Chapter 25: Miss Brown, Keep It Down

The air inside the corner office was thick.

Sebastian stood with his back toward the door, one hand clenched around a pen, the other gripping the edge of his desk like it might stop him from doing something regrettable. Madison Mason was lounging in a chair like it was her throne, legs crossed, perfectly manicured hand swirling an espresso she hadn’t asked for permission to make.

The door opened. No knock.

Just Katherine. In full, glorious defiance.

“Good morning, sunshine,” she chirped sweetly, eyes locked on Madison. “Sorry I didn’t bring a hostess gift, but it looks like you already have one.”

She tilted her chin toward Sebastian, who exhaled slowly through his nose.

“Katherine —”

“No, no. Let me guess. This was one of those surprise ‘drop by and traumatize your ex-husband’ visits?” She walked further into the room, heels clacking against the floor like war drums. “Very on brand.”

Madison smiled. Ice and poison.

“Well, some of us still care about this company. I was reviewing this quarter’s numbers —”

“You don’t work here,” Katherine snapped. “And your opinions are about as welcome as an Excel spreadsheet at a karaoke bar.”

Sebastian turned. “Kat —”

But she wasn’t done.

“Let me guess,” Katherine said, folding her arms, “you just happened to find your way into his office again. No agenda. No mind games. Just a casual Monday morning ruin-your-ex’s-sanity kind of thing?”

Madison stood now, slowly. “You must be the new intern.”

“Oh honey,” Katherine grinned dangerously. “If I were an intern, you’d already be fired for harassment.”

The room cracked with silence. And then it exploded.

“She’s nothing like me,” Madison hissed.

“Thank God for that,” Katherine shot back. “One of you was enough to curse this building.”

Sebastián’s voice cut through the chaos.

“Miss Brown, keep it down.”

Silence.

Katherine froze.

Her lips parted.

Madison smiled — like she’d just won the damn lottery.

“Oh,” she drawled, “so formal. So... familiar.”

She turned her smirk toward Katherine. “He always did like women who needed boundaries.”

Katherine’s eyes didn’t blink.

She stepped back once. Then twice.

No words. No sharp retort. No witty comeback.

Just one breath. Then another.

And then she turned on her heel and stormed out.

Like a bullet.

Like a storm in heels.

Like a woman who had just been gutted in public.

She moved so fast she knocked over a rolling chair and nearly collided with Paul from accounting. Her curls were a blur. Her cheeks — red. Her heart — louder than any voice.

The floor fell silent.

Whispers held their breath.

And Sebastian…

He didn’t move.

Not yet.

---

The door slammed behind her with a crack that echoed through the corridor.

Katherine’s heels clicked furiously across the floor of the open-plan office, slicing through the quiet like a blade. No one dared say a word. Eyes followed her, wide and uncertain, but she didn’t care.

Her jaw was tight, her fists tighter.

As soon as she reached her desk, she yanked open her drawers with the same rage one might use to rip off a bandage. The sound of pens clattering, stickers fluttering, and glitter gel pens clinking against ceramic mug edges filled the space.

“Oh, Sebastian, you have no idea what you just did,” she hissed to herself, her voice low and venom-laced.

“‘Miss Brown, keep it down’ — oh, I’ll keep it down, alright. I’ll keep it so far down you’ll need a damn search party to find me again.”

She threw open the bottom drawer and pulled out a pink porcelain unicorn someone gave her on her first week. Into the box it went. Then the rainbow memo pads. The turquoise paper clips. The lava lamp.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

She ripped the neon pink sticky notes off her monitor, scrubbed the whiteboard clean with her sleeve, tore out pages from her journal — all her doodles, her color-coded creative brainstorms, the notes she’d scribbled about that one dumb idea at 2:46 a.m. that she thought would make him proud.

Tears welled up.

She bit her lip. Hard.

But it didn’t work.

The moment she sat down in her chair — the storm crashed into her.

Tears spilled down her cheeks as sobs shook her shoulders. The kind of crying that wasn’t delicate or cinematic. The kind that tore from somewhere deep. Somewhere furious and broken.

And all the while, behind the closed door of his glass-walled office, another storm was raging.

---

Inside Sebastian’s office, Madison stood tall — but this time, her smugness was gone.

“You don’t get to talk to me like that,” she snapped. “I built this company with you!”

“No, you undermined it. And now you’re just —”

“What? Just what, Sebastián?”

“A toxic reminder of a version of me I want no part of anymore!”

That stunned her.

Just for a second.

He stepped forward, fury radiating from him.

“You show up, uninvited. You insult the people I work with. You think this company is your stage for some pathetic play of control and chaos —”

“She’s ruining you,” Madison seethed. “That girl. She’s dragging you down with her glitter pens and juvenile chaos.”

“Stop.”

“She's a joke, Sebastian.”

“Stop!”

Silence.

And then his voice dropped to something deadly calm.

“You will never speak about her again.”

Madison laughed bitterly. “Oh wow. You’re in love with her.”

“I’m in love with the fact that she’s nothing like you.”

He crossed the room to the door and opened it.

“Get. Out.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’ll regret this.”

“Already did. Five years ago.”

She stood there for a moment — wounded, furious, humiliated — and then stormed past him, slamming her espresso down on his desk so violently it cracked the cup.

He didn’t flinch.

Just stood there.

Hands clenched at his sides.

Jaw tight.

Breath shallow.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Katherine’s desk.

The unicorn was gone.

The lava lamp was gone.

The color... gone.

And she —

She was slumped in her chair. Crying.

His chest constricted.

The sharpest pain he’d felt in years.

He wanted to go to her.

But he had no idea how.

---

Sebastian stood at the edge of her space, unable to move for a long, painful moment.

She was still hunched over, arms wrapped around herself, her face hidden behind a curtain of unbrushed hair. The glow from her monitor cast a cold, white light over the desk — now bare, sterile, like no one had ever laughed there. Like Katherine Brown had never existed in that corner of the office at all.

He swallowed hard.

One step.

Then another.

And another.

Each one felt heavier than the last. Like guilt had attached itself to his spine and refused to let go.

“Katherine…” he said softly.

She didn't respond.

“I — I was trying to defuse the situation,” he said, his voice rough. “I didn’t mean —”

Her head lifted. Slowly. Eyes red, cheeks blotched, mascara smudged under both eyes like dark bruises of betrayal.

“You didn’t mean?” she echoed hoarsely. “You didn’t mean?”

Her voice trembled — not weakly, but like the beginning of an earthquake.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You didn’t know what else to do so you told me, in front of her, to keep it down?” Her voice rose, and with it, every curious head in the open space beyond their glass.

“Katherine —”

She stood. And slapped him.

The sound rang out like a gunshot.

The entire creative floor froze.

Even the printer stopped.

Sebastian blinked. His cheek stung. But he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even raise his hand to touch it.

She stepped closer, eyes blazing.

“You don’t get to humiliate me. Not after what happened between us. Not after what we — what I thought we shared.”

“I wasn’t choosing her.”

“You didn’t need to,” she snapped. “You silenced me. That’s the part you don’t get. You stood there and silenced me.”

Her voice cracked on the last word.

And then she turned. Grabbed her oversized tote — the one with the enamel pins and a patch that said “chaos coordinator” — slung it over her shoulder, and walked straight through the stunned silence of the office.

People parted for her like the Red Sea. Not a single soul dared breathe too loud.

Sebastian remained frozen in place. Still at her desk. Still standing in the wreckage of all the color she once brought. Still stunned.

And slowly, terribly, he realized —

He didn’t just lose the brightest part of his day.

He might’ve just lost her completely.

---