Chapter 28 TWENTY EIGHT
LENA’S POV
The office doesn’t sleep anymore.
The hum of servers and the faint whine of the HVAC system fill every silence. Even the lights look tired—too bright, too white—spilling across glass walls and reflecting back a dozen versions of me: anxious, over-caffeinated, running out of oxygen.
Three days until the board presentation.
Three days to pull a miracle from numbers that won’t hold still.
The marketing floor downstairs went home hours ago. Here on the top level, only Sebastian’s office glows like a control tower. My desk outside it is a battlefield—half-empty coffee cups, spreadsheets printed and crossed out, sticky notes like fallen soldiers. I’ve checked the projections five times; they still don’t match.
“Start again,” Sebastian says from his desk. He doesn’t look up. His voice is a blade—smooth, sharp, unyielding.
“I’ve started again four times.” I keep my tone level, but my pen betrays me, tapping against the edge of my notebook. “Maybe if the data I’m getting wasn’t corrupted—”
“Excuses waste time.” He types something, eyes on his screen. “We fix what’s in front of us.”
The words hit harder than they should. I’ve been here since seven a.m., and I can feel my composure fraying like thread. “You keep talking to me like I’m built out of steel.”
“You were hired to withstand pressure.”
“I was hired to do my job.” The pen snaps between my fingers. Ink dots the paper. “Not to absorb yours.”
Silence. Then the faint click of his keyboard stops. He raises his head slowly, those ice-blue eyes catching mine. “You want soft encouragement, Lena?” His voice drops, dangerous in its calm. “You came to the wrong office.”
I can’t imagine that this is happening. Just a few days ago, Sebastian was so impressed with me, but the moment things went sour, he’s lashing out on me like he’s so disgusted with me. I know that someone must have done this, and the only person who comes to mind is Sienna.
I would have thought it was Tessa, but she doesn't seem like someone capable of that. Besides, we are not exactly in fighting terms since I introduced her to my neighbor. Even if she was that mean, she would be too distracted by him to even pay me attention
A bitter laugh escapes before I can choke it down. “No. I came to the wrong man.”
The air freezes.
He stands, measured and deliberate. The city lights pour in behind him, wrapping his shoulders in gold and shadow. “Then why are you still here?”
“Because I keep waiting for you to prove you’re human.” My voice trembles, but I don’t look away.
Something flickers in his expression—too quick to name, too raw to hide. He takes one slow step forward. “And what if I don’t want to be?”
He’s close now, close enough that I can see the fine lines around his eyes, the tension in his jaw. The air between us pulses, heavy, electric.
My heart hammers in my chest from the closeness of our bodies and I gulp. I think Sebastian might say something cruel again to me, but instead his gaze softens.
“You’re so fucking…” He swallows. “I’m trying to keep things professional.”
I blink, unsure of what is going on. He looks like he’s struggling in pain as he watches me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, my voice softer than I intended.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he says, almost a whisper, as if confessing to a crime.
My breath catches. His words land somewhere between warning and surrender, and the silence that follows feels alive, vibrating through the floor.
I move first—or maybe he does. It happens too fast to tell. One heartbeat, there’s distance; the next, his mouth finds mine.
The kiss hits like impact—no hesitation, no testing. The world narrows to the slide of heat and breath and everything we’ve refused to say. My back meets the glass wall with a muted thud. His hands find my waist, strong, unsteady, anchoring. I clutch at his shirt, half to pull him closer, half to stay upright.
He tastes like black coffee and tension. Every exhale against my skin sends another spark down my spine.
He breaks the kiss just enough to breathe against my mouth. “We shouldn’t.”
“Then stop,” I whisper.
He doesn’t.
The second kiss is rougher, less thought, more need. Papers scatter across the floor; a pen rolls under the table. For a heartbeat the office disappears—there’s only pulse and pressure and the sound of two people finally breaking their own rules.
Then a mug crashes off the desk, shattering the spell. Sebastian pulls back, chest rising and falling fast. The mask slips back into place, but not completely; I can see the battle in his eyes.
“Lena—”
“Don’t,” I cut in softly. “Don’t take it back.”
He closes his eyes like the act of breathing costs him, then steps away. The distance floods in, cold and loud.
The city outside is quieter than usual, wrapped in pale fog. The building hums beneath it—ventilation, elevators somewhere in motion—but here in Sebastian’s office it’s almost still. The scent of burnt coffee lingers, faintly sweet and bitter.
I wake to the sound of paper rustling. My neck aches from the angle I’ve slept in; I’m half tangled in a blanket. For a few hazy seconds I think maybe I dreamed it all—the kiss, the crash, the way the night folded in on itself. Then I see him.
Sebastian stands by the window, jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled, phone to his ear. His voice is low, businesslike. He could be discussing quarterly earnings, not standing in the wreckage of what we did.
When he ends the call, he doesn’t move for a long time. Just stares out over the skyline as the clouds start to lift.
He senses me watching. His reflection in the glass turns slightly, not all the way. “You should go home,” he says, still facing the window.
“I will.” My throat’s dry.
No answer.
I sit up slowly, pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders. The couch creaks, loud in the quiet. “Do you ever sleep?” I ask.
He finally turns, one brow raised. “There’s a presentation in three days.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
His eyes narrow just enough to warn me off. “I don’t have the luxury of sleep right now.”
“Right. Of course.” The sarcasm tastes bitter. I glance at the scattered papers on the floor—the proof of how far we let things fall apart. “You should probably call Tessa before she finds the office like this.”
“She won’t,” he says. “I locked the door.”
Something about that—his quiet control even now—makes my chest tighten. “You think that fixes everything?”
“It prevents questions.” He walks back to the desk, gathering the pages into neat piles, every movement precise. “That’s all that matters this morning.”
“Really?” I stand. “Because it feels like a little more than that.”
He stops stacking for a moment. His hands still, palms flat on the desk, shoulders rigid. Then, without looking up, he says, “It can’t happen again.”
I already know he’s going to say it, but hearing it still knocks something out of me. “You kissed me back.”
“That’s the problem.”
“So it’s a problem now.” My voice cracks.
He turns then, finally facing me, and the exhaustion in his eyes is almost worse than anger. “Yes. It was inevitable.” A pause. “That doesn’t make it survivable.”
I laugh once, too sharply. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m pragmatic.”
“You’re a coward.” The words come before I can soften them. “You hide behind logic because you’re terrified of feeling anything real.”
His jaw tightens. “And you deserve better than the version of me you bring to life.”
“Don’t do that,” I whisper. “Don’t make it sound noble.”
“I’m not.” He buttons his cuffs slowly, deliberately. “I’m telling you the truth.”
He walks to the door. I expect him to leave, but he pauses, hand on the handle. “I’m not just a professional, I’m a gentleman, Lena.”
The words fall between us like a verdict. Then the door opens, and he’s gone.
The room feels larger without him, and emptier. I stand there listening to the faint click of his footsteps fading down the hall. The air-conditioning kicks on again; cold air brushes my skin, lifting goosebumps. My heart’s still beating too fast, out of sync with everything else.
I cross to the desk and stare out the window the way he did. The sun’s finally burning through the fog, throwing light across the city’s grid. From up here, it’s beautiful—clean lines, endless order. From down there, it’s chaos. Maybe that’s why he likes this view.
I stay for no longer than two minutes before I pick up my things one by one: phone, notebook, the broken pen from last night. There’s a smudge of ink on my hand I hadn’t noticed before. I rub at it, but it doesn’t come off.
The silence is starting to feel personal. I can hear my pulse again, a steady drumbeat reminding me of every boundary crossed. The smell of cedar from his jacket still clings to the couch.
When I finally check my phone, the screen lights the dim room in cold white. A single notification flashes at the top.
INTERNAL ALERT — FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS FILE: CORRUPTED. BACKUP ERASED.
I blink, read it again. Then a second alert: Data integrity compromised. Source unknown.
My stomach drops.
Seventy-two hours to presentation.
Half the data gone.
The sabotage isn’t subtle anymore.
I look toward the door where he disappeared moments ago. For a heartbeat I want to run after him, tell him what’s happened, force him to look at me and not the crisis. But I already know what he’ll choose first.
Work. Always work.
The phone buzzes again in my hand, vibrating like a warning. I set it down on the desk beside the scattered reports and stare at the skyline one last time.