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Ten Minutes
publish date:
2026-09-07 23:32:10
Latest chapter
Taste Me Like It's Our Last Day On Earth The Woman in the Garage
Phoenix I'm the last one out of the building most nights now, and tonight is no different. Badge scanned, elevator down to the parking garage with footsteps echoing off concrete in the particular silence of a level nearly empty of cars. Octavia is leaning against a support pillar near the exit ramp, waiting and I tried in my heart to convince myself it wasn't for me. My whole body goes rigid. "What are you doing down here." "Waiting for you. I didn't want this conversation happening anywhere with cameras pointed at both our faces." She straightens, still very much composed despite the hour, despite the setting, despite everything. "You got five minutes? That's all I'm asking." "What do you want to talk about and why would I trust anything you have to say?" "You wouldn't. You shouldn't." A faint, humorless smile. "I'm not here asking for trust, Phoenix. I'm here because someone impersonated you on that construction site, and I have a theory, and I'd rather you hear it from me d
Taste Me Like It's Our Last Day On Earth What's Mine
Victor The foreman's call comes through while I'm mid-sentence in a budget review, and something in my chest goes cold and still the second I hear her voice on the other end. "Someone sent a fake assistant to move layout stakes on site. Four inches off center. It's already poured." I don't remember standing up. I don't remember dismissing the room. I remember the specific, focused clarity that drops over me whenever something threatens what's mine, the same clarity that once had me crossing a boardroom in three strides to pull a man's hand off her waist before I'd fully decided to do it. Someone walked onto an active construction site, invoked her name, and endangered a building with her name on it. I am going to find out who, and when I do, they are going to regret it in ways that have nothing to do with employment law. "Get the foreman to document everything," I tell her, keeping my voice level through sheer discipline. "Timestamps. Badge number if he remembers it. I want a f
Taste Me Like It's Our Last Day On Earth Ten Minutes
Phoenix The Ashford client is due in the conference room in ten minutes, and my presentation is gone. Not corrupted, not misfiled but gone! The folder is not empty, the recycle bin empty, the version history showing nothing past a save I made yesterday afternoon. "No, no, no." I click through every folder I can think of, hands moving faster than my brain, heart slamming hard against my ribs. "It was here an hour ago. I checked it an hour ago." Priya leans over my shoulder, face going pale. "Did you email yourself a backup?" "I always email myself a backup." I pull up my sent folder. The email's there but the attachment isn't, just a blank space where the file should be, like someone reached into my own outbox and pulled it out by hand. "That's not possible." "Apparently it is." My voice comes out thin, panicked in a way I hate. Eight minutes now. Eight minutes until a client who specifically requested me sits down expecting seventeen slides that no longer exist anywhere I can
Taste Me Like It's Our Last Day On Earth What I Didn't Do
Victor It's been four days since the kiss. Four days of me keeping my careful distance by daylight and watching her too closely by lamplight. Both of us pretending the arrangement isn't costing either of us anything before Phoenix finally asks the question she's clearly been sitting on the whole time. "Why does Octavia still have a job?" I set my coffee down slower than I mean to. "Where's this coming from?" "I was thinking about the cliffside site visit. The storm." She doesn't look up from her plate, but her voice has gone deliberately careful. The tone she uses when she's been sitting on a question for a while before finally asking it. "You told her it would be over. I heard you say it myself, standing in that cabin doorway. And then the next morning, she was back at her desk like nothing happened." I've been waiting for this conversation since the day it happened. I didn't expect it over eggs. "I meant it when I said it," I reply. "For a few couple of hours, I meant it comp
Taste Me Like It's Our Last Day On Earth Close Enough
Phoenix We finish the Ashford proposal a little past midnight, back at the penthouse, papers spread across the kitchen island because neither of us could stand the office a second longer than necessary. Victor sets down the last page and looks at me like he's seeing me for the first time all night. "You did that," he says. "Not me. I just sat here." "You sat here for six hours doing the parts I couldn't do alone." "I fetched you a sandwich you didn't eat and argued with you about a font." His mouth curves, tiredly. "You rebuilt an entire client proposal from scraps and memory. That's not the same thing." I lean back against the counter, too exhausted to argue, too aware of how close he's standing, how the kitchen light catches the exact line of his jaw. . "Thank you," I say. "For staying." "I told you I would." "You also run a company." "You've used that line on me before." He steps closer, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to hold his gaze, and somet
Taste Me Like It's Our Last Day On Earth Small Enough to Miss
Victor The Ashford file won't open. I'm standing behind Phoenix's chair when it happens, close enough that I shouldn't be, far enough that I can pretend it's professional. She clicks the folder twice yet nothing. A third time, and the error message finally loads. *File corrupted. Unable to recover.* "That can't be right." She clicks again, faster now, some edge of panic creeping into her voice. "I saved this an hour ago. I watched it save." "Check the backup drive." She does and her face instantly goes pale. "It's corrupted too," she says. "Both of them. Same file, same error, same time stamp." I lean over her shoulder, reading the metadata myself. Same corruption pattern on both copies is not an accident. Corrupted files fail randomly. They don't fail identically, twice, on two separate drives, ninety seconds apart. "Someone did this on purpose," "You don't know that." "I know exactly what a coincidence looks like, sir Victor. This isn't one." She sits back
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