Chapter 07

Emery Quinn

For three days, we didn't speak.

Not really.

There were words, yes. Brief instructions. A clipped acknowledgment here, a dry "noted" there. But nothing more. Nothing that resembled conversation. Nothing that resembled… whatever strange tether had started forming between us.

And I was grateful for it.

Or at least, that's what I told myself.

The silence between us had become a physical thing—an invisible barrier constructed of unspoken words and averted gazes. Professionally efficient. Personally vacant. The office carried on around us as though nothing had changed, but I felt the shift in every passing moment, in every carefully calculated step I took to avoid his path.

This was better, I reasoned. Safer. The strange electricity that had sparked between us during those unguarded moments had been dangerous—a live wire I couldn't afford to touch again. Not with someone like him. Not with what was at stake.

So I welcomed the silence. Embraced the distance. And tried to ignore the hollow space it left behind.

---

I woke up Monday morning with a strange clarity I hadn't felt in weeks.

It wasn't peace. It was more like resignation.

Like my heart had finally accepted what my head had been screaming all along: This is just a job.

Killian Vale wasn't a mystery I needed to solve.

He was a storm I needed to survive.

So I got dressed in silence, pulled my hair back with military precision, and made a silent vow to myself: I would only speak when necessary. I would only exist inside my job description. I would not—under any circumstances—look at him for too long.

Because the moment you start looking too long, you start seeing too much.

And I couldn't afford that.

Not anymore.

The mirror reflected a version of myself I barely recognized—composed, detached, armored in professional attire that felt more like a shield than clothing. My eyes, normally bright with curiosity, had dulled to a careful neutrality. The woman staring back at me had learned her lesson. She understood the rules now.

As I applied my lipstick—a muted shade, nothing that would draw attention—I rehearsed the day ahead. I would arrive precisely fifteen minutes early. I would check my inbox, prioritize the day's tasks, and execute them with mechanical precision. I would speak only when addressed directly. I would keep my eyes on my screen, my notes, anywhere but him.

I would become invisible.

The thought should have brought comfort. Instead, it settled like a weight in my chest—heavy and cold.

Outside my apartment, the city buzzed with Monday morning energy. People rushed past with purpose, with direction, with the simple luxury of being exactly who they were meant to be. I envied them. Their uncomplicated lives. Their freedom to feel without consequence.

But I'd made my choice. And choices had consequences.

So I stepped into the stream of morning commuters, joined the anonymous flow of bodies moving through the city, and tried to convince myself that disappearing was exactly what I wanted.

---

The week rolled out like a gray carpet—unfolding without color, without pause.

Emails. Reports. Briefings. More files than my eyes could comfortably scan without burning. And Killian… he stayed behind his office door like a shadow I no longer dared to trace.

He didn't call me in.

He didn't ask questions.

He simply passed tasks through his assistant line or dropped folders on my desk during his silent passes through the hallway.

I didn't ask for context.

I didn't make conversation.

I just nodded, completed the work, and filed it exactly where it needed to go.

Efficient. Professional. Invisible.

It was what he wanted. What I told myself I wanted.

So why did every silence between us feel so loud now?

The office hummed around me—phones ringing, keyboards clicking, the soft murmur of conversation rising and falling like waves against a distant shore. All these sounds that had once blended into white noise now seemed amplified, as if my senses were desperately seeking distraction from the deafening quiet between Killian and me.

When he passed by my desk, the air seemed to grow thinner. His presence commanded attention without demanding it—a gravitational pull I fought against with every fiber of my being. I kept my eyes fixed on whatever task occupied my hands, ignoring the prickle of awareness that crawled up my spine whenever he was near.

But peripheral vision is a treacherous thing.

It caught the tension in his shoulders. The rigid set of his jaw. The way his fingers gripped the edges of folders with unnecessary force. He moved through the office like a man bracing against hurricane winds—controlled but coiled, ready for impact.

I told myself I didn't care. That his internal weather systems were none of my concern. That whatever storm brewed inside him belonged to someone else to weather.

But in the quiet moments between tasks, when my guard slipped and my mind wandered, I wondered if he felt it too—this strange absence of something that had barely begun to exist.

---

On Tuesday, Diane approached my desk mid-afternoon.

She leaned against the corner, arms crossed, her heels clicking softly against the tile as she studied me with curious eyes.

"You two have gone quiet," she said without preamble.

I didn't look up from my screen. "We're busy."

"Sure." She tapped her manicured nail against her coffee cup. "Funny how the whole floor relaxes when he stops talking to someone."

My fingers stilled on the keyboard.

"I didn't realize I needed to be anyone's emotional buffer," I said coolly.

She raised a brow. "You weren't. But you were a distraction. Now that he's ignoring you again, everyone can breathe easier."

I turned then, slowly. "Do you want something?"

"Just checking to see how long you'll last."

"And why do you care?"

She smiled. "Because you're the first one he's actually kept around. The rest burned out in weeks."

I didn't respond.

She stepped away, voice lower. "You're smart to keep your head down. But don't kid yourself, Quinn—no one walks away from him without something broken."

Her words lingered long after she'd disappeared down the hallway. I stared at my screen, fingers hovering over keys that suddenly seemed too small, too distant. The text blurred before my eyes as my mind replayed her warning on an endless loop.

*No one walks away from him without something broken.*

The implication hung in the air like a threat. Or perhaps a prophecy. Something in her tone suggested intimate knowledge—the kind that comes from witnessing a pattern repeat itself until it becomes predictable. Until it becomes fact.

I wondered briefly about the others. Those who had burned out in weeks. What had they seen in Killian that had consumed them so quickly? What had he demanded that they couldn't provide? Or perhaps more importantly—what had they glimpsed that they couldn't unsee?

A part of me wanted to dismiss her words as office politics—the jealous barbs of someone who'd been overlooked or undervalued. But the certainty in her eyes told a different story. She wasn't warning me because she cared. She was marking me as the next casualty in a war I hadn't known I was fighting.

And perhaps the most unsettling realization wasn't that Killian might break something in me.

It was the quiet voice that whispered he already had.

---

That night, I stayed late.

Not for Killian.

For myself.

My desk was piled with revision requests from the finance team and a quarterly logistics report from the Berlin office that needed to be proofed before morning. I worked until the building was quiet and the lights outside turned gold and hazy with distance.

I didn't know if he was still in his office.

I didn't check.

At 8:23 p.m., I shut down my screen, packed my things, and made my way to the elevator.

As I passed his door, I hesitated—just for a breath.

Then I kept walking.

Because some temptations don't come with alarms. Just silence.

And silence could be deadly in the wrong hands.

The elevator doors closed with a soft mechanical sigh, sealing me in a momentary vacuum of steel and mirrors. My reflection stared back at me from all angles—tired eyes, tense shoulders, a posture that spoke of a day spent holding myself together through sheer force of will.

I watched the numbers descend, counting down the floors between where I was and where I needed to be. Away. Anonymous. Free from the suffocating awareness that had plagued me all day.

The ground floor lobby stretched before me in marble and shadow. Night security nodded as I passed, their presence a reminder that I wasn't truly alone in the building. But loneliness doesn't require solitude. Sometimes it finds you in crowded rooms, in occupied spaces, in the midst of conversations that never quite reach beneath the surface.

Outside, the city had transformed. Daytime's harsh angles and hurried pace had softened into something more forgiving—a landscape of gold-lit windows and gentle movement. The night air filled my lungs, cool and clean after hours of recycled office oxygen.

I could go home. Should go home. But the thought of my empty apartment, with its waiting silence and empty spaces where thoughts could grow too loud, held little appeal.

Instead, I walked.

Past illuminated storefronts. Past restaurants filled with laughing patrons. Past couples linked arm-in-arm, their faces turned toward each other with an ease I envied. I walked until the tension in my shoulders began to loosen, until my mind quieted from a scream to a whisper.

Until I could almost convince myself that tomorrow would be different.

That I could maintain this careful distance indefinitely.

That my hesitation outside his door had meant nothing at all.