Chapter 07 (Part 02)

Wednesday came.

He didn't say a word to me until nearly noon.

I was organizing the client database when his voice came through the intercom.

"Conference Room A. Ten minutes."

No explanation.

Just a location and a countdown.

I stood, adjusted my blazer, and made my way to the conference room without allowing myself to feel anything about it.

He was already seated when I arrived, a stack of papers in front of him and two board members I vaguely recognized from last quarter's budget meeting. They barely acknowledged me as I took the empty seat to Killian's left.

He didn't look at me.

"Quinn," he said, eyes on the document. "Take the minutes."

"Yes, sir."

He didn't blink at the formality.

Good.

That was the point.

The meeting lasted forty-seven minutes. I spoke once—to clarify a logistics question. He didn't correct me. Didn't compliment me either. Just kept moving like I was a piece on a board he'd already planned twenty moves ahead.

When the meeting ended, I closed my notepad and turned to leave.

"Miss Quinn."

His voice stopped me cold.

I turned back slowly.

He stood across from me, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable.

"You haven't spoken to me all week."

I blinked. "I didn't realize silence required explanation."

His jaw tensed. "It does when it's deliberate."

"I've been focused on work."

"So focused you forgot how to knock?"

I didn't respond.

He stepped closer. "Is this how you operate, then? Shut down when things get… complicated?"

My throat tightened. "Nothing is complicated, Mr. Vale."

A pause.

Then, quieter: "Don't lie."

I took a slow breath and straightened my spine. "With respect, I think keeping this professional is what we both agreed to."

"I didn't agree to anything."

"Exactly," I said, voice sharper now. "You don't agree. You command. You dictate. You test people until they break. And when they don't—you pretend they're invisible until they disappear anyway."

The words hung between us like smoke—acrid and irreversible.

He stared at me, unreadable. For the first time since I'd met him, he looked like he didn't know what to say.

So I saved him the trouble.

I turned and walked out.

The corridor beyond the conference room stretched before me like an escape route. My heels struck the floor with percussive precision, each step carrying me further from the confrontation, from the dangerous territory we'd just trespassed into.

Behind me, the conference room door remained closed. No footsteps followed. No voice called me back.

I hadn't expected it to. Killian Vale didn't chase; he summoned. He didn't explain; he expected understanding. He didn't apologize; he simply moved forward as though the past were irrelevant.

By the time I reached my desk, my hands were trembling. Not from fear, but from the strange adrenaline that comes with speaking truth aloud after keeping it caged for too long. My words had been blades—sharp and aimed with deliberate precision. I'd watched them land. Watched something flicker across his face—surprise, perhaps. Or recognition.

For a fraction of a second, I'd penetrated the armor he wore like a second skin.

And now I would pay the price.

I lowered myself into my chair, fingers automatically reaching for my keyboard. Work. Focus. Control. The holy trinity of professional survival. I would bury myself in tasks until the memory of his face—that brief, unguarded expression—faded from my mind.

But as the screen before me blurred into pixels and patterns, I knew with strange certainty that I'd crossed a line. Not just with him, but within myself.

I'd acknowledged the game we were playing.

And in doing so, I'd become an active participant rather than a pawn.

---

The rest of the day passed in a blur.

I buried myself in tasks. Back-to-back emails. Scheduling. Restructuring spreadsheets. I answered three phone calls, redirected five others, and by 6:00 p.m., I felt like I'd run a marathon with my fingers.

But none of it stopped the ache in my chest.

None of it silenced the echo of his voice.

"You haven't spoken to me all week."

He'd noticed.

And that… that was the problem.

Because the moment I let myself feel seen, I'd start wanting more.

And wanting more from Killian Vale?

Was a guaranteed way to lose everything.

The realization sat heavy in my stomach as I mechanically completed my final tasks for the day. Around me, the office gradually emptied—colleagues collecting bags, shutting down computers, exchanging casual goodbyes that seemed alien to my ears. Their simplicity. Their ease. The uncomplicated rhythm of people who knew exactly where they stood with one another.

I envied them that certainty.

My own position had become quicksand beneath my feet—unstable, unpredictable, threatening to pull me under with every step. I'd come to this job with clear expectations. A defined role. Boundaries as solid as the walls around Killian's office.

Now those boundaries had blurred into something dangerous—a liminal space where professional distance and personal awareness collided with volatile results.

*"You haven't spoken to me all week."*

Not *you haven't been doing your job* or *your performance is lacking* or any of the criticisms he could have legitimately leveled. No, what bothered him was my silence. My withdrawal. The deliberate space I'd placed between us.

He'd noticed because he'd been watching.

And I'd been watching him watch me.

This awareness—this mutual observation—was exactly what I'd been trying to avoid. The reciprocal attention that threatened to transform our professional relationship into something unnamed and dangerous.

I needed to stop this now. Reinforce the boundaries. Maintain the professional distance that had kept me employed while others burned out and disappeared.

But as I gathered my things to leave, a small, treacherous part of me wondered if it was already too late—if the moment he'd first looked at me as a person rather than a function, we had already begun an inevitable descent into something neither of us could control.

---

That evening, I lingered in the breakroom longer than I should have.

The building had emptied out. Only the top floor remained alive, lights buzzing faintly overhead. I sipped the last of my coffee and tried not to think.

Of course, that's when the door opened.

I didn't need to turn around to know it was him.

His presence carried differently than anyone else's—weighted and soundless.

I turned anyway.

He looked tired.

Looser tie. Hair slightly out of place. The kind of look that said he'd been working for too long and thinking even longer.

"Still here," he said.

"I could say the same to you."

He walked toward the sink, filled a glass with water, and leaned against the counter beside me.

The silence stretched.

Uncomfortable. Loaded.

Then he said, "I wasn't testing you that day."

I frowned. "Which day?"

"The day I gave you the Archer report."

I hesitated. "You said everything was a test."

"I was angry," he said simply. "Not at you. At everything."

I looked at him carefully. "And now?"

His eyes met mine.

And something unspoken passed between us again.

Stillness.

That thread of heat that lived in the silence.

"I don't know," he said.

And for once, the truth in his voice was enough.

I nodded. "Okay."

I moved to leave, but before I reached the door, I heard him say—

"You're the first person who's ever walked away from me."

I stopped.

Turned halfway.

"I didn't walk away," I said. "I just stopped chasing a version of you that doesn't exist."

Then I left.

And this time, I didn't look back.

The elevator doors closed on his reflection—a solitary figure standing in the breakroom doorway, watching me leave. His expression was hidden in shadow, but the line of his shoulders spoke volumes. Tension. Confusion, perhaps. The unfamiliar posture of a man accustomed to certainty suddenly faced with a question he couldn't answer.

As the elevator descended, I leaned against the cool metal wall and closed my eyes. My heart hammered against my ribs with violent insistence, as though trying to break free from the cage I'd built around it. Emotions I'd refused to name swirled beneath my carefully constructed exterior—longing, frustration, an inexplicable sense of loss for something I'd never actually possessed.

*"You're the first person who's ever walked away from me."*

His words replayed in my mind—not a confession, exactly. More like an observation tinged with something that might have been wonder. Or possibly fear. The notion that Killian Vale—brilliant, untouchable, impossible Killian Vale—might fear my absence struck me as absurd. And yet, I'd seen something in his eyes. A vulnerability he'd never shown before.

I'd been right about one thing: looking too long meant seeing too much.

The ground floor welcomed me with its vacant stillness. Night had fully descended outside, turning the glass lobby into a mirror that reflected my solitary figure back at me. I looked smaller somehow. Less certain. A woman caught between decisions, between worlds.

As I pushed through the revolving doors into the night air, I couldn't escape the feeling that something fundamental had shifted. Not just between Killian and me, but within myself.

I'd drawn a line.

Established a boundary.

Declared myself more than just another employee to be commanded and controlled.

And in doing so, I'd initiated a dangerous new phase in whatever this was between us. No longer purely professional. Not yet personal. Something undefined and volatile that existed in the charged space between distance and proximity.

The night enveloped me as I walked away from the building, its shadows offering temporary cover for the uncertainty that plagued my steps. Tomorrow would come. I would return to my desk. Killian would emerge from his office. And we would continue this strange, unspoken negotiation of space and silence.

But something had changed.

Something had broken.

And I couldn't decide if it was a beginning or an end.

All I knew was that walking away from Killian Vale had never been the problem.

The problem was that despite everything—despite my every intention—I wasn't sure I wanted to stay away.