The fallout from Isabella's faked allergy was a quiet, seismic shift. Sterling had overseen her departure with the grim efficiency of a coroner removing a body from a crime scene. Alexander had not mentioned it again, but a new, steely resolve had settled in his eyes. The office, for a few days, was a haven of pure, productive focus. We were a well-oiled machine, a perfectly balanced ecosystem. It was, frankly, unnerving.
The calm broke on a Thursday morning. I was at the new, terrifyingly complex espresso machine, engaged in a battle of wills with its steam wand. I'd almost achieved something resembling microfoam when a cheerful voice sounded behind me.
"Need a hand with that beast?"
I turned to see Leo from R&D, his wild hair looking particularly electrified today. He was holding a mug that said 'Ctrl+Alt+Defeat' and smiling a easy, uncomplicated smile. Leo was brilliant, unpretentious, and existed in a world of code and circuitry that operated on logic, not literary metaphors. He was, in a word, normal.
"I think it's fighting back," I said, gesturing with the pitcher. "I've calibrated the pressure, aligned the stars, and sacrificed a small goat, but it's not cooperating."
Leo laughed, a warm, genuine sound. "Here, you're overthinking it. It's a bully. You just have to show it who's boss." He reached around me, his arm brushing mine as he took the pitcher. With a few confident flicks of his wrist, he produced a perfect, velvety foam. "See? Pure aggression."
"I'm impressed," I said, meaning it. "I'll stick to the spreadsheet side of the business."
"Your loss," he grinned, handing me my now-perfect cappuccino. "This is where the real magic happens. Anyway, I'm heading down to the lab. We're stress-testing the new prototype. You should come see it sometime. It's… explosively interesting." He winked and sauntered off, leaving me with a surprisingly good coffee and a faint smile.
I turned, feeling oddly buoyant, and nearly walked straight into Alexander Wilde.
He was standing frozen just outside the hydration alcove, his own empty cup held in a white-knuckled grip. His face was pale, his expression a maelstrom of confusion and something darker, more primal. He looked as if he'd just witnessed a fundamental law of physics being violated.
"Sir? Is everything alright?" I asked.
He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the space where Leo had been standing. He seemed to be struggling to form words. Finally, he spoke, his voice a low, strained rasp.
"Miss Chen. A moment. In my office. Now."
He turned on his heel and strode away, his posture rigid. I followed, the warmth from the coffee cup doing little to combat the sudden chill.
He didn't sit behind his desk. He stood before the window, his back to me, radiating a tense energy I'd never felt from him before. It wasn't performative anger. It was real, raw, and utterly bewildering to him.
"That man," he began, his voice tight. "From Research and Development."
"Leo?"
"His… familiarity." Alexander spun around, his eyes blazing. "The… the touching. The… winking. What was the nature of that interaction?"
I blinked. "He was helping me with the espresso machine. It's notoriously difficult."
"Helping?" Alexander repeated the word as if it were in a foreign language. "He encroached upon your personal space. He engaged in… in frivolous banter. He displayed a… a casual arrogance." He took a step closer. "Explain it to me, Miss Chen. Explain this… dynamic."
"It's called being friendly, sir," I said, my own patience beginning to fray.
"No," he cut me off, slashing a hand through the air. "It was something else. It was a challenge. A territorial display. I felt it. Here." He thumped a fist against his own chest. "A… a tightening. A heat. An urge to… to intercede. To correct the… the imbalance."
My breath caught in my throat. Oh. My. God.
"Sir," I said slowly, the realization dawning with a mix of awe and sheer disbelief. "Are you… jealous?"
He froze. The word hung in the air between us, stark and unfamiliar. He looked utterly horrified, as if I'd just accused him of a petty crime.
"Jealousy?" he whispered, the word tasting foreign on his tongue. "The green-eyed monster? The… the passion of the common man? The insecurity of the un-evolved?" He shook his head, rejecting the notion. "No. That is not it. This was a… a protective response. An instinct to safeguard a key asset from… from improper handling."
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. He was pathologizing a crush.
"Leo was just being nice," I said, as if explaining gravity to a toddler. "He's a nice person. There was no 'improper handling.' There was just… coffee."
"It was not 'just coffee'!" he insisted, his voice rising. "It was a ritual! A sacred morning ritual that he… he invaded! With his… his competent wrist-flicks and his… his functional humor!" He was pacing again, a caged tiger. "Explain it, Miss Chen. Explain this human emotion called 'jealousy.' What is its narrative purpose? What is its motivation?"
I stared at him. The CEO, the Titan, the Drama King, was demanding a clinical breakdown of jealousy because a nerdy engineer had shown me how to foam milk.
"It's not a narrative device, Alexander," I said, and the use of his first name made him stop dead. "It's a feeling. It's what happens when you see someone you… care about… enjoying the attention of someone else. It makes you feel insecure. It makes you worry that you might be… replaced."
The silence that followed was absolute. The words "care about" and "replaced" seemed to echo in the room. The bluster drained from his face, replaced by a look of dawning, terrifying clarity. The metaphor had failed him. There was no grand narrative, no archetype to hide behind. There was only a simple, messy, human emotion.
He looked at me, truly looked at me, and for the first time, there was no character between us. No CEO, no assistant. Just a man who was hopelessly, helplessly out of his depth.
"I see," he said quietly. He walked to his desk and sat down, the fight gone out of him. He looked… young. And scared.
"The presentation for the board," he said, his voice flat, changing the subject with a clumsiness that was more revealing than any soliloquy. "It needs to be on my desk by noon."
"Of course, sir," I said softly.
I turned to leave.
"Miss Chen."
I paused at the door.
He wasn't looking at me. He was staring at his hands. "The coffee," he said. "Tomorrow. I will… I will master the steam wand myself."
It was the closest I would ever get to an apology. The closest I would get to an admission. It was a promise to try and understand something he couldn't dramatize. It was, in its own bizarre way, the most romantic thing he had ever said.
"I'll have the manual ready," I replied, and closed the door behind me.
The Drama King had finally encountered a plot twist he couldn't control. And for the first time, the leading lady had written her own line. And it was devastatingly simple.