Chapter 31 Chapter 31
Lena’s POV
The building is quiet enough that I can hear the air-conditioning hum against the glass walls. The city outside glows like a restless heartbeat, but up here, everything is still—too still. It’s past nine. Everyone’s gone. Everyone but me and the endless rows of numbers flickering across my screen.
My eyes ache from the data columns. I blink, rub the bridge of my nose, and take another sip of stale coffee that tastes like burnt hope. The campaign analytics refuse to align. Every metric mocks me. And yet, this chaos is the only thing keeping me steady after days of feeling the floor tilt beneath me.
The glass doors open without a sound. I don’t have to look up. I already know the rhythm of his presence.
“Working late again.”
Sebastian’s voice slides through the silence—low, controlled, and far too close.
I glance up. He’s standing in the doorway, tie loosened, jacket folded over one arm. The man radiates control even when he looks like he hasn’t slept in days.
“I could say the same,” I murmur, clicking to another screen.
He steps in, quiet but deliberate. The scent of him hits before anything else—expensive cologne mixed with something warmer, like cedar and restraint.
“No one’s keeping you here, Lena.”
“I’d love to believe that.” I keep my tone even, though my pulse isn’t.
He moves behind me, close enough that I can feel the air shift. “You’re chasing patterns that refuse to exist,” he says, glancing at the glowing graphs. “You’re forcing the data to confess something it can’t.”
“I’m not forcing anything,” I shoot back. “I’m finding what everyone else missed.”
His hand rests on the edge of my desk, just inches from my laptop. “Show me.”
I hesitate. Then I turn the screen toward him. My voice stays calm, but it takes effort. “The engagement drop correlates with the internal breach. Whoever tampered with the files wanted the campaign’s projections to collapse from the inside. It’s not random.”
He studies the screen, then me. “You’re sure?”
“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here at nine thirty.”
He leans down slightly, scanning the numbers. The distance between us collapses by degrees until his shoulder almost brushes mine. The quiet becomes its own pressure.
“You’re too good at this,” he says finally.
I let out a short breath. “That sounded dangerously close to a compliment.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
He straightens, but he doesn’t move away. His gaze traces the pages of my printed reports, the chaos of my handwriting scrawled over them. “You shouldn’t do all this alone,” he says. “You have a team.”
“They’re not the ones being targeted,” I reply.
Something flickers in his expression—quick, gone before I can name it. Guilt, maybe. Or fear.
He changes the subject. “Your methodology—run me through it.”
I swivel in my chair to face him. “You already know how I think.”
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
It’s not curiosity in his tone—it’s hunger, disguised as professionalism. I start explaining, words steady, my focus split between the data and the way his eyes never leave me. I map the analytics, the correlation matrix, the false timestamp patterns. My voice sharpens with every sentence, and his attention only intensifies.
When I finish, he’s quiet. Then: “You’re wasted in this role.”
My lips curve, not quite a smile. “And what role would you suggest, exactly?”
He doesn’t answer. He only watches me, and it’s unbearable—like being seen too clearly.
The silence stretches until I feel it against my skin.
Then he reaches past me, toward the top shelf behind my desk. A file sits there—thin, nothing important—but his chest brushes my shoulder as he moves. My breath stutters. He doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t even pretend it was accidental.
Three seconds. That’s all it is.
Three seconds where the room forgets how to breathe.
I turn my head slightly, and he’s right there—eyes dark, expression unreadable. The distance between us could be crossed with a thought.
“Careful,” I whisper. “People might think you’re human after all.”
His mouth lifts at one corner. “You wouldn’t survive if I was."
The air crackles.
I push my chair back, breaking the contact, but his hand lands on the desk, stopping me. His voice drops lower.
“I heard you’ve been having lunch with Nate.”
The shift is subtle, but unmistakable. A warning disguised as conversation.
I arch a brow. “You’re monitoring my schedule now?”
“I’m monitoring optics,” he replies smoothly. “You’re too visible lately. People talk.”
“People always talk. You taught me that.”
He looks at me for a long moment, something cold flashing behind his composure. “Just be careful who you let close.”
The words sting more than they should. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I decide what affects this company.”
“And I decide when I’m being patronized.”
The tension snaps again, louder this time, like a thread stretched to its breaking point.
He exhales slowly. “You think I’m trying to control you.”
“I think you don’t know how not to.”
He steps closer. “You think I don’t notice what happens when you walk into a room? You draw attention without meaning to. It’s—” He stops himself, jaw tightening.
“It’s what?” I challenge.
“Distracting.”
I laugh once, sharp. “Then look away.”
He doesn’t.
His eyes lock on mine, steady and unflinching. “You think I haven’t tried?”
The words hang there—too intimate, too dangerous.
For a moment, I forget the office, the screens, the world beyond his shadow. It’s just him and me and the pulse of something that should not exist between us.
My heart drums in my throat. I whisper, “Don’t look at me like that.”
His voice drops to a wrecked whisper. “Tell me how to stop.”
I don’t move. I can’t. The space between us feels magnetic, pulling at the edges of sense and restraint. His hand grazes the back of my chair—barely a touch, but it sears through fabric and reason.
I think he’s about to step forward. I think I might let him.
Then a sharp ding slices the air. The elevator down the hall.
We both freeze. The spell fractures, sound rushing back in.
Sebastian blinks once, like he’s waking from a dream. He straightens, steps back. The mask slides on so smoothly it hurts to watch.
He reaches for his jacket. “Don’t stay late tomorrow,” he says, voice even but frayed at the edges.
“Why not?” I ask, trying for steady, failing.
He pauses at the door. Doesn’t turn around.
“I don’t like wondering who walks you out.”
The door closes before I can respond.
The silence that follows is deafening.
I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. My fingers tremble as I reach for my water, the glass cool against my skin.
The tremor doesn’t stop.
Angry. Rattled. Alive.
I press the glass to my lips and whisper to the empty room,
“Don’t look at me like that,”
but the echo that answers sounds a lot like too late.