Episode 6: His Office

SOFIA POV

He still hadn't looked up.

I had been standing in the middle of Ethan Cole's office for four minutes and he had not acknowledged my presence once.

I looked at the bookshelves.

Actual books — not decorative ones placed there to look impressive. The spines were worn in the way spines got worn when they had been opened repeatedly. Someone actually read these.

I moved my eyes across the titles slowly.

I had nowhere else to be.

"Ms Brennan."

I looked away from the bookshelf.

Ethan Cole was looking at me from behind his desk — finally — with an expression that gave away absolutely nothing. Not irritation at being kept waiting. Not acknowledgment that he had made me wait. Just — looking. The way he looked at everything. Like he was processing information and hadn't decided yet what to do with it.

"Mr Cole," I said.

He gestured to the chair across from his desk.

I crossed the office and sat down and set my notepad on my knee and looked at him with the same direct calm I brought into every room that required it.

"The implementation timeline," he said.

"What about it."

"Section four. The integration phase. You've allocated three weeks."

"Yes."

"It needs to be two."

I looked at him steadily. "It can't be two."

"I'm telling you it needs to be."

"And I'm telling you the data doesn't support it." I opened my notepad — calmly, like I had been expecting this conversation. "The system migration alone requires a minimum of eighteen working days. That's before testing. Before staff training. Before the inevitable delays that come with any integration of this scale." I looked up. "Two weeks gives us ten working days. We would be setting the whole partnership up to fail before it started."

The office was quiet.

He looked at me.

At the notepad open on my knee.

At the grey eyes that had not dropped once since I sat down.

"Three weeks," he said.

"Three weeks," I confirmed.

I said it without triumph. Without satisfaction. Just confirmed it and closed the notepad and waited for whatever came next.

He asked four more questions.

Implementation budget. Staffing structure. Reporting lines. Risk management protocol.

I answered every single one.

Directly. Precisely. Without reaching for my notepad more than twice.

By the time he was finished I had the specific feeling of a man who had set out to find an edge and had not found one.

"That's all," he said.

I stood.

Picked up my notepad.

"Thank you Mr Cole," I said.

And walked to the door.

"Ms Brennan."

I stopped.

Turned slightly.

"The Harlow report. On your desk. I want your analysis by end of week."

I held his gaze for a moment.

"You'll have it," I said.

And walked out.

The door closed behind me.

I walked back through the main floor — aware of eyes the whole way, aware of Veronica watching from her desk, aware of Brandon giving me a small questioning look from across the room that I answered with a slight shake of my head meaning later —

And sat back down at my desk.

Opened my laptop.

Found the Harlow report in my inbox.

Started reading.

ETHAN

I looked at the door after she walked out.

Then looked at the window.

At the city below.

Unbelievable, I thought.

She had stood in my office and looked at my bookshelf while I deliberately made her wait.

She had pushed back on my timeline and been right.

She had answered every question I threw at her without flinching once.

And walked out like this was any office and I was anyone in it.

I picked up the Harlow file.

And Put it down.

I Picked up my phone.

Set it face down.

Three days passed.

I developed a routine.

Arrive at eight fifty five. Collect access badge from reception. Take elevator C to thirty eighth floor. Sit at my desk. Work.

It was simple. Clean. Exactly the kind of structure I functioned best inside.

The floor developed a routine around me too.

Brandon appeared every morning at around nine thirty with coffee he hadn't been asked to bring and conversation that started professional and wandered comfortably into everything else. He was easy to talk to — had always been easy to talk to, even at university when I had been considerably more guarded than I was now.

Which wasn't saying much.

But still.

Veronica passed my corridor at least twice a day with questions that could have been emails and observations that could have been nothing. Each time perfectly pleasant. Each time containing something underneath the pleasantness that I noted and filed away without reacting to.

And Ethan called me to his office every single day.

Different reasons every time. The Harlow analysis. The Henderson projections. The staffing structure revisions. The budget allocation review. Each time a legitimate work reason. Each time questions I answered completely and left.

Each time I walked back to my desk and continued working and told myself it was simply what embedded analysts did.

My mother called on Wednesday afternoon.

I saw her name and stepped away from my desk and found a quiet corner near the stairwell and picked up.

"You haven't sent anything," she said.

"Mom I just started a new placement—"

"That's not my problem Sofia." Her voice was flat. Final. The voice she used when she had already decided how the conversation was going to end. "Your father needs it by Friday."

"I'll send something by Friday," I said.

"Make sure you do." A pause. "We didn't raise you to forget where you came from."

She hung up.

I stood in the stairwell for a moment.

Looked at the wall.

Thought about the Harlow analysis waiting on my desk. About the baby growing quietly inside me that nobody in this building knew about. About the money I had just promised to send by Friday from a salary that was already stretched in directions I was still calculating.

I pressed my lips together.

Straightened up.

And went back to my desk.

Brandon was waiting when I got back.

He took one look at my face.

"You okay?" he said quietly.

"am Fine," I said.

He looked at me for a moment longer — the particular look of someone who didn't believe you but had decided not to push.

"Okay," he said. "I'll leave you to it."

He left.

I sat down.

Opened the Harlow analysis.

And worked.

It was almost six when I finally saved the document and sat back and looked at the screen and realized the floor had gone quiet around me.

Almost everyone had left.

I started gathering my things.

"Ms Brennan."

I looked up.

Daniel was standing at the entrance of my corridor.

"Mr Cole is still in," he said. "He wanted to know if you've finished the Harlow analysis."

"Just finished," I said. "I'll send it now."

"He'd prefer you bring it directly."

I looked at Daniel.

He looked back at me with the specific expression of a man delivering a message he had not written and was not responsible for.

I picked up my notepad.

"Lead the way," I said.

The floor was empty and quiet as we walked through it.

The city was doing its evening thing outside the windows — lights coming on, the particular blue of the sky at that hour that made everything look slightly more significant than it was.

Daniel knocked on the office door.

Opened it.

Stepped aside.

I walked in.

Ethan was at his desk — jacket off for the first time, sleeves rolled to his elbows, looking at something on his laptop with the focused stillness he brought to everything.

He looked up when I entered.

Something about the office at this hour was different from how it was during the day. Quieter. The city outside the windows doing its blue evening thing. Just the two of us and the silence of a floor that had emptied out around us without either of us noticing.

I crossed to the desk.

Set the analysis down in front of him.

"The Harlow analysis," I said. "Full breakdown with projections."

He looked at it.

Then looked at me.

"You stayed late," he said.

"I wanted to finish it properly," I said.

He held my gaze for a moment.

Something moved across his expression — there and gone before I could read it.

"Thank you," he said.

I blinked.

In three days of working here Ethan Cole had asked questions, challenged timelines, requested revisions and called me to his office four times.

He had not once said thank you.

"You're welcome," I said.

And walked out.

ETHAN'S POV

The door closed.

I looked at the Harlow analysis on my desk.

Then at the door.

She had stayed late to finish it properly.

Not because I had told her to. Not because anyone was watching. Simply because that was apparently the standard she held herself to regardless of whether anyone noticed.

I thought about the phone call I had watched her take this afternoon — the way she had walked to the stairwell and come back five minutes later with her face completely composed and sat down and continued working like nothing had happened.

Like whatever had happened in that stairwell was simply something to absorb and move past.

I had not meant to notice.

I had noticed anyway.

I looked at the analysis.

Opened it.

Read the first page.

It was thorough. More thorough than I had asked for. Detailed in the specific way of someone who anticipated the next question before it was asked and answered it anyway.

I sat back in my chair. and thought

About a woman who stayed late and said I wanted to finish it properly like that was the most ordinary thing in the world.

Who are you, I thought.

What are you carrying that you won't let anyone see.

I looked at the city outside the window.

And stayed in my office considerably longer than I had planned.