The morning air was cold when Sharon arrived at the huge glass Hayashi Tech building. This trip felt different. Her surprise was gone, replaced by a strong, grim determination. She felt like she was walking onto a battlefield she had chosen.
The moment she stepped inside, she felt all the eyes on her. The large, marble lobby filled with murmuring whispers surrounding her. "That's her… Ms. Lee." "She's back, but just as a consultant, they say." "Did you see the way the boss looked at her in the meeting yesterday?"
She kept her chin up and stared straight at the elevators, looking completely calm and untouchable. The clicking of her heels sounded like a clock counting down to the next part of their silent fight.
The meeting was in the "Sunrise" room, a large space with a wall of windows that made the cheerfulness of the light feel annoying and judgmental. Kenzo was already there with two IT leaders, Tanaka and Sato. He seemed slightly improved, his suit was perfect, his hair neat, but the dark look in his eyes remained, now showing a tired, accepting sadness.
"Ms. Lee," he greeted, his voice carefully neutral as she entered.
"Mr. Hayashi," she replied with a slight nod, taking a seat at the opposite end of the table, as far from him as possible.
The meeting began, a dry discussion of bandwidth allocation and stress-test parameters. Sharon was all sharp efficiency, her questions precise, her suggestions unimpeachable.
"I recommend we prioritize the data-stream encryption before the load-balancing test," she stated, looking at Tanaka. "The legacy code in the secondary framework is too unstable to handle the throughput otherwise."
Tanaka glanced nervously at Kenzo. "But the schedule from the CEO's office—"
"What does Ms. Lee think?" Kenzo interrupted, his voice quiet but firm. His eyes were on Sharon, not Tanaka. It was a deliberate, public handing over of the reins. "If she says the encryption is the priority, then it is."
Silence hit the room. Tanaka and Sato stared at each other. Kenzo Hayashi didn't back down, he took charge. He commanded.
Her heart skipped a beat. This was a surprising new move. He wasn't pleading or manipulating; he was handing over his control where she was strongest.
She met his gaze, and for a fleeting second, she saw not a CEO, but the man from the veranda, watching the fireworks. The memory was so clear it took her breath away.
She quickly looked down at her tablet. "The data-stream encryption is the priority," she confirmed, her voice thankfully steady.
The moment was broken, but the air remained charged.
Suddenly, a strident, pulsing alarm blared through the room. A red banner flashed across the main monitor: CRITICAL SYSTEM BREACH - SERVER CLUSTER ALPHA.
Panic erupted. Tanaka started yelling into his headset. Sato began frantically typing, his face pale.
"It's a cascade failure! We're losing the primary node!" Tanaka shouted.
Without a single word of discussion, Sharon and Kenzo moved as one. It was an old, ingrained dance.
"Shut down the secondary data feeder, now! Isolate the node!" Sharon commanded, her fingers flying across her own laptop, her focus absolute.
"Tanaka, authorize a full system override. Use my executive code: Sierra-Tango-Niner-Seven," Kenzo ordered, his voice cutting through the chaos. He was already at her shoulder, looking over her screen, his presence was like a solid wall at her back. "The backup is in the off-site server in Osaka. Can you reroute?"
"Already initiating the handshake," she said, her voice tight with concentration. "The latency will be high for ninety seconds. We'll lose real-time data for the Asian sector."
"Understood. Sato, notify the regional heads. Now!"
They worked as one, a flawless team, for ten minutes. He guessed her needs; she quickly executed everything perfectly. Their usual intense connection was now aimed at saving his company, and it felt closer than any physical intimacy.
And then, as abruptly as it started, the alarm stopped. The red banner vanished. The system stabilized.
A collective, shaky sigh of relief went through the room. Tanaka wiped his brow. "We're back online. Crisis averted."
The spell shattered.
Sharon leaned back, her hands trembling slightly. She could still feel the heat of Kenzo's body standing close behind her. The ghost of his breath on her neck.
He was looking at her, his chest rising and falling with the same adrenaline-fueled rhythm as hers. His eyes were wide, full of awe and a devastating, naked gratitude. "That was…" he began, his voice thick with an emotion he could no longer contain. "That was just like old times."
The words stayed in the air, full of fragile hope. But Sharon quickly and ruthlessly destroyed that hope.
She stood, smoothing her trousers with hands that she willed to be steady. "The old times are what got us here, Mr. Hayashi." She didn't look at him as she said it, her gaze fixed on the now-quiet monitor. "The immediate threat is neutralized. I'll have a full incident report on your desk by end of day."
She gathered her things and walked out of the conference room, leaving behind the lingering energy of their partnership and the palpable weight of his devastation. She didn't allow herself to look back.
---
Kenzo stayed alone in the sunlit conference room long after the others left. Her words lingered like a cold, definite ending.
"The old times are what got us here."
Here. In this sterile professional hell. In this agony of having her so close yet infinitely far away.
He walked to the window and stared at the tiny cars and people below. The excitement of the crisis was gone, leaving him completely, deeply exhausted. He had tried everything with her, apologies, business talk, respect, shared work, but she responded with coldness every time.
He replayed the last ten minutes. The seamless way they had worked together. It had felt so right, so meant to be. For a moment, he had dared to hope. But her retreat was more brutal than any system failure.
A chilling thought began to take root, one he had been resisting since he first read her invoice. What if he was the one being selfish?
He was forcing her to be here, trapped in a gilded cage of his own making, all because he couldn't bear to let her go. He was causing her pain, day after day, for the chance to simply be near her. He was paying her exorbitantly to endure his presence. The truth of it was ugly.
He had been fighting to win her back, but what if the truest act of love was to stop fighting?
The realization settled over him not as a sadness, but as a grim, peaceful resolution. He loved her too much to keep torturing her like this. He loved her enough to grant her the freedom she so clearly wanted.
He would not fire her. He would not renege on the contract. That would be just another act of control.
No. He would let her finish the job. He would give her every resource, every ounce of cooperation she needed. He would be the perfect, impersonal client. And when the Nakamura deal was finally secure, when her work was done, he would sign the final payment without a word of protest. He would let her walk away, cleanly and forever.
It would shatter him, but it was the only gift he had left to give her. Her freedom.
He turned from the window, his decision made. The fight had gone out of his eyes, replaced by a quiet, devastating sorrow. The war was over. He had just surrendered.