Tessa had a gift for turning any simple situation into a disaster worthy of a documentary, and Norah still didn’t fully understand how she got talked into this. But there she was, at table 12, as Tessa had specified eight times, staring at a man who was staring right back at her. They both looked away. Then they looked again.
A complete disaster. “May I bring the appetizers for the couple? ” the waiter asked. “We’re not a couple,” they both said at the same time.
Exactly that. Norah looked at her plate, then at Elias, then back at her plate. Without warning, they both started laughing. “I’m going to order the most normal thing there is, if there is one,” she said.
He ordered the same. The wine spilled, spreading across the table as if it had a will of its own. “If it’s any comfort, you’re doing great,” he said. “Because someone needs to do it,” she replied.
“You’re clearly an exception. ”
The silence stretched. He looked like he wanted to say something, then stopped. “I should—” He didn’t finish.
The response was instant. She knew a run when she saw one. Outside, on the opposite sidewalk, Norah finally stopped. It was just a funny story to tell Tessa tomorrow.
That’s all. Elias opened his door before he finished his own sentence. Checking if my boss had a nervous breakdown after socializing for the first time in three years, he muttered to himself. The city sparkled below, but he couldn’t shake her face.
“It’s not just because of her,” he told the empty room. “And you can’t tell her who you are. ” He laughed at himself. There was always an alternative.
Elias Montgomery couldn’t concentrate for three days, and that was a problem because concentration was basically the only thing he knew how to do. Margot, his assistant, pointed out he’d been staring at the same page for twenty minutes. At four in the afternoon, he did something he’d never done before, he left early. “Not exactly,” he said when she asked if he was sick.
He didn’t know if he should be offended by her reaction. He just knew he needed to find her again, whatever it took, even if she never knew it was him. The meeting room at Montgomery Industries had floor-to-ceiling windows, furniture that cost more than cars, and an emotional temperature below zero. Margot laughed when he said he needed to understand the real impact of the demolition.
“You never smile before ten,” she said. Norah Sullivan was backstage, holding her notes like a life vest. First presentation. She looked at her notes, then at the audience, then back at her notes.
Then she did something she hadn’t planned. She spoke from the heart about the community center, about the families who would lose everything if the board voted to demolish it. Margot interrupted, trying to present her own final documentation. But Norah didn’t stop.
The board voted based on incomplete information. She saw Elias in the back, and he seemed genuinely sorry. He approached her afterwards, not as CEO, not as a company representative, just as someone wanting to understand. Her colleague Jade was panicking.
Norah couldn’t stay seated anymore. The accusation waited on each syllable. The entire auditorium held its breath. “I was wrong,” he said, low enough for only her to hear.
“I was wrong not to tell you. ” She kept walking, but he followed. “Because some things I can still fix. ”
Later, people were celebrating, shouting, hugging.
Norah stood frozen, looking at the same man who two weeks ago was her faceless enemy. Her heart was pounding. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe both.
“It’s emotional sweat,” she said when he asked if she was okay. The world around them continued celebrating, but between the two of them, the air became strangely still. She admitted it wasn’t okay, not really. He said she clearly needed someone who knew how to use spreadsheets.
Miss Martha appeared from nowhere and hugged them both at the same time. “Do you still want to punch me? ” he asked. “Never,” she said.
“Sullivan. ”
For the first time in a long while, she was excited about the future, even if that future included the most complicated man she had ever met. Days later, Norah held a teal blue sample as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Between them, a cardboard mockup of the revitalization project awaited its fate.
Jade asked if they were dating. “No,” they both said at the same time. “It’s a professional discussion,” Elias completed. “It should be,” Norah said.
“Because we are,” Jade said simply. The touch was brief, maybe half a second, but it was enough to make them both freeze. Elias looked at the mockup as if seeing it for the first time, admitting her ideas involved more color than his usual gray. She told him she wished he had told the truth at that first dinner.
He admitted he had wanted to. She said she still didn’t know if she trusted him. The line was long. Jade, in the passenger seat, pretended to check emails.
“As long as I need to,” Elias said. It was professional. Their meetings stretched on, and every time Elias smiled, that restrained smile that seemed reserved just for her, Norah temporarily forgot how to form sentences. She showed him her sketches.
“I have the light source,” she said. “Then do better,” he replied. The result was a shape that didn’t look like anything recognizable at all. She laughed, low at first, then looser.
“I’ve never done this before,” she said. “Being stuck anywhere with someone. You never know if people like you or what you can give them. After a while, you stopped trying to figure it out.
”
He listened. She kept talking, about her father leaving, about watching her mother destroy herself, about learning that people always leave, so it’s better not to expect them to stay. “And if they don’t stay, then at least you tried. ”
Then it was as if all the barriers they had built simply crumbled.
“We should probably—” he started. She nodded. Monday arrived with sun, clear skies, and two adults acting like teenagers who don’t know what to do after their first kiss. Tessa and Margot exchanged glances.
“Content at most adequately impressed,” Tessa said. “A smile like that is something else,” Margot replied. “Two at most,” they said at the same time, between assistants and best friends. Tessa explained it was a very important professional category: two people who kissed during a storm and now can’t look at each other without smiling like idiots.
“You’re both impossible,” Norah said. But that night, on the phone, Elias was quiet for a long moment. “I want to do it again,” he said. “If you want to.
”
The approval came through, but so did the warning. Margot had filed a formal complaint. “Approvals can be revoked, especially when the CEO is clearly making decisions based on personal interests. If we find any irregularities, any conflict of interest, the funding will be cut.
”
Norah’s stomach dropped. “It’s a let’s survive this first and then we’ll talk,” Elias said. “Wait, both things at the same time? ” she asked.
They worked through the night, building a complete case against any accusation Margot could invent. When they finished, Norah realized that for the first time in a long while, she wasn’t afraid anymore. “Technically, we didn’t do anything wrong to begin with,” she observed. Tessa appeared with coffee and the news that Margot had been transferred.
“And you two can date in peace without anyone trying to turn it into a corporate scandal. ”
The technology room had twenty new computers, all occupied by teenagers learning to code. Norah stood in the doorway, and Elias stopped in front of her. She looked at him, the face of someone who doesn’t believe it worked out because she still didn’t believe it.
“Only a little,” she said. Then, to her absolute shock, he pulled out a small box. “What if I said no? ” she asked.
He didn’t answer, not with words. His hand found hers. And for once, she didn’t pull away.
