The Man In The Room

"You look different," Freddie said.

It was Thursday. Nine o'clock. She was on time.

They were standing by the floor-to-ceiling window of his office before the rest of the team arrived. She had made the mistake of accepting coffee from his assistant, which had turned into standing here, close enough to smell his aftershave.

Bad decision. She was full of bad decisions lately.

"Different how?" she said.

He looked at her for a moment. Then looked away. "Never mind."

"No. Different how, Freddie."

"You look tired."

She almost laughed. "Thank you."

"I didn't say it as an insult."

"I know."

Silence. The city moved below them. Tiny cars. Tiny people with tiny uncomplicated lives.

"Are you sleeping?" he asked.

"I sleep fine."

"You have circles under your eyes."

"Freddie." She turned to face him. "This isn't appropriate. You're the client."

"You're right." He stepped back. Put professional distance between them like a wall. "The team's arriving. Shall we?"

The morning passed in controlled tension. Notes. Numbers. Projections. She was good at this. She kept her voice steady and her attention on the work and she only caught herself watching him twice.

Or three times.

Four, possibly.

He never watched her back. Or if he did, he was much better at hiding it.

At the lunch break, she went to the women's restroom on the floor below and stood with her back against the cold tile and breathed.

She was fourteen weeks. Her blazer still covered it. For now.

Not for much longer.

She was coming back up the stairwell when she heard the voice.

Low. Male. Familiar in all the wrong ways.

She stopped on the landing.

Through the glass panel in the stairwell door, she could see the hallway. Two men standing near the elevator bank.

Freddie.

And Marcos.

Marcos was here.

She pressed herself flat against the wall. Her heart slammed into her ribs.

What was he doing here? Why was Marcos at Freddie's office?

She couldn't hear the words, just the rhythm of the conversation. Freddie's voice was sharp. Marcos's was smooth, pacifying, the way it always was.

Then Marcos laughed.

And she watched Freddie's posture change. His shoulders dropped. Not relaxed. Defeated. Just for a second.

She had never seen Freddie look defeated.

It moved through her like a current.

Marcos clapped him on the shoulder and stepped into the elevator. The doors closed.

Freddie stood there for a moment. Then he turned.

And he looked directly at the stairwell door.

Directly at the glass panel.

Directly at her.

She didn't move. She couldn't.

His face was unreadable. But his eyes were not.

They were asking her something. She just didn't know what.

She pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway.

"How long has he been coming here?" she said. No preamble. No pretense.

Freddie looked at her for a long moment. "He's still my business partner. Legally."

"I didn't know that."

"There are a lot of things you don't know."

That hit. It was designed to.

"Be careful with him," she said.

Something crossed his face. "That's an interesting thing for you to say."

"Freddie—"

"Are you warning me about my best friend?" His voice dropped. Got very even. "Or are you worried about something else?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

Because the answer was yes. To all of it. To the thing he was implying and the thing he wasn't saying and every dangerous layer underneath.

"I should get back to the conference room," she said.

"Lina." He took a step toward her. Just one. "Whatever is happening with you, whatever you're not telling me. If it's something I need to know—"

"It's not," she said quickly.

Too quickly.

She saw him register it. That reporter's instinct he had always had for the thing people were hiding. His eyes dropped. Just for a fraction of a second. To her midsection. To the blazer she had buttoned all the way up today.

Her blood froze.

He looked back up at her face.

And she knew.

Not for certain. Not yet.

But he was starting to wonder.

"Conference room," she said again. Her voice was barely steady. "I'll see you in there."

She walked away.

She did not run. She wanted to run.

Behind her, she heard him say her name one more time.

She didn't stop.

But at the end of the hallway, her phone rang.

Unknown number.

She answered it without thinking. "Hello?"

"I think it's time we had a real conversation." A man's voice. Smooth. Confident. Not Marcos. Not Freddie. Someone she didn't recognize. "About the baby, Ms. Vasquez."

She stopped walking.

"Who is this?" she whispered.

"My name is Karthy," she said. "And I know something about that night that you don't. Something Marcos has been very careful to make sure you never find out."

The hallway tilted.

She gripped the wall.

"Meet me tonight," Karthy said. "Or I tell Freddie everything."

The line went dead.

Down the hallway, the conference room door opened.

Freddie stepped out. He looked at her. At her hand on the wall. At her face.

"Lina." Concern, now, cutting through the armor. "What's wrong?"

She looked at him.

She looked at the phone in her hand.

She looked at the man standing twenty feet away who was the father of her child and did not know it.

Because she had gotten it wrong.

She was starting to understand that now.

She had gotten everything wrong.

"Nothing," she said.

And she walked back into the conference room.

And she sat down.

And she pretended, for the next four hours, that her world was not detonating quietly from the inside out.