Chapter 72: The Unspoken Language

Lisa’s POV

The first thing I became aware of when I entered the office that morning was the quietness.

Not the kind with which we are all accustomed before there are too many of us, a heavy, languid silence, but another kind — a clear, electric pulse tingling through the normal background sounds of keyboards clacking and printers whirring. It was like the atmosphere had altered, like it had shifted to accommodate something new between me and Leo, whether I wanted to admit that or not.

And whether I was ready for it or not.

Before I even laid eyes on him, I knew I could sense him, the way I've been sensing him lately, as if my body had learned to speak his proximity without asking if I wanted to.

He was by the coffee, sleeves pushed up, the faint frown on his brow as he scrolled through his phone. The light streaming in from the big windows was reflected off the oblique surfaces of his face, but when he raised his head and our eyes locked, the rigidity melted into nearly everything.

Warmth.

Twisting through my gut. I averted my eyes fast, grabbing a mug, playing to be in need of a refill though there was still some left. I trembled slightly in the fingers going for more coffee, and I hated myself for it. I was losing control. Of my focus. Of my emotions. Of him.

“Morning, Lisa.”

His voice was calm and professional, but now there was a soft undercurrent that hadn't been there a few weeks prior. Or perhaps it had always been there, and I just hadn't wanted to hear it.

“Morning, Leo.” I didn’t get the chance to look at him again. If I were to look, I knew I would be caught, pulled in by the familiar depth of his gaze.

He didn’t add anything to that, didn’t distance himself. I could sense him beside me. Too close. The warmth of his body surrounded mine, close enough that he was a shield against the rest of the office.

I shifted my weight, feeling the faint scrape of his arm against mine.

An accident.

I told myself it was an accident.

But the side of me that was beginning to memorize the sensation of him in me knew better.

That meeting later that morning was even worse.

So there we were at either end of this very long conference table, with a couple of the coalition committee members on either side of us, all roaring over each other, shuffling papers. But! the world somehow shrank down to the two of us. Whenever I looked up, he was already looking at me.

Every. Single. Time.

Not staring. Just… observing. Like he was trying to read something written on my face, something I wasn’t even aware I was showing.

When I crossed my legs under the table, his knee brushed mine.

A small touch. But when I breathed out, my breath hitched as if it were much more.

We both froze.

The tension between us, was invisible, too — words we were not saying, feelings we were not feeling.

Someone asked me to pass a folder. I slid it across the table toward Leo, and when his fingers wrapped around the edge, they brushed mine.

The softest touch.

But my skin immediately felt hot.

His gaze shifted up, his lips parted as though he wanted to say something, but didn’t. He just gave one small nod, a hushed thanks that was almost intimate.

Someone loudly cleared his throat from across the table.

I never looked at him. I didn’t need to. I could feel his gaze like a physical weight against my skin, and Leo’s body shifted ever so slightly nearer mine as a faint barrier took form between Andre and I.

Protective.

It shouldn’t have been comforting.

But it did.

The meeting went on forever, but I hardly listened to any of it. Everything about me was tuned in too much to one person. The shift of his chair. The tap of his pen. When he spoke to me directly about a proposal, he leaned a bit closer.

Professional words. Personal posture.

As soon as the meeting ended, people got up and filed out quickly--but neither of us stirred.

“Are you okay?”

Just two words, yet a thousand meanings were crammed into them.

I gathered my papers and nodded. ‘I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

A lie. But it was close enough to the truth.

He hesitated. “You’ve been distant.”

I swallowed. “Have I?”

“Yes.”

In any case, I met his eyes then. For a moment, I stopped pretending. Stopped giving a damn about walls and rules and consequences.

“Maybe I’m trying to stay focused,” I said.

“And on what?” he asked quietly.

I thought of Andre. Vengeance. Of the elaborate ruse that had initiated this entire sham marriage, this perverted alliance that had evolved into something perilously true.

“On what I came to do.” “On what I'm here to do.”

But his face changed then, his jaw tensing before he relaxed again.

“We’re building something good here, Lisa,” he said softly. “Don’t let the past poison that.”

Something good.

What Is a Knocked Down, Dragged Out Fight without the words The Fight, and the words echoing in my chest?

When I stepped outside the conference room, my whole mind was scrambled.

The rest of the day was spent in increments. We went by each other down the halls constantly and paused just a little too long. His hand brushed the small of my back as he stepped aside for me. As I give him a report, I brush my fingers across his sleeve.

When the door clicked shut, I put my fingers to my lips as panic run through my mind.

The office really was a set.

A stage for glances, for desire, for two hearts talking without a tongue.

I was more than just a woman looking for justice.

I was a woman torn between logic and emotion and the silent dialect of a man who was gradually more difficult to look away from.