fluorescent lights could make even laughter sound distant.
I'd been staring at the same page on my tablet for twenty minutes when I realized I hadn't processed a single word. The numbers blurred, and the words "quarterly submission rate" started to look like some language I no longer understood.
I wasn't tired. Not exactly. Just… distracted.
It had been three days since I'd seen her at the coffee shop, but the memory hadn't left. It lingered the way certain melodies do — not loud, not intrusive, just there, quietly threading itself through everything.
Every time I saw her walk past my office door, something shifted — an invisible weight pressing in just behind my ribs.
I told myself it was guilt.
That was easier to live with.
She'd grown more confident over the months.
The timid intern who once flinched at eye contact now gave clear presentations and stood her ground during meetings. Her voice had softened but gained a kind of quiet steel that made people stop and listen.
She was still the same — scribbling notes in the margins, always lost in thought — but something about her lightened the room now.
And that, of course, made it worse.
Because the more she became part of this world, the more I wanted to keep her untouched by it.
And the more impossible that became.
I was halfway through drafting a report when there was a soft knock on my office door.
"Come in," I said, trying to sound like I hadn't just been spiraling in my head.
The door opened, and there she was — files clutched to her chest, a pen tucked behind her ear, strands of hair escaping the messy bun she'd tried to tame.
"Mr. Blake," she said. "You asked for the marketing briefs from the design department?"
I nodded, gesturing toward the desk. "Yes. Thank you."
She walked in, the faintest trace of her perfume following her — something floral but not too sweet, like she couldn't decide whether she wanted to stand out or disappear.
She placed the folder down and straightened. "Do you need me to run through the key points?"
"No," I said too quickly. Then, softer: "I'll review them myself."
She nodded, hesitated, then smiled faintly. "Alright."
She turned to leave, but I caught myself saying, "How's the writing?" before I could stop.
Her hand froze on the doorknob.
She turned back, brow furrowed slightly, lips parting in surprise.
"Oh… you remembered," she said with a quiet laugh. "It's… fine, I guess. I haven't had much time lately."
"Maybe you should make time," I said, the words slipping out low, almost instinctive.
Her gaze met mine then — curious, thoughtful. "You sound like someone who's said that to themselves a lot."
I gave a small smile that didn't quite reach my eyes. "Maybe I have."
She tilted her head, studying me, then said softly, "You should take your own advice too, Mr. Blake."
And just like that, she was gone.
The door clicked shut, leaving the faint echo of her words behind — the kind that sound harmless until they start to hurt.
The rest of the day passed in fragments.
Her laugh in the hallway.
Her voice, low but steady, during a team briefing.
The sight of her sitting by the window at lunch, scribbling in her notebook again.
It shouldn't have mattered.
But it did.
Every small, human thing she did felt like a reminder of what I'd traded for this version of my life — the calm, curated mask of the perfect Blake heir.
The quiet, the control, the careful routine — they all used to mean something.
Now they just felt like walls I'd built too high to climb.
By the time evening came, the office was quieter than usual. The hum of printers, the occasional murmur of voices down the hall — all fading beneath the dull, steady thrum of rain against the windows.
I stayed behind, not because I needed to, but because leaving felt heavier than staying.
My desk lamp cast a thin circle of light across the papers in front of me. I stared at it like it might offer answers.
It didn't.
Somewhere down the hall, I heard her voice again — faint, muffled, laughing at something someone said. Then silence. Then the sound of footsteps fading.
I told myself I wouldn't look.
And then I did.
She was standing near the copy machine, sorting through a stack of pages, hair pulled loose from the day's long hours. She looked tired but in that way people look when they've done something that mattered.
She had that small crease between her brows — the one she got whenever she was deep in thought.
I didn't realize I was watching too long until she looked up.
Our eyes met across the glass wall.
She smiled, small but real.
I nodded once — a silent goodnight — and turned back to my desk.
I didn't see her leave, but I heard the elevator doors close, and the quiet that followed pressed in hard.
When I finally left the building, the rain had eased into a mist. Though the sound of thunder still threatened the skies, lightning following shortly after.
The city glowed — streetlights bending across puddles, headlights streaking through fog.
I stood under the overhang for a while, hands in my pockets, watching people rush by. Everyone seemed to have somewhere to be, someone waiting for them.
For a little moment, I wondered what she was doing. Whether she'd gone straight home or stopped at that little bakery near her street — the one she i watched her walk into the first day we met.
It was strange, how easily she'd slipped into the spaces of my thoughts without permission.
How ordinary things — coffee, rain, quiet music — had started to remind me of her.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
It never was.
When I got home, I didn't turn on the lights right away.
The apartment was too clean, too still — a reflection of the life I'd built to be safe.
I set my briefcase down, loosened my tie, and sat by the window. The glass was cold beneath my fingertips.
Below, the city pulsed — alive, relentless, indifferent.
And for the first time in years, I realized how lonely that indifference felt.
I thought about the way she looked at me earlier, like she saw through the layers everyone else ignored. Not fully, not yet — but enough to make me feel it.
That soft flicker of recognition I couldn't explain.
The kind of knowing that both warms and destroys you.
I closed my eyes, forcing the thoughts away.
This wasn't the time.
She wasn't someone I could afford to think about.
Not like that.
Not at all.
But later that night, as I lay in bed, the quiet refused to stay quiet.
I kept hearing her voice — not her words, just the tone of them. The way she said my name, the way her laughter lingered a second too long.
I turned on my side, eyes open to the dark.
Maybe I was imagining it all — the pull, the undercurrent, the strange peace her presence brought.
Maybe it was nothing.
But then I remembered how she'd smiled before leaving my office. How her voice had softened when she said I should take my own advice.
And I realized I hadn't smiled like that in a long time.
Sleep evaded me or rather I couldn't even focus on the silence enough to be sleepy.
At some point, I reached for my phone, opening the email drafts I'd never sent — the ones I wrote late at night but deleted by morning. Messages I'd never admit to needing to write.
And there it was again — that urge to reach out, to ask how she was doing, to tell her to keep writing, to keep being.
But I didn't.
I turned the screen off, placed the phone facedown, and lay there listening to the hum of the city.
Because if I crossed that line — even once — I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to find my way back.
And the worst part was…
I wasn't sure I wanted to.