He knows
[Narrated: 3rd limited, adjacent to Bells' perspective]
The Larssen premises always smelled of cedarwood wood polish, a peculiar, old-world scent, for an otherwise modern office. Floor-to-ceiling windows made Bells feel naked every time, heat crawling under her skin as if London itself pressed its face to the glass and watched. And he wanted the city to see.
The cleanliness of the place, something he'd insisted on, had also been unsettling. Surfaces polished so aggressively, sometimes it made her wonder what rot might lurk beneath. But she squashed the thought. She had to work here, after all. And Jude had always been fastidious - about his office, about his work, about maintaining control.
That morning, she pushed into his office like a woman possessed. No knocking. She never knocked. A one-time small rebellion that had calcified into habit, that had somehow stuck, though lately she wondered if he'd simply allowed it. He allowed a lot of things. Until he didn't.
As she opened the door, she simply said:
"We should talk."
Jude, her boss of three years, kept his head down, fountain pen scratching across paper with uninterrupted persistence. His forearms were exposed, sleeves shoved up carelessly. She catalogued him without meaning to - the muscle in his forearms, the cruel precision of his mouth. Beautiful men were always the most dangerous, her mother had said once.
"We talk plenty."
"You know what I mean."
A muscle jumped near his temple. Bells watched it pulse, fascinated by this small and rare betrayal of his composure.
"You'll have to be more... explicit."
Explicit. The word hung between them like a loaded gun. Heat crawled up her neck. He would sense it. He noticed everything.
"It's about my engagement."
The pen stopped. Not just the pen - he did. The air around him seemed to thicken, his body had gone into that dangerous, perfect stillness animals use before they strike. Just for a heartbeat, but she caught it.
"If you need to book leave for your wedding, sort that with Jason."
Wedding. He made it sound like a funeral.
"Jude..."
"Is there anything else?"
Her throat constricted. The ring on her finger tighter suddenly.
"I'm sorry you're hurting."
Wrong thing to say. She knew it the second the words left her mouth. He looked at her then. Those winter-lake blue eyes held something raw. Pain threaded through with something harder, something that made her back up, her back now pressed against the door frame.
"Let's stick to the work from now on, shall we?"
The words came out flat, stripped clean of inflection, but she heard the violence underneath it.
Her chest tightened. Then she nodded because speaking would have required acknowledging what was really happening here, the way they orbited each other like binary stars. Gravitationally bound, looping their shared centre of mass. Destined to collide and destruct.
"If that's what you want..." she said, unsure.
His gaze dropped back to the papers. Hands moving mechanically, sorting through documents. Bells stood stiff, waiting. Hopeful he'd crack, that they'd talk like adults, about their very adult entanglement for once. But Jude Larssen never cracked. He just polished the surface until it gleamed.
"I think we're done here."
Arctic and dismissive, yet something about the tone there revealed the hurt, naked and terrible and dangerous. Like someone realising they have nothing left to lose.
She turned to leave, and just as her hand touched the door handle, his voice stopped her:
"Bells."
She looked back. He was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read, it made her pulse quicken for reasons she didn't want to examine.
"Congratulations. On the engagement." His mouth curved into something that might have been a smile on someone else. On Jude it looked like a predator sniffing blood.
"I hope you're happy. Watson seems very… Well. He must offer you something."
She turned back around, her mouth opened, uncertain for a beat, her chest trembled as she inhaled a breath.
"I am..."
"You touch your ring when you lie," he murmured, eyes fixed on her face. She should have left then, not entertain this any further. Instead he heard herself saying.
"Theo takes care of me. He is kind. Generous. Very open about his feelings when it matters…"
Jude held her gaze a moment longer, head tilted as if considering something. Then he'd returned to his paperwork in calculated dismissal.
She left his office then, carrying the weight of what remained unsaid. What he held back. And a growing certainty that she'd just made a terrible miscalculation. Not because Jude was unmoved by her engagement, but because he was. In ways she didn't yet understand. The way a predator's instincts were stirred by the prey's movements. Ways that would matter later, when she wasn't looking.
Bayswater Road
[Narrated: 3rd limited, adjacent to Bells' perspective]
That evening at their Bayswater Road apartment, Bells curled into the couch like a wounded animal. The engagement ring caught the lamplight, winking at her mockingly. Suddenly heavy on her finger. When Theo approached, he was casual, and oblivious, with just a hint of concern flashing in his eyes.
"How did it go today? Did Larssen show up?"
"He was late, but yeah."
"Oh good. At least we know he didn't off himself."
The cruelty surprised her. Theo rarely showed his teeth.
"Theo!!"
"Sorry. That was mean of me." His hand found her shoulder, warm and protective. She suddenly felt a pang of guilt. He deserved better than a fiancé who was cataloguing another man's forearms at work. A woman who took a cab ride with another man that she couldn't forget.
"What's wrong?" he asked. Voice gentle.
"He's..." She stopped herself. Mad wasn't the right word. Neither was hurt, though that was closer. "He's different. Cold."
"Babe... I think you should leave. This doesn't sound healthy."
Healthy. As if any of this had ever been healthy…
"I told you. I'm not leaving. Certainly not now."
"Now sounds like the perfect time."
"He needs me there. Yamamoto's still in play. We've chased that deal for years."
Theo's face did something complicated.
"I know you care about the company, and you've done amazing things there. But I see how this is affecting you. You should be celebrating our engagement right now. Instead, you have to manage a grown man's moods."
The accusation stung because it carried truth. But it was also incomplete. She wasn't just managing Jude's feelings - she was trying to navigate around whatever he was becoming in the aftermath. But she was not about to divulge all of that to Theo. He wouldn't understand working for someone so brilliant and volatile - how you learned to read the pressure points, when to move carefully. Hence she resorted to the different truth.
"It's not about him. It's just... we've been building there together."
Because - yes. They have been building the business together. She wanted skin in the game, something to call her own. She wanted to matter. She had the lineage and ambition but not the resources, you see. They were once wealthy but her father gambled it all. She needed to restore the family name to its former glory. Be the kind of woman her great grandfather would have been proud of.
That was aall. Only that. The fact that the way Jude leaned over her shoulder during those late-night sessions, his breath warm against her neck made her head spin more than a thousand times - a minor omission. The fact that his sharp edges repulsed her and drawn her in in equal measure.
"Larssen's existed before you came onboard..." Theo interrupted her thoughts.
"Barely."
"They had several high-worth government contracts, remember?"
"Theo, what do you even know, really", she said with more annoyance that was warranted. "You should have seen the state of things when I got there."
But when she glanced at him, the wary look in his eyes made her stomach twist. She could feel him searching for meaning between the lines, deciphering the careful words she chose. Her cheeks grew warm. She stood up abruptly, needing distance. Afraid her tone and words betray her if she lingers there with him too long.
"I'm tired. I'm going to bed."
Theo nodded, defeated. "Okay, darling. I'll be there soon."
Ask Her
[Narrated: 3rd limited, adjacent to Theo's perspective]
Two weeks later, while Bells was safely visiting family, Theo appeared at the Larssens Ltd premises like an avenging angel in a wool coat. Six-thirty in the evening - late enough to catch Jude alone, early enough to still appear civil.
Annette, Jude's PA / receptionist, directed Theo to his office with the barely contained excitement of someone who'd been waiting for this particular show to finally start.
He knocked. Politely. Restraint was power, his father had always said, and Theo had built his career on the principle.
"Come in."
Jude looked up from his desk - white shirt with the top two buttons undone like he'd been interrupted mid-seduction, reading glasses perched low on his nose, paperwork in hand. Hair mussed just so. He looked like he'd either just had sex or was preparing to, and Theo's stomach curdled at the implications. The realisation of all the evenings and late nights this man spent, likely in this very office, with his now-fiancé. Jude Larssen had long been known in London's business world for that lethal mix of competence and allure. And now, seeing him like this, Theo understood exactly why people mistook proximity for privilege.
"Teddy Watson?"
"Haven't been called Teddy since I turned five."
Jude remained seated, clicking a pen with patient rhythm. But there was something about the quality of his attention - focused, sharp - that made Theo's rehearsed speech suddenly feel insufficient. Yet, he'd still try.
"Can I help you?"
Theo stepped closer, drawing on every boardroom confrontation he'd ever won. He had handled many a CEO, tens of founders, before this man in front of him. Men older, more powerful and sharp as razorblade.
"Look... Bells told me you've been stressed lately. Since you found out about our engagement."
"That's a bold assumption."
The pen kept clicking. Deliberate.
Yet Theo laughed - a sound like breaking glass. "I don't think it is. And I think it's time you let her go."
The silence stretched. Jude set down the pen with careful precision.
"Let go? Not sure what you mean. Do you want me to fire her?"
"If you have to." The words tasted like acid in his mouth, and he immediately felt guilty for uttering them. "If that's what you need to move on."
Jude leaned back, eyes narrowed. He studied Theo for a long moment, like a specimen under glass. Not angry. Not even particularly defensive. Just... considering. Like Theo had presented him with an interesting problem to solve.
"What exactly did she tell you?"
"That you've been cold since the engagement. She comes home stressed every day. For the last two weeks. It's taking a toll."
"I can assure you I've been nothing but professional toward her. Though... perhaps that's what's taking the toll."
The smirk that followed was surgically acute. Theo felt his world tilt.
"What are you implying?"
Jude's tone was steady, almost polite, the cruelty sharpened by restraint.
"Ask her who she drunk-calls when you're out of town."
Ice flooded Theo's veins. Then Jude's voice dropped an octave, soft, tone clinical.
"She only says your name to tell me she shouldn't."
"You're lying. Just like during your awards speech. You can't stand that she chose me."
Jude began gathering his things with infuriating calm, the faint amusement lingering.
"Check her phone records. Or I can show you mine. I don't mind."
At that, Theo's fist hit Jude's desk, sending pens and papers scattering like startled insects. Yet Larssen didn't even blink, unnervingly calm against Theo's ire. He just looked at the mess, then back at Theo, and something in his expression was almost sad. Almost understanding.
"Easy now, Teddy."
"You're disgusting."
Jude rose slowly and moved closer. He had about three inches on Theo and knew how to weaponise the advantage.
"If Bells wants to leave, she can quit any day. Hell, I'll even waive her notice." His voice was soft now, almost kind, which somehow made it worse. "But we both know she won't."
He said it without triumph. Without satisfaction, only certainty.
"Now, if you'll excuse me. The premises shut in five."
Theo left carrying the taste of humiliation and the chilling memory of how Larssen hadn't flinched once. A terrible sense of something under the surface there forming in his gut, something he wasn't sure he could fully face.