LOGIN*POV Derby* The heavy rhythmic thumping of wipers sweeping across glass was the only sound inside the leather cabin of Jordan’s SUV. I pulled my hands further into my sleeves, resting my knuckles against my knee so he wouldn't see the tiny, nervous twitch in my fingers. Neither of us had spoken since we crossed the bridge three miles back. The rain was coming down in thick, blinding sheets, turning the city streetlights into blurry halos of gold and red along the empty boulevard. Instead of turning off toward his penthouse complex at the midtown junction, Jordan had silently taken the outer ring road toward my building. He hadn't asked if I needed a ride, and I hadn't offered to call a cab. It was another one of those unwritten, dangerous habits that had settled between us over the past two weeks. The vehicle glided smoothly to a stop right by the curb in front of my apartment complex. The engine didn't die; it just settled into a quiet, low vibration that seemed to buzz r
*POV Derby* Noah’s blue pen tapped three distinct times against the wooden surface of my desk before he finally laid it down. He didn't hand over the audit files I’d asked for ten minutes ago; instead, his pale gray eyes stayed fixed on my face with an unyielding, unsettling weight. "You're doing it again," Noah said softly. I kept my fingers moving across the keyboard, entering row after row of regional compliance metrics without skipping a beat. "Doing what? The quarter-four projections are due by six, Noah. If you have the secondary ledger, just drop it in the tray." "You looked at his office door four times in the last ten minutes," he replied, ignoring my request completely. He didn't sound angry or bitter. That was what made it cut so deep—his tone was purely grounded, carrying the quiet, painful precision of an observer who cared enough to tell the truth. "You knew the exact minute his conference call with Munich ended. You didn't even check your watch." My hand froze over
*POV Derby* "Turn the thermostat up to seventy-two," Jordan’s low voice cut across the conference table before I could even pull my cardigan out of my tote bag. Daniel paused with his hand on the wall control, blinking in confusion. "Sir? The board members usually prefer it cooler for the afternoon strategy sessions." "The room is freezing," Jordan replied bluntly, not even looking up from his iPad as his fingers flicked through the regional budget projections. "Adjust it now." Daniel shot me a brief, knowing glance before pressing the arrow button twice. I kept my face blank, my hands clasped loosely over my notepad, but my skin prickled with a quiet, dangerous warmth. Jordan didn't say my name. He didn't look at me to check if I was satisfied. He just dealt with the room's temperature as if it were a standard line item on the meeting agenda—an automatic, unthinking reaction to the small shiver I’d tried to hide five minutes earlier. That was the trap. If he had made a dramatic
*POV Derby "—and he stood by the garage ramp for ten minutes just waiting for her," a sharp whisper caught my ear as I rounded the corner near the breakroom. My foot suspended for a microsecond over the gray carpet before I forced myself to keep walking. I slid my water tumbler under the dispenser lever, keeping my spine completely straight. "No way," another voice answered, the rustle of a pastry wrapper deadening the shock. "Jordan Vasquez doesn't wait for anyone. He doesn't even wait for the board." "Look at the timestamp on the bottom frame, bestie. Three days ago, right after the regional strategy meeting. That’s definitely a female analyst stepping out of his car." Cold water trickled into my flask, the low hum of the machine doing little to drown out the sudden tightness in my throat. I didn't turn my head. I didn't freeze like someone caught red-handed. I just capped my tumbler with a firm, deliberate click and walked past the kitchen island, offering the two junior paral
*POV Derby* Brass handle felt familiar against my palm, cool and solid, moving down under my weight without a second thought. I pushed open the frosted glass door to Jordan’s corner office, balancing a stack of updated compliance spreadsheets against my ribs while holding a second folder in my left hand. I didn't knock. I hadn't knocked on his door in three days. Jordan didn't look up from his monitor, his dark head bent over a series of legal drafts, but his hand reached out automatically, clear across the corner of his mahogany desk. He cleared space near his desk lamp, making room for the exact folder I was carrying before I had even crossed the rug. "The New Jersey port waivers came through," I said, setting the papers down right where his hand waited. I pulled a blue highlighter from my pocket and uncapped it with my thumb, leaving it beside his keyboard. "Paragraph four needed a second signature from the regional director." Jordan took the highlighter without a word, uncapp
*POV Derby*The high-gloss lacquer of the executive boardroom table reflected the blue glare of the overhead projector like a sheet of ice."The variance projections for the secondary transit corridors are entirely too optimistic, Miss Derby," Mr. Vance, the senior investor representative from the Hayden syndicate, tapped his gold fountain pen against his leather binder with a rhythmic, patronizing click. "If we hit a forty-eight-hour customs delay in New Jersey, your entire operational margin evaporates. It’s an amateur risk calculation."I didn't blink. I kept my spine straight against the back of my chair, my hands folded neatly over my closed tablet. "The contingency buffers in section three account for port strikes and seasonal customs backlog, Mr. Vance. The margin remains intact up to seventy-two hours.""On paper," Vance dismissed with a thin, tight smile that barely reached his eyes. "In reality, young lady, corporate launches don't give second chances to middle-tier analysts
-POV Derby Somewhere between freezing under Jordan Vasquez’s heavy gaze in the conference room and stepping into the private executive elevator, my brain completely short-circuited. I’d already decided to go upstairs. The rest was me desperately acting like this was still up for debate. The ride t
-POV Derby By Monday I’d almost convinced myself it was over. Not in some dramatic way. Just… closed. Like shutting a tab you left open too long and deciding not to open it again. I made coffee that tasted like nothing. Went to work. Answered emails acting like the weekend had never happened,
-POV Derby I woke up first. My heart was already hammering before my eyes could adjust to the ceiling that wasn’t mine. The room still smelled like him — clean soap, warm skin, something that still clung to me from last night, the same scent that had wrapped around me last night when he paused r
-POV Derby I spent most of Thursday morning pretending my life hadn’t become significantly more complicated over the course of a single night. By the time I slipped into a seat near the back of the conference room, my presentation was already open on my laptop. The slides waited patiently on the s







