5- A Dinner He Remembered

The next morning, Elena arrived at the office with a clear plan.

She would finish her work, survive dinner with Mr. Vance, and return to the estate without giving him a single reason to irritate her.

It was a simple plan.

Unfortunately, she had forgotten one important detail.

Mr. Vance had a remarkable talent for making simple things difficult.

At eight thirty, she was already reviewing a stack of contracts. By nine, she had received two additional reports. At ten, Mr. Vance sent her a message asking for a revised schedule for the following week’s meetings.

She stared at the message.

Then at the contracts.

Then back at the message.

“Does this man believe I have three pairs of hands?”

Her colleague, sitting at the next desk, glanced at her.

“Did you say something?”

“No. Just questioning the future of humanity.”

She returned to work.

By noon, she had barely left her chair. Her coffee had gone cold twice, and the lunch she had ordered was still sitting untouched beside her keyboard.

At twelve fifteen, her phone vibrated.

Mina: Are we still having dinner tonight, or should I start sending you flowers at the office?

Elena smiled despite herself.

Elena: Tonight. I promised, remember?

Mina: You also promised last Thursday.

Elena winced.

Elena: Tonight is different.

Mina: I’ll believe it when I see you.

Elena put her phone away and looked at the clock.

She was going to keep that promise.

Even if she had to finish the rest of her work with one hand while dragging herself toward the restaurant with the other.

At two, Mr. Vance appeared beside her desk.

“Have you finished the schedule?”

Elena kept her eyes on the screen.

“Good afternoon to you, too.”

“Miss Hayes.”

She looked up.

He was wearing a charcoal suit today, the jacket buttoned, his dark hair neatly arranged. Nothing about his appearance was unusual, yet the people passing behind him seemed to move a little faster.

Mr. Vance had that effect on a room. He didn’t demand attention. He simply made people aware when they weren’t giving it to him.

“The schedule?” he repeated.

“I’m working on it.”

“I asked for it an hour ago.”

“And I’ve been working on the contracts you gave me before that.”

His eyes moved to the stack beside her computer.

“How much longer?”

“That depends. Are you planning to give me anything else before I finish?”

He studied her for a moment.

“No.”

Elena narrowed her eyes.

“Should I be worried?”

“Would it make a difference?”

“Not particularly. But I enjoy being prepared for disappointment.”

A faint change appeared in his expression. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it came close enough to make her wonder whether she’d imagined it.

“Have the schedule on my desk by four.”

He turned to leave.

“And, Mr. Vance?”

He stopped.

She almost never addressed him directly unless she needed to make a point. This time, she wanted to make one very clearly.

“I have plans tonight. I’m leaving on time.”

He turned his head slightly.

“What plans?”

“Dinner.”

“With whom?”

Elena stared at him.

“Are you asking as my employer, or because you’ve developed an interest in my social calendar?”

His gaze settled on her face.

“Neither. I’m asking because I need to know whether you’ll be available if something urgent comes up.”

It was a reasonable answer.

Annoyingly reasonable.

“I won’t be available after six.”

“Then finish what you need to finish before six.”

She blinked.

That was it?

No reminder about the contract. No additional task. No comment about how dinner could wait.

Mr. Vance simply walked away.

Elena watched him disappear into his office, feeling oddly dissatisfied.

She had prepared for a fight and somehow ended up with nothing to fight about.

Which, she decided, was probably another one of his tricks.

⸻

At six fifteen, Elena was finally free.

She checked the revised schedule one last time, sent it to Mr. Vance, and shut down her computer.

Her phone rang before she could pick up her bag.

Mina.

“Tell me you’re already on your way.”

“I’m leaving now.”

“You’re not still at the office, are you?”

Elena looked through the glass wall toward Mr. Vance’s office.

He was standing behind his desk, speaking to someone on the phone. One hand rested on the desk, the other held his phone to his ear. His expression was unreadable.

“I’m leaving,” she repeated.

“Good. Because if you cancel again, I’m coming to that office myself.”

“Please don’t. He might give you a spreadsheet.”

Mina laughed.

“Twenty minutes. Don’t be late.”

Elena ended the call and slipped her phone into her bag.

She was almost at the elevator when Mr. Vance’s voice stopped her.

“Miss Hayes.”

She turned.

He had stepped out of his office.

For a moment, neither spoke. His gaze moved to her bag, then returned to her face.

“You’re leaving.”

“That’s generally what happens when the workday ends.”

“Is everything finished?”

“Everything you asked for.”

He held her gaze for another second.

Then he nodded.

“Good.”

Elena waited.

She wasn’t sure what she expected. Perhaps another instruction, another document, another reason to miss dinner.

Instead, he stepped aside to let her pass.

She walked by him, aware of his presence even without looking at him. The corridor suddenly seemed narrower than it had a moment earlier.

When she reached the elevator, she pressed the button.

The doors opened.

“Miss Hayes.”

She turned back.

Mr. Vance was still standing where she had left him.

“The driver can take you.”

“I’ve already called a taxi.”

“Cancel it.”

Her eyebrows rose.

There it was.

The order.

She folded her arms.

“Why?”

“Because the driver is available.”

“That’s not a reason. That’s a statement about your driver’s employment status.”

His expression didn’t change.

“It’s late.”

“It’s six fifteen.”

“And raining.”

Elena glanced toward the windows at the end of the corridor. Rain had begun to streak the glass, the city lights blurring behind it.

She looked back at him.

“I can manage a taxi, Mr. Vance.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“Then why are you making this sound like a decision you’ve already made?”

For a moment, his eyes held hers.

The corridor was quiet. Somewhere behind him, a phone rang and was quickly answered. Mr. Vance didn’t look away.

“Because I would prefer to know you’ve arrived safely.”

The answer caught her off guard.

It wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t a declaration of concern, either. He said it as if it were a practical matter, something that required no discussion.

But his voice had changed.

It was lower, quieter, stripped of the impatience he usually used when speaking to her.

Elena found herself studying his face, searching for the hidden command behind the words.

She didn’t find one.

Or perhaps she simply couldn’t recognize it yet.

“Fine,” she said at last. “But I’m still choosing where I go, and I’m not coming back to the office tonight.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“Good.”

“Enjoy your dinner, Miss Hayes.”

She stepped into the elevator.

Just before the doors closed, she saw him turn back toward his office.

For some reason, that small detail stayed with her all the way downstairs.

⸻

The restaurant was warm and crowded, filled with the smell of fresh bread and the sound of people talking over one another.

Mina was already waiting at their table when Elena arrived.

She stood up immediately and pulled Elena into a hug.

“Look at you. I was beginning to think you’d been locked in a basement.”

“Not a basement. An office. Much worse lighting.”

Mina laughed and looked her over.

“You look exhausted.”

“Thank you. I’ve been working very hard to achieve this appearance.”

They sat down, ordered food, and spent the first twenty minutes catching up on everything Elena had missed.

Mina told her about a disastrous date, a mutual friend’s new relationship, and an argument that had somehow started over a parking space and ended with someone blocking three cars.

Elena laughed so hard at the last story that she had to put her glass down.

For the first time in days, she wasn’t thinking about contracts, deadlines, or the next folder waiting on her desk.

She was simply herself again.

And she hadn’t realized how badly she had needed that until it happened.

Halfway through dinner, Mina leaned forward.

“Now tell me about him.”

Elena stopped chewing.

“Who?”

Mina stared at her.

“Don’t insult me. Mr. Vance.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“You live in his house, work in his office, and apparently spend more time with him than with the rest of the human population. There is absolutely something to tell.”

Elena took a sip of water.

“He’s demanding. Controlling. Impossible to please.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Mina’s eyes narrowed.

“You paused.”

“I was swallowing.”

“You were thinking.”

“I was swallowing while thinking.”

Mina laughed.

Elena rolled her eyes, but a small smile betrayed her.

“He’s not what I expected,” she admitted after a moment.

“Better or worse?”

She considered the question.

“Hard to say.”

That was the problem.

Mr. Vance could be infuriating. He could make a simple request feel like a test and a short conversation feel like a negotiation. But he was also difficult to read, and every now and then she caught a glimpse of something beneath his cold exterior that didn’t fit the picture she had built of him.

She wasn’t sure whether that made him more interesting or more dangerous.

Probably both.

Her phone vibrated beside her plate.

A message from Mr. Vance.

Mr. Vance: Has the driver picked you up?

Elena stared at the screen.

Then she typed:

Elena: I’m already at the restaurant.

His reply came a minute later.

Mr. Vance: Good.

That was all.

No question about the restaurant. No request for her location. No instruction to return at a particular time.

Elena put the phone facedown.

Mina watched her.

“Was that him?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

“To know whether I arrived safely.”

Mina’s expression shifted.

“And you think that’s normal?”

Elena frowned.

“He offered me a driver.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Elena looked at her phone again.

She didn’t know why the message had unsettled her. It was a simple question. A practical one, even.

But she remembered the way Mr. Vance had stood in the corridor, his gaze fixed on her, his voice quiet when he said he wanted to know she had arrived safely.

He hadn’t asked her to stay.

He hadn’t told her she couldn’t go.

He had let her leave.

And somehow, that made it harder to understand him.

“He’s difficult,” Elena said finally.

Mina reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

“Just remember that being interested in you doesn’t give him the right to control you.”

Elena looked at her friend.

“I know.”

She meant it.

At least, she thought she did.

⸻

Back at the estate, Mr. Vance was still awake.

He stood near the windows of his study, a glass of water untouched on the desk behind him. His phone lay beside it.

He had sent one message.

She had answered.

She was safe.

There was no reason to think about it again.

And yet, when the clock moved past nine, he glanced at his phone.

Nothing.

He returned to the documents on his desk.

Ten minutes later, he checked the time again.

It irritated him.

He had never been a man who waited for other people to finish their evenings. His own schedule was too full, his responsibilities too demanding, and his patience too limited for such habits.

Elena was having dinner with her friends.

That was all.

He had approved her evening off. He had let her leave the office on time. She was free to spend her evening however she pleased.

He knew that.

He had no intention of interfering.

Still, when his phone lit up with an unrelated message, his eyes moved to the screen too quickly.

Mr. Vance set it down.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered.

He returned to his work.

But the quiet of the study felt different that evening, and he couldn’t decide whether it was the rain against the windows or the fact that, for once, Elena Hayes was somewhere he couldn’t see her.

He didn’t like the feeling.

He liked even less that he couldn’t give it a name.