The sky over Manhattan was overcast, casting a cool, silvery hue over the city by the time Elena Roth finally stepped away from her desk. She hadn't left her office all day, and the glare of her monitors was beginning to blur into one long headache.
She walked into the executive lounge, a quiet glass-paneled space only accessible to C-suite leadership. Sophie was already there, lounging on the couch in a caramel-colored blazer and leather boots, sipping green tea like she wasn't the head of an empire's entire public image.
"You know," Sophie said without looking up, "you really ought to pretend you're human sometimes. It keeps people from getting too scared."
Elena poured herself a drink and sat across from her. "They respect me. That's more important."
"Fear isn't respect, darling," Sophie replied. "Though in your case, they often look the same."
Elena didn't respond. She leaned back, one leg crossed over the other, and looked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. A fine mist had begun to fall over the skyline. She found it oddly calming.
After a beat of silence, Sophie set her tea down and said, "I heard about the elevator incident."
Elena raised a brow. "Already?"
"I hear everything. I'm PR, remember? There's an entire Slack thread about how you and Liam Carter were stuck for ten minutes and emerged looking like you'd either fought or made out."
"We didn't talk for most of it," Elena muttered, though a flicker of something passed over her expression. "He said something odd, though. About systems lying."
Sophie leaned forward. "You don't know him."
"I'm aware."
"You're also curious. I can see it in the way you keep trying not to bring him up."
Elena's jaw tensed. "He's a wildcard. I don't like strangers near my codebase or my company."
"Or your heart," Sophie added gently.
That earned her a sharp glance. "This isn't about my heart."
"No," Sophie agreed. "But it could become that way if you're not careful."
Elena stood and walked to the window, her arms crossed. Her reflection stared back at her in the glass, tired and precise. Ruthless, like everyone said.
"When my father died," she said quietly, "he left me a kingdom built on glass. One wrong step, and everything cracks. I can't afford sentiment. Not with Victor sniffing around. Not with a board waiting for me to fail."
Sophie stood, too, more softly now. "I know. But just remember some of the most dangerous men wear the kindest faces. And sometimes the quiet ones have the loudest secrets."
Elena turned. "Are you saying you don't trust Liam?"
"I'm saying you shouldn't," Sophie said. "Not yet. You're not just a CEO now. You're a target. The wrong person gets close, they can take everything."
Elena didn't answer. The warning hung in the air between them.
Downstairs, in the far end of the tech wing, Liam Carter was working in solitude, headphones on, eyes laser-focused on his screen but a slight tension in his jaw revealed he knew he was being watched.
Sophie's warning wasn't wrong.
And Elena Roth was already more entangled than she realized.