The handle gave a soft rattle. Then the voice again, all honey. "Ms. Carter? It's Tara. You must be exhausted. I thought—coffee."
I stared at the door as if my eyes could turn wood into truth. Trust no one but me. Adrian's voice threaded through my ribs.
"I'm good," I said, keeping my tone even. "Thanks."
A beat. The sort of pause people take when they're deciding what mask to wear.
"Of course," she said, a little laugh, light as glitter. "Just… open a second? I'll leave it on the table."
"I can't," I replied. "Mr. Blackwell asked me to keep it locked."
Silence lengthened, then: "He asked or he told you?" Her voice tilted sweetly. "Because around here, those are very different verbs."
I let the quiet do the work. Footsteps shifted. The whisper of a paper cup setting down on the carpet. "Anyway," she said, softer now, "I'm on your side."
Are you? The question tasted like metal.
Her steps retreated. The outer door clicked. I exhaled so slowly it felt like learning a language.
My phone buzzed—three times in quick succession.
Unknown:You don't belong there.Unknown:He'll drop you when you're no longer useful.Unknown:Come downstairs and I'll tell you everything.
I stared at the messages until my pulse slowed. I typed, then deleted. Rule Four. I slid the phone face down and pressed my palms to my knees until they stopped trying to fly away.
The intercom crackled. "Ella?" Ethan's voice, low. "Open up."
I crossed the office and unlocked the door. He slipped in, shut it, turned the lock like he was blessing a threshold.
"Update?" I asked.
"Two." He held up fingers. "Security logs show the orientation footage was accessed from a workstation on thirty-seven, fifteen minutes after your session started. Badge authorization belongs to—drumroll—HR's vendor admin, but the session originated from a guest machine near the intern bullpen."
"Meaning," I said, "someone piggybacked the vendor identity from a public terminal."
"Meaning," he said, "someone with a little savvy and a lot of nerve." He lifted his second finger. "Also: the elevator still was pulled internally by an AVP's credentials in M&A. Your friend Tara's… mentor."
The room tilted by a degree. "So he did it."
"Or," Ethan said mildly, "someone using his machine while he was being very conveniently distracted." He looked at me. "Names matter less than proof."
"Do we have proof?"
"We're going to make some." The corners of his mouth ticked. "Ever heard of a honey token?"
"A trap." The word felt good in my mouth.
"A breadcrumb only one person gets. If it leaks, we know exactly who crumbs." He set a slim folder on the desk. "Draft me a private note to Corporate Affairs that sounds like an internal strategy memo—three lines, vague, nothing material. We'll give a unique phrasing to each potential leaker. If any line appears on the gossip accounts, we match it to the recipient."
My chest loosened. Something I could do. "Who are our suspects?"
"Keep the list small," he said. "Less noise. HR Lemon Blazer, AVP Mentor, and, if you agree, the Intern Who Brings Coffee To Locked Doors."
I swallowed. "Okay."
I wrote three versions of the same bland message, each with one harmless but distinctive sentence. Ethan labeled, queued, and sent them from an internal account marked with a timestamp that might as well have been a signature. The trap hummed quietly between us.
"You're good at this," he said.
"At surviving?" I tried to smile. "Years of practice."
He studied me for a beat. "Blackwell was right. You cut noise."
The door opened before I could answer—two quick knocks and then authority. Adrian stepped in with rain on his shoulders and a storm under his skin. His gaze found mine first, then the untouched coffee on the floor. One brow lifted by a millimeter.
"Report," he said.
Ethan filled him in, precise and fast. When he got to the honey-token plan, Adrian's mouth did that almost-smile. Approval, sharpened.
"Good," he said. Then to me: "You didn't open the door."
"You told me not to."
"People often hear what I say and still do as they please." He set a dry handkerchief on the desk like an apology the world didn't get to see. "Thank you for not being people."
Heat licked my throat. Don't be an idiot, Ella. "What now?"
"Now," he said, "we control what can be controlled. Ethan, walk Legal through the vendor session logs. I want a signed affidavit by end of day. HR can stamp their feet; they don't get to write policy with panic."
"On it." Ethan slid out, already calling someone.
Adrian looked at the coffee again. "Charming."
"I didn't—"
"I know." He picked it up, read the scrawl—For E with a heart at the end—then dropped it neatly into the trash. "You hungry?"
It should have been the strangest question in the world. It wasn't. "I could try."
He nodded and hit a button on the phone. "Two grilled chicken salads. No dressing. One ginger ale." He hung up, then glanced at me. "You'll want the dressing. Tell them when it comes."
"I can survive without it."
"You don't earn bravery points for bland lettuce."
My laugh came out like a hiccup. "Noted."
He leaned one hip against the desk, folding into casual like most men step into suits. "Media training. Ten minutes."
I blinked. "Now?"
"Now," he said. "The story outside is a storm. You are a house I intend to keep standing."
He had me repeat phrases until they felt like bones: no comment, we're focused on work, rumor isn't fact. He showed me where to look when someone filmed, how to square my shoulders so I wouldn't read as hunted. He made me practice breathing on a four-count: in two three four, out two three four.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked, not meaning the mechanics.
He was very quiet for a second. Then: "Because you were a firebreak in a room of tinder. Because I like competence." A pause, razor-soft. "Because I made you a rule, and rules are promises with teeth."
The salads arrived. Mine came with dressing after all.
We ate in a fragile peace. He worked between bites, signing documents with a fountain pen that left a wet black line. I watched the rain smear the skyline and tried not to check my phone.
Your breathing is my brand. Adrian's words from earlier shuffled their way back into my chest. It felt like too much and exactly enough.
The peace lasted five minutes.
My screen flashed—notification from @FinanceFeral, the snark blog the floor pretended to hate. Ethan had hidden alerts but an algorithm had slipped through a crack.
BREAKING:Blackwell's intern writes internal strategy notes now? Sources say "Crisis memo" circulated this hour. #RulesOfDesire
My pulse kicked. I clicked. There it was: a screenshot of a dry three-liner.
My dry three-liner.
I scanned the sentences, searching for the unique tells. One line jumped at me like it had been waiting.
"We recommend silent air: starvation over statement."
"Silent air," I whispered. Ethan had tagged that phrasing to one recipient.
Adrian's head lifted. "Who got 'silent air'?"
"HR Lemon Blazer," I said. "Not Tara. Not the AVP."
He made a low sound that could've been a laugh or the opposite. "Of course."
Ethan slid through the door like a rumor with legs. "You saw it."
"We saw it," Adrian said. "Call Legal. HR leaks, HR gets to meet lawyers."
Ethan nodded, then hesitated. "There's… one more. The gossip account posted a second screenshot. Not of the memo. Of a DM." He put his phone on the desk. The message banner glared up at us:
T.B.:Want a better angle? The intern's not just anyone. Her last name is Carter. He has her locked in his office.
T.B.
The room went colder. I didn't have to guess.
"Tara Bennett," I said. My voice didn't shake. "She told them I was locked in here."
Adrian's eyes were very, very calm. "Ethan."
"I'm on it," Ethan said, already moving. "But—careful. Her family is… well-connected."
"So am I," Adrian said.
He turned to me. "Proof matters. Motive matters less, optics not at all." His mouth tilted. "Fortunately, I own optics."
I didn't know whether to smile or run.
"Ella," he said, "you're going to the ladies' room. You'll bump into Tara. You'll be polite. You'll thank her for the coffee. You'll mention, in passing, that Legal is pulling device logs for anyone near the intern bullpen. And then you'll leave."
"You want me to… spook her," I said.
"I want her to decide whether she's a fox or a rabbit," he replied. "Either way, she runs. And when people run, they show you where they keep their secrets."
I wiped my hands on my skirt, stood, and made myself a girl who could walk through glass hallways with her head high while the internet invented versions of her I wouldn't recognize.
In the mirror-bright ladies' room, Tara was at the sink, lipstick poised like a signature. Her eyes met mine in the glass. "Oh," she said, startled into perfect acting. "There you are. How are you holding up?"
"Fine." I washed my hands. "Thanks for the coffee."
She smiled, relief pretending to be kindness. "Of course. We girls have to stick together."
"Totally." I dried my hands slowly. "Just so you know, Legal's pulling device logs—anyone who accessed the guest terminals near the intern bullpen." I kept my voice airy, curious. "Apparently the vendor session came from one of those."
The lipstick paused, then resumed. "Wow," she said. "Intense."
"Company takes leaks seriously," I said. "Anyway, see you." I turned, then added like an afterthought, "Oh—HR copied your mentor on an email about it. Must be nothing."
For a half-breath, a tiny muscle jumped in her cheek. She caught it with a smile. "Good to know."
I walked out, lungs tight. By the time I reached the office, Ethan had two windows open: one with device access logs, timestamped; one with a building camera feed of the bullpen. We watched the time match the footage: a slim wrist with a delicate chain, a hand sliding a USB into the guest machine. The camera caught only the wrist, not the face.
But sometimes wrists tell a story.
"Enough?" I asked.
"Enough to squeeze," Ethan said. "Not to crush."
Adrian stood by the window, the city a set piece behind him. "Squeeze," he said. "Gently. Let them feel the room shrink."
Ethan left with a smile made of paperwork.
"Sit," Adrian told me. "Breathe."
"I am."
He glanced at my hands and did not call me a liar.
For a fragment of the afternoon, work pretended to be normal. He reviewed a slate. I flagged a clause. He fixed a comma in a sentence that could have moved a million dollars and probably did. Somewhere, HR was learning about consequences; somewhere else, a blonde girl was deciding to be a fox.
My phone vibrated again. Another unknown number. Another invitation to step into a story where I was doomed from the first line. I turned it face down. Don't feed the fire.
At 4:03, the lobby camera feed in the corner of Adrian's screen flickered. A ripple moved through the marble like a rumor with boots. A cluster formed at the revolving doors—people with cameras, lenses like hungry mouths.
"Press," I said, my own mouth going dry.
"Paparazzi," Adrian corrected. "Press has credentials. These have hashtags."
"How did they—"
The question died as a new alert popped on Ethan's shared dashboard. A fresh post from the snark blog, louder than the last:
BLACKWELL LOCKS INTERN IN HIS OFFICE — SOURCE ON 38 SAYS DOOR STAYED SHUT FOR HOURS. #RulesOfDesire
They had a photo to go with it. Not the elevator this time. A grainy long-lens shot from an opposite building, zoomed through glass: me at his desk, him by the window, distance between us measured in pixels and judgment.
My skin went cold. "They know we're here."
"They know the picture of being here," he said. He reached past me and shut off the lobby feed. "Pack your bag."
"What?"
"We're leaving by the service corridor."
"I thought—no running. Starve it."
"We're not feeding it," he said. "We're denying it a better angle."
I rose, grabbed my folder, then stopped. "My father."
"He'll keep calling," he said. "You'll keep not answering. Until I tell you to."
I should have bristled. Instead, the command slid into a place inside me that had been waiting for someone to take the wheel.
We moved. The private door. A hallway that smelled like metal and secrets. Ethan met us by a freight elevator with a keycard in his fist and a ghost of a grin. "Security has the front. HR is very, very polite right now. And our honey token just stung."
"Who?" Adrian asked.
Ethan's eyes sharpened. "The blog posted a line with 'silent air.' We've got HR. And they included the phrase 'mentor optics'—which we seeded to the AVP."
I blinked. "And Tara?"
Ethan's grin tilted. "She sent a DM to the gossip account at 2:41 from the ladies' room: 'Check the guest terminal. :)' The vendor logs show a USB mount at 2:43."
"Enough to crush," Adrian said softly.
The elevator shuddered, descended. Somewhere above, rain stitched itself into evening. When the doors opened, we stepped into a concrete corridor that smelled like New York: oil, metal, something like rain that had never met sky.
A back exit. A waiting car. Adrian's driver, an exhale of leather and quiet efficiency. Adrian held the door for me as if the world were watching and as if it weren't.
I slid in. He followed. The car moved.
We didn't speak for two blocks. The city glared at us like an old friend we'd disappointed. Then my phone buzzed again, one last time before I turned it all the way off.
A message. A photo.
Not the elevator. Not the office. A picture of me as a child at a charity gala, hand in my father's, both of us smiling at a camera that loved us then.
Unknown:He used you for the cameras once. He will again. Meet me. Or watch him lose everything twice.
I looked at Adrian. He was watching the street, jaw set like the city owed him money.
"Who is 'Unknown'?" I asked.
"Someone who wants to set the next fire," he said. "We'll decide whether to let them. Tomorrow."
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Somewhere the lenses can't reach," he said. "And where we can plan how to make a fox confess."
The car turned. The lights changed. My heart did too.
Then Ethan's voice filled the car through the dash speaker, tension like a siren. "Adrian—change of plan. They're not just outside. They're inside the building. Security says a board member invited a blogger up to thirty-seven. He's in the conference room. He's live-streaming."
Adrian's eyes met mine in the glass, reflection on reflection. No smile now. Only calculation and the edge of something darker.
"Turn around," he told the driver, voice quiet and absolute. "We're going back."
And for the second time that day, the city held its breath as the doors closed on a decision we couldn't unmake.