The next day should have felt like any other. It didn't.
I arrived at the office earlier than usual earlier than yesterday even and told myself it was because of work, because there was a mountain of calls to make and contracts to review. Not because I was trying to outrun a man who had the audacity to walk into my office like the walls I built weren't real.
It didn't work.
Everywhere I turned emails, reports, the hum of fluorescent lights, his presence bled through the cracks.
I sat at my desk, chin propped on my fist, staring at the folder like it was an intruder. It lay where I'd left it last night, crisp and unyielding on the dark wood surface. Black, elegant, embossed with silver. Too polished to ignore, too tempting to destroy.
I could throw it away. I should throw it away.
Instead, I kept working. For three hours, I moved through meetings like a ghost, my responses sharp and efficient enough that no one noticed how far I was from this room in my head.
By noon, my calendar was packed with solid investor updates, legal reviews, and a potential partnership in Singapore. Every second accounted for. My safe place. My fortress.
But the folder was still there.
When the last person filed out after my two-thirty call, I locked the door.
The silence roared.
I sat back down, stared at the black folder, and said it out loud this time, like speaking could banish the urge: "Don't do it."
Then I opened it.
The proposal wasn't just good. It was brilliant.
Innovative. Scalable. Not just numbers and projections vision. A platform for community development through tech, creating access for people who'd been left behind. Women in underserved regions. Girls who'd never seen a screen but dreamed of more.
It was the kind of thing I'd never admit mattered to me, not out loud. Not in boardrooms where softness was weakness and ideals were liabilities. But as I flipped through those sleek pages, I felt it something tugging deep inside, something that whispered this wasn't just business.
He knew. Or guessed. Either way, I hated him for it.
I slammed the folder shut, like that would stop the ache crawling up my spine.
"Damn you," I muttered.
My phone was in my hand before I realized it. The business card he'd left yesterday sat on my desk like an accomplice, and I typed the number in with mechanical precision, like muscle memory.
My thumbs hovered over the screen for a full minute. My heartbeat was too loud. This was a mistake. A colossal mistake.
Then I typed two words and hit send before I could talk myself out of it.
I read it.
The message sent, bright and irreversible, like a flare in the dark.
I stared at it, horrified. My breath stuck in my throat.
The reply came in seconds.
And?
I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt. Professional. Keep it professional.
It's solid. We'll talk.
My screen lit up again almost immediately.
Coffee? Or do I need another rainstorm to bump into you?
I cursed under my breath. God, he was insufferable. Infuriating. And worse he made me smile. Just the smallest twitch, the kind that scared me because it felt too easy, too dangerous.
I should shut it down. I should type No and block the number and forget this ever happened.
But my thumbs betrayed me.
Tomorrow. One hour.
I froze. No. No, no, no. Why did I…
The bubble popped up again. His answer was instant.
I'm looking forward to it.
I dropped the phone like it burned. Pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes.
What the hell did I just do?
That night, the city glowed like a mirage outside my penthouse windows. Steel towers glittered under a velvet sky, and the hum of life below felt distant, unreachable. I poured a glass of wine I didn't need and sat on the edge of the couch, staring at the phone on the table like it had teeth.
I'd made a mistake. No a choice. A conscious, deliberate choice. One that unraveled everything I'd promised myself years ago when I carved my name into this world with blood and bone.
You don't need anyone, Oriana.
But apparently, I needed to see him again.
Not because of the proposal, no matter how good it was. Not because of the impact or the optics or any excuse I could sell to myself in the mirror.
Because of him.
And that was the most dangerous truth of all.
I finished the wine and poured another. Tried to drown the thoughts in the deep red swirl. It didn't work.
When I finally crawled into bed, the city still glowing like temptation outside my window, I told myself it was just coffee. One hour.
Then I dreamed of him. Not his proposal. Not his damn folder.
Him.
The way his voice dipped when he said my name. The way he smiled like he knew every secret I'd never tell.
And when I woke up the next morning, my heart was already racing for tomorrow.