Mag-log inAuroraThe first time I noticed it, I told myself I was imagining things.It was a look that lasted half a second too long from one of the junior associates as I passed the conference room. Then a conversation that stopped when I approached the printer. Then Lena’s soft, assessing glance from across the floor, followed by a smile that did not reach her eyes. None of it was solid enough to confront. That was what made it worse.By mid-morning, the feeling had settled under my skin like static.People were watching me.Not openly. Not with the clean hostility of a rumor spoken to my face. It was quieter than that a shift in attention, a pause in conversation, the sense that my name had been in someone else’s mouth before I entered the room. I sat at my desk and tried to focus on the revised logistics summaries, but every movement around me seemed sharper than usual.When I rose to take files into Pr
Mia read the update twice before the smile fully formed.Marcus had done better than expected. The delay was modest, carefully worded, and just disruptive enough to force Prescott’s attention without creating an open accusation he could crush. It was the kind of move that left fingerprints without leaving proof precisely what she had wanted from him.By the time she arrived at the apartment Zoe had chosen for their meeting, the next stage of the plan was already arranging itself in her mind. Zoe was waiting on the sofa, phone in hand, eyes bright with restless energy.“He pushed, and came through” Zoe said as soon as Mia entered.“He did.” Mia set her bag down and poured a drink. “And Prescott responded exactly as expected. Direct confrontation, being protective and predictable.”Zoe shifted forward. “Aurora is rattled, at lunch she said she’s starting to feel like collateral.”That word clearly pleased Mia.Collateral meant Aurora was
PrescottThe first sign that something had shifted came through a spreadsheet.I was in my office reviewing the revised projections on the overlapping logistics deal with the Hale Group when the numbers refused to make sense. Two clauses that had been stable for weeks were suddenly marked for reassessment. A funding line previously described as “confirmed in principle” now carried a soft delay. None of it was an open attack. That was what made it worse.It was careful.I scrolled back through the email chain until I found the originating request for review.Marcus Hale.Of course.I sat back in my chair and stared at his name on the screen. Marcus had always been competitive, but he was not reckless with business out of pure emotion. If he was putting his hands on the edges of this deal, it meant something in him had hardened past bruised pride and into action.I pressed the intercom.“Aurora. Come
Marcus POVI should have ignored the message.That was the first clear thought I had when an unknown number flashed across my phone late on Thursday evening with a single line:*Unknown:* If you still care what happens to Aurora, we should talk. — MiaI stared at the screen longer than I wanted to admit.Mia.Prescott’s ex. The woman whose sudden reappearance had already stirred enough tension around the office and, if the whispers were right, inside that mansion as well. I almost deleted the text. Curiosity, pride, and the still-raw memory of Aurora choosing him stopped me.I typed back.*Marcus:* Talk about what?*Mia:* About the fact that Press is dragging her into something she won’t survive cleanly. And about whether you’re really content to watch it happen.That was how, the next afternoon, I ended up in a quiet lounge two districts away from the Zane offices, seated across from a woman who looked
PrescottShe didn’t stop me.That was all the permission my restraint needed to snap.One second Aurora was still looking up at me with that furious, breathless defiance, her fingers twisted in my shirt, her mouth a fraction from mine. The next I had her backed hard against the counter, my hands in her hair, and I was kissing her like the argument had only ever been a delayed fuse.She made a broken sound into my mouth and kissed me back just as hard.There was nothing careful in it. All the frustration of the last few days her doubt, Zoe’s soft poison, Mia’s public little performance, the constant battle of watching Aurora slip into her own head poured into the way I took her mouth. I bit her lower lip, dragged my hands down her body, and gripped her thighs hard enough to lift her onto the edge of the counter in one motion.“Prescott…”“No more talking.”I shoved her skirt up around her waist. S
PrescottI lasted longer than I thought I would before the quiet between us finally snapped.Aurora had been different for days. Not cold exactly or distant in the obvious way. Just slightly out of reach, as if part of her attention was always somewhere else. I saw it in the pauses before she answered me, in the way she checked her phone with her screen tilted away, in the careful softness she wore after every conversation with Zoe. Mia’s little performance at the reception had been one wound, Zoe was the infection that kept it from closing.Thursday night, I found her in the kitchen, standing at the counter with a mug between her hands and that same distracted expression on her face.“You’re doing it again,” I said.She looked up. “Doing what?”“Being distracted and being in your head.”Aurora set the mug down carefully. “I’m tired, Prescott. Not everything is a withdrawal from you.”“No. Just







