Chapter Nine

Sienna’s Pov

Roman called me into his office at eight in the morning, and I thought he was going to fire me.

“Sienna, get your coat,” he said instead. “You’re coming with me.”

“Coming with you where?”

“The investor meeting. The one for the Hartley project. You’re the only person who actually knows what happened with the delay, so you’re going to explain it to them instead of me guessing.”

I stared at him. Roman Calloway didn’t ask people to come with him anywhere. He gave orders and expected them followed.

“You want me in the room with investors?”

“I want the truth in the room with investors. You’re the truth. Now grab your coat, we’re already late.”

I grabbed my coat.

The car ride was silent except for him typing on his phone, jaw tight, eyes tired in a way I hadn’t noticed before. I always thought Roman looked exhausted because he was bored with everyone around him. Now I wondered if it was something else.

“You okay?” I asked.

He looked up, surprised. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because you look like you haven’t slept.”

“I haven’t. Not really.” He said it plainly, like it wasn’t a big confession, just a fact.

“Since when?”

“Since the Hartley numbers came in wrong and everyone panicked and started blaming each other instead of fixing it.” He rubbed his eyes. “You were the only one who came to me with a solution instead of an excuse.”

“That’s because excuses don’t fix spreadsheets.”

That got a small laugh out of him. An actual laugh, not the tight polite one he used in meetings.

“See, this is why I brought you,” he said. “You don’t flatter me. Everyone in that building either agrees with everything I say or avoids me completely. You just say what’s true.”

“Would you rather I lied to you?”

“God, no. I get enough of that already.”

The meeting itself went better than I expected. When the investors pushed back on the delay, Roman didn’t dodge or spin it. He looked straight at them and said, “My operations lead will explain exactly what happened and what we’re doing about it.” Then he nodded at me.

So I explained it. The supply issue, the timeline, the fix we’d already put in place. No jargon, no excuses, just facts laid out clearly. When I finished, one of the investors actually smiled and said it was the most honest presentation he’d sat through in years.

Afterward, in the elevator, Roman turned to me.

“You did that on purpose,” he said.

“Did what?”

“Made it sound simple. It wasn’t simple. You made a mess sound manageable.”

“That’s my job.”

“No, your job is operations. That was something else.” He studied me for a second too long. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

We ended up getting coffee afterward, which wasn’t part of the plan. He said he needed caffeine before his next meeting, and somehow that turned into us sitting at a small table near the window for almost two hours, not talking about work at all.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“Depends on the question.”

“Why do you let people think you’re arrogant? You’re not, not really.”

He turned his cup slowly on the table. “Because it’s easier. If people think I’m cold, they don’t expect me to be nice. If they don’t expect me to be nice, they don’t get disappointed when I’m too tired to pretend.”

“That’s exhausting.”

“You have no idea.”

“So don’t do it. At least not with me.”

He looked at me like nobody had said that to him before. “Nobody talks to me like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a person and not just a name on a building.”

“You are a person. A tired one. But a person.”

He laughed again, softer this time. “You’re going to get me in trouble, Sienna.”

“How so?”

“Because I actually like talking to you. That’s dangerous for someone in my position.”

“Why is that dangerous?”

“Because I’m supposed to be unreadable. And you make me forget to be.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just smiled and drank my coffee, and for a moment neither of us said anything. It wasn’t awkward. It was the opposite of awkward. It felt easy, like we’d been doing this for years instead of two hours.

When we finally left the coffee shop, his hand brushed mine as he held the door open, and neither of us moved away right away. Just a second too long, but it was there.

I didn’t think much of it until the next morning.

My phone buzzed nonstop before I even got out of bed. Messages, notifications, links. I opened one and my stomach dropped.

A photo of us leaving the coffee shop, his hand near my back, both of us laughing. The headline underneath read, “Roman Calloway’s Mystery Woman: New Girlfriend or Business Affair?”

I called him immediately.

“Have you seen this?” I said the second he picked up.

“Seen what?”

“The blogs, Roman. There are pictures of us. They’re saying I’m your girlfriend.”

“I saw it.”

“And you’re not panicking?”

“Why would I panic?”

“Because it’s not true! People are going to ask questions. My coworkers are going to ask questions. Your family is going to ask questions.”

“Let them ask.”

“Roman, this is serious.”

“It’s really not,” he said, calm as ever. “We had coffee. That’s not a scandal.”

“To you, maybe. You’re used to this. I’m not.”

“Sienna.” His voice softened. “Nobody’s going to fire you over a photo. Nobody’s going to think less of you. If anyone says something out of line, tell me and I’ll handle it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what’s the point?”

I paused, because I honestly didn’t know how to answer that. The point wasn’t the blog. The point was that I hadn’t thought of him as anything more than my boss until yesterday, and now my hands were shaking and it wasn’t only because of the headline.

“The point is people are going to think something happened,” I said quietly.

“Did something happen?” he asked, and there was something different in his voice, something careful.

I didn’t answer right away.

“Sienna?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe.”

He didn’t push. He just said, “Then let them talk. We’ll figure out the rest later.”