Chapter Three: Fractures in Glass

The boardroom gleamed with polished precision. Screens lit with charts, numbers scrolling in neat alignment, the air filled with the clipped rhythm of voices presenting strategies.

Sophia should have felt at home here. This was her kingdom — the empire she had built, line by line, deal by deal. But today, as the quarterly projections scrolled across the glass wall, her attention drifted.

Not to the numbers. Not to Marcus’s commentary about scaling overseas.

To the streak of cobalt blue in her mind’s eye. To the wild arc of paint that had refused to be tamed.

She blinked hard, adjusted her posture, and forced her gaze back to the presentation. Focus, Sophia.

But the mural intruded again.

Alive. Defiant. Uncontrolled.

“—Sophia?” Marcus’s voice cut through.

Her head snapped toward him. “Yes?”

The entire table looked at her expectantly. She realized she had missed the question.

Marcus’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. “Your perspective on allocating resources for the Singapore expansion?”

Sophia smoothed her expression, willing her voice steady. “Proceed with phase one. Conservative entry, but maintain strong marketing to test resonance.”

Her answer was solid, logical. It drew nods around the table. Yet Marcus’s eyes lingered on her longer than they should have, sharp with quiet reproach.

After the meeting, as the executives filtered out, Marcus approached her. His voice lowered. “You’re slipping.”

Sophia straightened, spine rigid. “I’m fine.”

He searched her face, then glanced toward the office where the mural hung, visible through the glass. His jaw set. “That thing is a distraction.”

“It’s art,” she replied coolly.

“It’s clutter,” Marcus shot back. “And it’s not like you.”

The words struck harder than she expected. Not like her. He meant it as a critique, but a part of her recoiled at how easily he defined her — efficient, predictable, composed.

She turned away, voice like steel. “I don’t need you telling me what is or isn’t me.”

Marcus hesitated, as if he wanted to press further, then thought better of it. He left without another word.

But the echo of his accusation lingered long after.

Meanwhile, Alex’s studio was chaos in motion.

Paint cans littered the floor, brushes stood upright in murky jars, and half-finished canvases leaned against the walls like restless ghosts.

But his hand refused to move.

He sat cross-legged before the canvas, brush idle. Normally, inspiration came like a tide — sudden, overwhelming. Now, it teased him. A flicker here, a shadow there. Always leading him back to the same place.

Her.

The way her fingers had hovered just shy of touching the mural. The crack in her composure, so small most would have missed it. The weight in her eyes when he said the words.

Remind you you’re alive.

He had painted countless faces in his life, but Sophia Bennett’s wasn’t even fully known to him. Yet already, fragments of her haunted the edges of his canvas — a sharp jawline here, the gleam of glass around her silhouette there.

Jasmine leaned against the doorway, sipping coffee, watching him. “You’re lost again,” she said lightly.

Alex dragged a hand through his hair. “Maybe.”

“Who is she?” Jasmine asked, too blunt to dance around it.

Alex glanced at her, caught off guard. “What makes you think—”

“Because I’ve seen this before,” Jasmine cut in. “Every time someone gets into your head, they bleed into your work. And right now? Your whole studio feels different.”

He laughed softly, without humor. “She’s no one.”

But the denial rang hollow, even to his own ears.

That night, Sophia stood alone in her penthouse. She told herself she was working late, but her laptop sat unopened on the table.

Her gaze rested, once again, on the mural.

The brushstrokes seemed louder at night. The chaos of color pressed against the glass walls of her home, defiant, as if mocking her carefully constructed world.

For the first time in years, Sophia Bennett felt a fracture — a hairline crack running through the glass she had built around her life.

She poured another glass of wine and sat in silence, staring, as if daring the colors to explain themselves.

But the only answer came from within.

And it terrified her.

The wine glass was nearly empty, but Sophia still cradled it as though it might anchor her.

She leaned back against the cold marble of her kitchen counter, eyes drawn again and again to the mural. Its presence filled the room, too alive, too loud, as though it refused to let her slip into the safe numbness she’d perfected.

Her mother’s voice echoed faintly from memory — You have to be strong, Sophia. Stronger than me. Strong enough that no one can hurt you.

And she had been. She had clawed her way up, swallowed exhaustion, ignored loneliness, silenced desire. She had built a fortress made of contracts and glass, one where nothing could pierce.

Except, apparently, paint.

She set the glass down too hard, the clink too sharp in the silence, and pressed her palms against the counter as though to steady herself. Her reflection stared back in the glossy surface: flawless, unyielding, tired.

She whispered to the empty room, “Why can’t I look away?”

Across the city, Alex sat on the worn floorboards of his studio, pencil moving in restless lines across the sketchbook.

The sketches weren’t deliberate. They slipped out the way breaths did — uninvited, automatic. A profile with hair pinned back too neatly. A gaze that never softened. Hands clutching something invisible, as though holding herself together.

It was Sophia.

Not precisely. Not photographically. But her presence seeped through every line, disguised as abstraction.

Jasmine noticed from the corner, where she’d sprawled on an old sofa. “So,” she said slowly, “the CEO’s made her way into your book.”

Alex didn’t look up. “It’s not like that.”

“Mm,” Jasmine hummed, unconvinced.

“She’s—different,” he admitted finally, surprising himself. “She stands in front of the mural like it’s a battle. Like she doesn’t want it to touch her but… can’t stop it from getting under her skin.”

Jasmine tilted her head, thoughtful. “And you like that?”

Alex closed the sketchbook with a snap, as if to trap her inside the pages. “I don’t even know her.”

But his chest tightened with the truth he wouldn’t say: he wanted to.

The next morning, Marcus stood in Sophia’s office, reviewing notes with his usual efficiency. He was loyal, pragmatic, her second-in-command for years. But now, he watched her with something like suspicion.

“You didn’t sleep,” he said flatly.

Sophia adjusted her blouse cuff, unwilling to meet his gaze. “I had work.”

“No,” Marcus countered, “you had that.”

His nod toward the mural was laced with disdain.

Sophia bristled. “You think a painting can undo me?”

“I think,” Marcus replied carefully, “that something is undoing you. And you’re letting it.”

She stared at him, searching for a response sharp enough to cut. But nothing came. His words weren’t wrong.

Marcus’s tone softened, almost protective. “You’ve worked too hard for this, Sophia. Don’t let something reckless break what you built.”

Sophia’s jaw tightened. Reckless. The word clung like smoke.

“I’m not reckless,” she said, though the conviction faltered in her own ears.

He didn’t press further. But as he left, she saw the quiet warning in his shoulders.

By noon, Sophia found herself wandering into the company’s lobby. She told herself she was there to assess the space, to note details with her CEO’s eye. But her steps drew her to the mural as if pulled by invisible thread.

She stood before it again, arms folded, every line of her body defensive.

The colors blazed back at her, daring, unyielding. And for a fleeting second, she felt it — the same jolt as the first night, the strange reminder that beneath all her precision, blood still pulsed warm in her veins.

But with that came fear.

She turned sharply, retreating before anyone could see her hesitate.

That night, Alex added color to the sketches. He told himself it was just experimentation, playing with contrasts. But the shades he chose betrayed him — steel gray for the fortress around her, streaks of crimson for the war she waged silently inside herself.

When he stepped back, he realized he hadn’t drawn Sophia exactly. He had drawn what she felt like.

Unseen fractures beneath polished glass.

In her penthouse, Sophia sat with her untouched dinner, phone buzzing with emails. But she couldn’t focus.

Her eyes kept dragging toward the mural.

Her fortress felt thinner tonight.

And though she didn’t know it, across the city, Alex Rivera was sketching the same invisible cracks she tried so desperately to hide.

Marcus lingered in the doorway of Sophia’s office longer than he usually allowed himself. He wasn’t a man who wasted time — efficiency was his religion — but today he watched her in silence, cataloguing the faint slip in her posture, the way her gaze kept drifting toward the lobby as though some invisible magnet tugged her there.

Finally, he spoke. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

Sophia looked up sharply. “Excuse me?”

“The painter.” Marcus’s tone was measured, but there was an edge of protectiveness buried in it. “You’re distracted because of him.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. She didn’t confirm, didn’t deny.

Marcus stepped farther inside, lowering his voice as though someone might overhear. “Sophia, I’ve stood by you for years. I know how hard you fought to make this empire untouchable. You don’t have room for—” His eyes flickered. “For distractions that bleed into weakness.”

“Stop,” Sophia cut in, sharper than she intended. Her hands curled into fists against her desk. “You think I don’t know what I built? That I’d throw it away because of… a mural?”

Marcus’s gaze softened for a fleeting second, but his words stayed hard. “Then prove it. Because right now, you don’t look like the woman who outpaced competitors twice her age. You look like someone staring at a door she’s afraid to open.”

The truth of it landed heavier than she wanted. Sophia’s throat tightened, but she forced steel back into her voice. “Leave, Marcus. We have quarterly reports due. Unless you’d like me to remind you of your priorities.”

He exhaled, resigned. But before leaving, he said quietly, “Doors only haunt you if you keep standing in front of them.”

When the door shut behind him, Sophia let herself sag in her chair, chest heaving. Marcus had no right to see so much.

Meanwhile, Alex’s studio smelled faintly of turpentine and coffee, his usual companions when insomnia took root. Tonight was no exception. The city outside his window pulsed with neon veins, but he barely registered them.

His canvas had taken on a life of its own. He hadn’t meant to paint her — not directly, not recognizably. But as brushstrokes layered, her likeness emerged without permission.

The sweep of her jawline, the set of her shoulders, the eyes that never looked at you but through you.

He stopped, brush suspended midair. “Damn it,” he whispered, shaking his head.

He hadn’t asked for this fixation. He painted emotions, not people. Yet here she was, commanding the canvas as she had commanded his mural.

Jasmine returned from the kitchenette, two mugs in hand. She froze when she saw the painting.

Her brows arched. “So much for not like that.”

Alex grimaced, dragging a hand through his hair. “It’s not—I didn’t—”

“Alex.” Jasmine’s voice was gentle, teasing but not cruel. “You don’t paint someone like that unless they’ve already carved out space in you.”

He glanced at the painting again. It was more than likeness. It was reverence. Fragility, too. He had painted her like glass — strong, reflective, but fissured with fault lines that caught the light.

And he couldn’t stop himself from thinking: What would it take for her to let someone see the cracks?

The next morning, Sophia tried to bury herself in spreadsheets. Numbers never lied, never asked questions she couldn’t answer. Yet the mural bled into her focus again, the colors vivid in her mind even with her eyes shut.

She lasted until lunch before giving in.

Her heels clicked against polished marble as she descended into the lobby. A handful of employees were scattered around, but Sophia ignored them. She stood before the mural, arms folded like armor.

It was the same as always. And yet, not.

Today, she swore she could see a face hidden in the chaos of strokes. A silhouette half-formed, watching her back.

Her breath hitched. “No,” she whispered under her breath, shaking her head as though denial could erase it.

But the image lingered, teasing, undeniable.

Somewhere across the city, Alex stepped back from his own canvas, staring at the painted Sophia that stared back at him.

Neither of them knew they were tethered by brushstrokes they hadn’t consented to.

Neither could admit they didn’t want to break free.

Sophia didn’t sleep that night. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, city lights bleeding in through the curtains, her body tense with an energy she couldn’t shake.

She tried the usual remedies — reviewing contracts in her head, mentally organizing the week’s meetings, even drafting half a proposal on her phone at 3 a.m. But every time her mind drifted, it circled back to the same place: the mural in the lobby.

No, not the mural. The possibility inside it.

The faint impression she’d seen — a shadow that almost resembled her own reflection — haunted her. Rationality told her it was projection, a trick of the eye. But instinct whispered otherwise.

By dawn, Sophia had made a decision.

If Alex Rivera thought he could slip fragments of her into his work without permission, she would confront him directly. And she would end this absurd distraction once and for all.

She didn’t bother with her driver. At 7 a.m., long before most of the city was awake, she had her assistant forward Alex’s studio address under the guise of “checking progress for corporate documentation.” Then she drove herself, black sedan gliding through near-empty streets.

The neighborhood was older, rougher around the edges than she expected — brick warehouses converted into lofts, murals bleeding across every wall, as though the very air demanded color.

Her heels clicked against the cracked pavement as she approached the building number she’d memorized. No polished lobbies here, no glass elevators or curated minimalism. Just chipped paint, rusting railings, and a single steel door with faded graffiti scrawled across it.

She knocked.

It took a moment before footsteps echoed inside. Then the door creaked open.

Alex stood there, barefoot, shirt streaked with paint, hair tousled as though he’d just dragged his hands through it. His eyes widened in surprise.

“Sophia?” His voice was husky, sleep-rough.

She hated that her pulse jumped at the sound. She steeled herself. “We need to talk.”

He blinked, then stepped aside, gesturing her in.

The studio was chaos incarnate. Canvases leaned against walls in varying states of completion. Jars of brushes clustered on tables, next to empty mugs and open sketchbooks filled with sprawling lines. The air smelled of oil paint and turpentine, layered with the faint sweetness of jasmine incense burning in the corner.

Sophia wrinkled her nose, not out of disdain but discomfort — this was the opposite of her world. Nothing ordered, nothing planned.

And yet… it felt alive.

She caught herself before she could linger on that thought. Her gaze snapped to the largest canvas against the far wall.

And froze.

Her face.

Not a perfect likeness, but undeniably her. The curve of her chin, the tilt of her lips, the eyes sharpened with resolve but shadowed with something deeper.

Her stomach dropped. “You—”

Alex followed her gaze. His jaw tightened, as though he’d been caught in something shameful. “It wasn’t supposed to be—”

“It’s me.” Her voice cracked with something rawer than anger. “You painted me.”

Alex set his brush down slowly. “Not exactly. Not intentionally.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

He hesitated, then stepped closer. “Sometimes the canvas pulls out what you won’t admit. I didn’t set out to paint you, Sophia. But you…” He searched for words, his hands restless at his sides. “You stayed. In my head. In my hands. And when that happens, the paint tells the truth whether I want it to or not.”

Her chest rose and fell, uneven. She wanted to call him a liar, to accuse him of exploitation, arrogance, obsession — anything that would give her power back.

But the truth vibrated in his words. She had felt it in the mural too.

“You have no right,” she whispered instead.

Alex’s gaze softened. “Maybe not. But neither do I have the ability to stop.”

For a heartbeat, silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken things.

Sophia turned sharply, heading for the door. She couldn’t stay here, not with that canvas staring back at her like a mirror she hadn’t agreed to face.

But before leaving, she said coldly, “Whatever this is — it ends here. Burn it. The mural, the painting, all of it. My company isn’t your gallery.”

Her hand closed around the doorknob.

Behind her, Alex’s voice cut through the air, low and steady.

“You can’t burn what’s already inside you.”

She froze. Just for a second. Then she pulled the door open and left without looking back.

But long after she returned to her penthouse, long after she wrapped herself in silk sheets and tried to drown in sleep, the words kept echoing.

You can’t burn what’s already inside you.

And worse than that… was the terrifying suspicion that he was right.

Sophia had never driven so fast back to her penthouse. The streets blurred, the traffic lights meaningless; she obeyed them out of muscle memory, not awareness. Her fingers clutched the steering wheel as though gripping something solid could hold back the tide rising inside her.

By the time she parked and walked through the pristine glass lobby of her building, her mask was already sliding back into place. The concierge greeted her; she nodded coolly, her heels clicking in even rhythm. Everything about her movements screamed control.

But inside, she was vibrating.

Her image was immortalized on Alex’s canvas. Not a commission, not something she had signed off on — but something raw, something stolen from the parts of her she didn’t show the world. She should have been furious. She was furious.

And yet, when she had looked at it, a tiny part of her had felt… seen.

That was the most dangerous part of all.

The day ahead didn’t allow for spiraling. Meetings stacked against each other, shareholders demanding reassurance about the upcoming expansion, engineers presenting updates on prototype designs. Sophia stood at the head of the boardroom table as if nothing inside her had cracked. Her voice was firm, her slides sharp, her reasoning airtight.

But every time she blinked, she saw brush strokes. The way Alex had shaded around her eyes, not to flatter but to reveal — something about exhaustion, longing, fire contained but never extinguished.

At lunch, Marcus leaned across the table, lowering his voice. “You seem off. Everything okay?”

Sophia didn’t look up from her salad. “Just tired.”

“You?” Marcus gave a skeptical smile. “Tired is not in your vocabulary.”

“I’ll add it, then,” she said flatly.

He chuckled, but his gaze lingered. Too perceptive, too familiar. She hated how he sometimes read her, the way Alex had — but where Marcus saw opportunity to pry, Alex had simply… reflected her back.

By evening, Sophia shut herself in her office, blinds drawn. Her laptop glowed with spreadsheets, but her attention was elsewhere. Against her better judgment, she searched Alex Rivera’s name.

Articles surfaced. Local coverage of his murals in community centers, an arts blog praising his empathy in capturing “the human essence behind faces,” a gallery exhibit three years ago where critics had called him “the brush that paints emotion unspoken.”

Sophia clicked through every image, cataloging his work. Not once had she found herself searching like this for a competitor, a market trend, or a rival CEO. This wasn’t research. This was hunger.

Her phone buzzed, snapping her out of it. Jasmine’s name lit up the screen.

Sophia hesitated, then answered.

“Long day?” Jasmine’s voice was warm, tinged with laughter.

“Something like that.”

“You should come out with me tonight. There’s a private showing in the Arts District. A mural unveiling. I think you’ll like it.”

The word mural lodged like glass in Sophia’s throat. “I don’t have time.”

“You don’t make time,” Jasmine teased gently. “But maybe you should.”

Sophia almost refused again, but then curiosity — or maybe something darker — shifted her decision. “Text me the address.”

The gallery was a converted warehouse, its walls humming with color and light. People milled around holding champagne flutes, their conversations threaded with laughter and critique.

Sophia stood near the back, aloof as always, her black dress and sharp heels setting her apart from the eclectic crowd. She intended to stay only long enough to appease Jasmine.

But when the curtains drew back and the new mural was revealed, Sophia’s heart plummeted.

It wasn’t her face this time. Not exactly. But she recognized herself in the curve of the shoulders, the tilt of the jaw, the guarded yet yearning expression.

Alex’s work. She knew it instantly.

The crowd erupted in murmurs of admiration. Cameras flashed. Critics scribbled notes.

Sophia’s chest constricted. He hadn’t listened. Worse — he had made her part of his public canvas.

Beside her, Jasmine whispered, “Incredible, isn’t it? That’s Alex Rivera. The one I told you about.”

Sophia’s gaze locked on him across the room, where he stood quietly in a corner, avoiding the spotlight even as it sought him.

Their eyes met.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t look away.

And in that silent exchange, Sophia knew this wasn’t over. Not by choice. Not by force.

No boardroom strategy, no ruthless command could erase what had already been painted into existence.

The fractures in her glass were spreading, and for the first time in her life, Sophia Bennett wasn’t sure how to contain them.