The storm had thinned but never left. Rain still traced restless fingers down the glass walls of the tower, silver against the black sky. From far below, the city hummed in tired lights — some windows dark, others glowing like stubborn stars.
On the twenty-fourth floor, most offices were dark. Only Lunox's corner suite still burned.
The desk lamp cast a warm circle across the wood, cutting her from the shadows. Stacks of reports spread around her like a fortress, neat but endless. Her blazer hung over the back of her chair, forgotten. She wore only a satin blouse now, ivory silk soft against the harsh light, sleeves rolled clean to her elbows. Her bun had loosened through the day, strands sliding free to brush her cheek. Barefoot, she pressed her toes against the plush carpet, shifting just enough to remind herself she was still alive.
Her pen scratched sharp across another margin. She didn't pause to sip the cold coffee sitting untouched at her side.
The thunder rolled again. She didn't look up.
The door opened without a knock.
Her hand stilled.
Orion stepped inside as if the room had been waiting for him. His charcoal blazer was gone, draped somewhere else. His white shirt clung from the rain, collar open, tie hanging loose around his neck. Sleeves rolled, veins traced sharp down his forearms. His hair, still damp, caught the lamplight in strands of dark ink.
For a moment, he said nothing. He simply crossed the carpet, the storm reflected in the glass behind him, until the soft sound of his shoes broke the silence.
Lunox didn't look up immediately. She finished her line of notes, laid the pen down with deliberate care, and only then lifted her gaze.
"You should knock," she said, her voice cool as frost, steady as stone.
He stopped two steps from her desk, hands loose at his sides, silver eyes meeting hers without a flicker.
"You'd still hear me," Orion replied. His tone was calm, certain, carrying the storm into the room. "You hear everything."
The rain pressed harder against the glass, as though it agreed.
The silence between them stretched, a living thing, broken only by the storm pressing harder against the glass.
Orion didn't move further, but he didn't retreat either. He stood tall before her desk, damp hair casting faint shadows across his eyes, shirt clinging faintly where rain had touched him. The loosened tie swung slightly when the air conditioning whispered through the room.
Lunox leaned back in her chair, ivory blouse catching the lamplight, arms folded as though she might wrap herself in her own discipline. The pen she'd just set down lay forgotten against her papers. Her bare toes curled against the carpet, hidden beneath the desk.
"You walk into my boardroom as if you own it," she said finally, her voice low and sharp, "yet I don't even know your name beyond a résumé. Who are you?"
The question should have been routine. But in the late hour, with no board members watching, it rang more personal than professional.
Orion's gaze didn't break. He let the quiet sit for a heartbeat before answering, his voice carrying the same calm weight that had shaken the directors earlier.
"Orion Light Andy," he said. "Born to a family where names are currency, but mine was never minted."
Lunox's brows lifted, just slightly.
He went on, his tone stripped of embellishment. "My father had eight wives. My mother was the fifth. Not the first, not the favorite. Which means I was never meant to inherit, never meant to be remembered. In families like mine, sons like me exist to be forgotten. Unless we carve something for ourselves."
He paused, letting the words settle, his silver eyes steady. "So I learned to carve."
The storm outside murmured low thunder, as if it too had listened.
Lunox studied him, her expression stone, but her chest had tightened beneath the silk of her blouse. She thought of the thin résumé Aurelia had left on her desk, how unimpressive it had looked at first glance. She had not expected this weight, this blunt honesty threaded with defiance.
Not arrogance, she realized, though she would never say it aloud. Not exactly. Something harder. Sharper.
She shifted in her chair, the leather creaking. "So that's what this is, then? Another carving?"
Orion tilted his head, a line of wet hair falling across his forehead. "Not another. The one that counts."
Her arms unfolded, hands lowering to the desk as if to ground herself. She wanted to dismiss it, to call it bravado. But the steadiness of his tone refused to be brushed aside.
Inside, her pulse quickened again, the same traitorous rhythm that had started in the boardroom. She despised it. She needed to despise it.
"You're reckless," she said, her words clipped, an anchor against the pull she felt.
"Maybe," Orion replied, and this time the ghost of a smile touched his mouth. "But reckless is just another word for not waiting my turn."
The lamp's glow caught his face then, half in light, half in shadow, and for a moment he looked carved out of the storm itself — rain, fire, and defiance bound in one frame.
Lunox pressed her palms flat against the desk, nails biting faint crescents into the polished wood.
Why does this man unsettle me? she thought. Reckless… but sharper than anyone I've met in years.
The storm leaned harder into the glass, streaks of water glowing against the city's dim veins of light. Inside the office, the lamplight carved warm gold against sharp edges — her desk, his shoulders, the shadowed corners where silence waited.
A thin folder lay between them, placed by Aurelia earlier in the day, still unopened.
Orion nudged it forward with two fingers, slow, deliberate. "You'll want this," he said, voice even. "Numbers. Scenarios. The kind the board doesn't have the stomach to run."
Lunox reached for it without breaking eye contact.
Her fingers brushed his. Only a second, the lightest graze of skin against skin, but the contact lingered louder than thunder. Her hand froze mid-motion before she took the file. The paper was cool. His hand had been warm.
She slid it closer, laying it neatly across her notes as if the precise alignment could erase what she had felt.
"Confidence and arrogance," she said, tone like a blade sharpened on marble, "are cousins. Be careful which one you sit with."
The corner of his mouth tugged faintly upward, a near-smile that burned more for being restrained. "Sometimes arrogance," he said, leaning in slightly, "is just confidence no one else believes in yet."
The distance between them shrank — not by steps, but by gravity. He hadn't crossed the desk, hadn't leaned more than an inch, but it felt as if the room itself had pulled them closer.
Lunox's pulse pressed fast against her ribs, steady fingers betraying nothing as she flipped the folder open. Graphs, forecasts, notes written in a hand that was neat but unyielding. She skimmed lines without reading them, aware only of his presence across the desk, the weight of his eyes on her face.
The lamplight caught the line of his jaw, still damp hair brushing shadows across his temple. His shirt clung faintly at the collarbone, open where the tie had loosened, sleeves rolled to reveal strong wrists, veins alive under skin. He didn't fidget, didn't shift. He simply waited, as though he knew silence itself was part of the conversation.
Lunox forced her eyes back to the page. But her mind betrayed her — it whispered not numbers, not risk models, but the memory of his shoulder colliding with hers in the rain, the defiance in his gaze then, the same silver fire staring at her now.
Her lips parted, then closed.
Enemy, she told herself. Disruptor. Reckless. Dangerous.
And yet—
Every part of her body knew he was standing too close, even when he hadn't moved.
The air between them vibrated, charged, alive with something neither wanted to name.
Finally, she shut the folder with a snap sharper than intended, breaking the spell. Her eyes lifted, obsidian steel again.
"This doesn't make you indispensable," she said, voice clipped. "It makes you temporary. Remember that."
Orion didn't recoil. He leaned back slowly, but his gaze didn't falter. The smile lingered at the edges of his mouth, subtle, dangerous.
"Temporary," he echoed softly. "We'll see."
The storm cracked lightning across the skyline, washing the room in silver light for a breathless second.
And for that instant, it wasn't the empire that felt like it might break. It was the ice between them.
The folder lay shut on the desk, its weight louder than the storm outside.
Orion didn't reach for it again. He didn't need to. The mark had already been made. Instead, he straightened, slow, deliberate, as though he had all the time in the world. His silver-grey eyes never left hers.
Lunox kept her face composed, mask flawless, but her heartbeat drummed like thunder under her skin. Every nerve felt alive, as though the briefest brush of his fingers still lingered against hers. She wanted to banish the thought — crush it under cold logic, drown it in ink and paper. And yet… it burned.
"Anything else, Miss Ather?" he asked at last, his voice even, polite on the surface but laced with quiet defiance.
The question struck sharper than it should have. A reminder: she was the one in power here, not him. But the way he said it — calm, steady, unshaken — felt less like deference and more like a man daring her to dismiss him.
Lunox forced her tone steady. "No. You may go."
For a heartbeat, she thought he would push again, would press the line one step further. But Orion only inclined his head, slow, almost mocking in its composure.
As he turned, the lamplight caught him — damp hair, rolled sleeves, loosened tie, shoulders cut from shadows. He moved across the carpet with the kind of stride that made silence follow. At the door, he paused, hand on the steel handle, and glanced back over his shoulder.
The smile was there again. Small. Dangerous.
Not the grin of arrogance. Not the curve of charm. But the ghost of a promise.
It unsettled her more than any words could.
Then he was gone, the door whispering closed behind him.
The office exhaled.
Lunox sat perfectly still. Only the storm moved — rain chasing itself down the glass, thunder rumbling through her ribs. She pressed her palms against the desk, nails biting crescents into polished wood.
Reckless, she told herself again. Disruptive. Dangerous.
Her eyes slid toward the folder. She should open it again, dissect the numbers, find the flaws. She should prove to herself that he was nothing but a gamble dressed in confidence.
But her hand refused to move.
Instead, she leaned back, head tilting toward the glass. The city blurred beyond, smeared in silver veins of rain. Her reflection stared back — composed, regal, untouchable. Yet she swore she saw the crack: the faintest quiver in her own eyes, the tremor she'd never allowed anyone else to witness.
Why does this man unsettle me?
Her pulse answered in silence.
The thunder cracked overhead, rattling the windowpanes. For a second, lightning lit the office, painting her in silver, just as it had painted him. Two forces caught in the same storm.
And in the echoing quiet that followed, Lunox admitted what she would never speak aloud — not to Freya, not to Aurelia, not to anyone.
I should not want to see him again.
But she did.