The rain had stopped drizzling, it was furious now, pounding heavily across the City's pavements. I was already getting sick of the constant rain, as my heels splashed through puddles, as I raced towards the gallery from the car park.Tonight was for knowing and confirming the suspicions which had been eating at me all through the week. I get there just in time and peep through the glass façade, laughter and champagne glowed warm against the storm. I spotted him instantly. My boyfriend, my safe choice, head bent towards a woman in a crimson dress that melted into her figure. The same woman who was having dinner with him weeks ago. When he kissed her, it wasn't an accident. It was deliberate, deep, and devastating.For a heartbeat, I thought the rain had blurred my vision. The betrayal was painfully clear.I pushed open the door. Warm air collided with my drenched clothes, but couldn't thaw the ice crawling across my ribs and chest. I stand quietly behind a pillar, half concealed staring at them.The woman suddenly felt a stranger's eyes on them. She turned and looked directly at me, cheeks flushed. Her eyes betray her knowledge of me, before she slips back her mask of defiance. She quickly turns all her attention back to my Ethan again, like I was a silly interruption.I thought about confronting him, creating a scene but I went with my better judgement and decided against it . Instead I strolled out, back into the Angry rain. Once outside, the rain swallowed me whole with my tears, until the city looked like a watercolor painting bleeding in the sink. My phone buzzed again, his name flashing, but I didn't answer. I wonder if she'd told him or it was mere coincidence or worse, a butt dial.I stop to catch my breath and I catch a glimpse of my reflection, staring back at me in a dark shop window. Mascara streaks, tangled hair, and a woman who'd just been undone. Somewhere in that broken image, a thought slid in, quiet but fierce, This is my rock bottom, nowhere to go but up now. As Lightning suddenly split the sky, a dramatic reminder that even storms passed, as I braced myself.
About a month earlier.The rain was raging non-stop and by the time I stumbled through Cross Development's revolving doors, my hair had given up and laid all plastered on my skull and face. My blazer clung like an ill fitted body shaper, and my laptop bag felt twice as heavy with every soaked step. The marble lobby smelled like bergamot and money. My shoes squeaked a confession across the floor, late.
I quickly make my way Upstairs to the conference room, which glowed like an aquarium of sharks. Twelve tailored predators turned as one to study the soggy girl who dared show up. At the head, Zane Cross, billionaire developer, media darling, and rumored corporate assassin. He leaned against the table with a poker face, watching me.
"Ms. Alvarez," he finally said, his voice clipped. "You're late."
"Or you're early," I replied, stretching my mouth into a grin that felt like a loan I couldn't repay. "Let's call it fashionably synchronized" I quickly added.
It irritated me a bit that no one had acknowledged my condition or the fact they expected me to be early with the downpour. No points for the effort.
A pen clicked somewhere to my left. My boss, Neha, gave me the look bosses reserve for employees who are both talented and terrifyingly unpredictable. I opened my laptop, heart pounding loud enough to be its own back ground track, and launched into the pitch.
"Triad's image is bleeding," I said, clicking to the first slide. "We stop the hemorrhage with transparency. live factory tours, worker stories, no airbrushed apologies. Customers forgive mistakes, they don't forgive lies."
Zane's gaze was a scalpel. "You're suggesting penance as a strategy? Well, well, look at that? Didn't know you had a priest in your firm " he jested looking at my boss in the midst of the whole unnecessary chuckles coming from others.
"I'm suggesting honesty as survival." My voice wobbled, but I aimed it like a blade and he was my target.
My phone buzzed against my hip. I ignored it. Buzzed again, longer. A third time, urgent.
Mr. Zane arched an eyebrow.
"Does your data account for limited attention span?" he asked.
"Only yours," I fired back, trying to sound clever instead of sick with dread.
Another buzz. I slid the phone out beneath the table. It read,
MAYA, IT'S MOM ANSWER NOW.
A follow up message stacked instantly.
Your father collapsed. ER.
The room went still instantly and my slides blurred. My throat went dry.
"I…excuse me. Family emergency."
Zane didn't blink, but something in his expression softened and it caught me unawares. I quietly wondered if he could actually be flesh and blood underneath the granite exterior
"Go," he said quietly.
I nodded to my boss and bolted. The elevator ride felt like eternity. Outside, a cab screeched to a stop when I waved like my life was on fire.
Within minutes I was at the hospital. It smelled like bleach and borrowed time. My mother was hunched in a plastic chair, clutching her purse like it contained pearls.
"Stable," she said as I look at her worried sick "They're running tests."
A voice I hadn't heard in three years said my name as i heaved out a sigh of relief, like it still belonged to him.
Ethan Carter, my college sweetheart, my first love and almost-forever. He stood there holding two coffees like no time had passed. He smiled that same quiet, devastating smile. My chest squeezed with memories I didn't invite.
"Your mom called," he said. "And I came as fast as I could."
"I didn't know you were back in town, how come no one told me? I can't believe you've been talking to my mum.." He hugged me before I could spiral any further and I melt unexpectedly into the familiar body. It felt like coming home.
Hours bled into each other, nurses' shoes squeaked, monitors chirped, my mother whispered prayers in Spanish under her breath like spells. Ethan sat beside me, his presence so familiar it ached.
He handed me coffee, my old order, milk and one sugar, without asking. I took it, hating that my fingers trembled .
"You still stir counterclockwise," he murmured.
"You still notice weird things," I shot back, but my voice was soft.
"Not weird," he said. "Just you."
We sat in silence, till Dad finally drifted to sleep, then I slipped outside for air.
The Rain had settled into a mist, delicate as regret. That was when a tall, dry silhouette stepped out from under the hospital's patio.
Mr. Zane Cross.
He held my soaked portfolio like a judge holding evidence. "You left this," he said. His suit was immaculate, as if the rain was suddenly a respecter of persons, while I looked a mess by contrast.
"Did you teleport?" I asked as my eyes widened. "You were downtown a few minutes ago."
"I fund the cardiac wing. They let me lurk." he said sarcastically
"You fund it or you're laundering your conscience?"
"Both." His lips curved faintly. "Your pitch was bold. Too idealistic for most of my peers, but bold."
I reached for the portfolio, but he didn't release it immediately. The pause wasn't flirtation, it was a test. When I didn't flinch, he let go.
"Be at Cross Development at ten," he said. "Show me staying power, finish what you started."
"I'll be there."
"And, Alvarez?" He stepped closer, voice lowering. "Next time, leave the sermon, bring more armor."
"Next time, bring a conscience, leave the swagger," I shot back underneath my breathe.
He smirked, turned, and melted into the rain like a rumor.
Inside, Ethan was waiting in the hallway, eyes searching my face. "Everything okay?"
"Define okay," I said, sliding the portfolio under my arm.
My phone buzzed, it was NEHA: Call me NOW. The board just voted.
Another vibration followed immediately, but this time it wasn't Neha. A blocked number flashed across the screen with a single line:
Walk away from Cross. Last warning,They wont protect you twice, Alvarez.