I couldn’t breathe.
Not in the dramatic, swooning, Victorian fainting couch kind of way. More like my lungs had decided to go on strike mid-sentence and now I was trying to conduct a professional interview while actively dying from internal combustion.
Liam hadn’t looked at me since he sat down.
Which—fine. I was pretending not to notice. Pretending I wasn’t hyper-aware of the shift in him, the way his posture had turned to marble and his voice had dropped ten degrees colder than usual.
I thought—stupidly, naively, idiotically—that maybe something had happened in that almost-kiss. That maybe, just maybe, he’d felt it too. And now, sitting across from him and Jeremy, of all people, that little flicker of hope felt like a punch to the throat.
Because something had changed.
Liam was colder than ever. Not curious. Not watchful. Just distant. Shut down.
Which could only mean one thing: I had made a mistake. A huge one.
I’d overstepped.
I’d kissed the boss with my eyes and breath and heartbeat and nerve, and now he regretted it. Which made sense. Because what was I to him? A nobody. A glorified intern pretending to be executive material. A girl who was too loud and too eager and—
“...Ava?” Liam’s voice cut through my spiral.
I blinked. Jeremy was smiling. Like a man who thought he’d just said something impressive. Which, based on context clues, was definitely a false assumption.
“I’m sorry,” I said tightly. “Could you repeat the last part?”
“I was saying that I think my background speaks for itself,” Jeremy said, lounging back in the chair like he owned it. “Between my dad’s tech startup and our family’s connections, I think I bring a lot of value to this role.”
My stomach twisted.
Because no. He didn’t. He brought absolutely nothing except a trail of ex-girlfriends and a firm belief that a degree was something to outsource.
And I couldn’t say any of that.
Because if I pissed him off—if I pushed too hard—he might expose me.
My name. My past. My everything.
I folded my hands in my lap to hide how tightly they were clenched. “Can you speak to your experience leading cross-functional dev teams?”
Jeremy looked at me like I’d asked him to recite the Pythagorean theorem in French. “Well, you know how it is. You don’t always need hands-on experience when you have the right instincts. And people. The right people around you.”
Liam was silent beside me.
I could feel his disapproval like a static charge.
I knew exactly what he thought of Jeremy’s answer. What he thought of me, for letting it go unchallenged. And yet—I said nothing. Smiled. Nodded. Took notes like I wasn’t actively holding back a scream.
Because I had too much to lose.
“Right,” I said. “And are you familiar with Duarte’s current product architecture?”
Jeremy’s mouth opened. Closed.
“It’s in the onboarding docs, right?” he said with a half-laugh.
I didn’t smile. I didn’t have to. Liam didn’t either.
There was a long, suffocating pause.
And then Liam said, “Ultimately, the hire will report to Ava. So she’ll make the call.”
My head snapped toward him.
His voice was calm. But his eyes—God, his eyes—they were cutting through me like glass.
“You’re giving me the final say?” I asked, voice thinner than I wanted it to be.
“I trust your judgment,” he said, and the way he said trust made my skin crawl.
He knew something. I didn’t know what. But I could feel it.
And then Jeremy, bless his cursed soul, looked between us and smirked.
“I think it’ll be great,” he said smoothly. “Working together again. Ava and I go way back—university days. Old friends. I think we’ll have a very... fruitful collaboration.”
My heart stuttered.
He didn’t say my full name. He didn’t drop the bomb. But he knew. He was warning me.
Across the table, Liam went still.
I felt it happen. The shift. Like the air in the room had curdled.
“University?” he asked, voice deceptively casual.
Jeremy nodded. “Yeah. Columbia. Same cohort. What are the odds, huh?”
I kept my face blank.
And Liam?
Liam looked at me like I’d slapped him.
He stood without another word. “Interview’s over.”
“Wait—”
But he was already gone.
***
Liam’s POV
He lied to me.
She lied to me.
No, not lied. That wasn’t fair. Not outright. Not directly.
But she had looked at me with those huge, dark eyes, all trust and brilliance and fire, and she had let me believe she was someone she wasn’t.
And now she was sitting across from a man she clearly knew. Someone from her past. Her real past.
How many lies had she told?
What else was she hiding?
I made it back to my office and shut the door so hard the glass trembled.
This wasn’t just about her anymore. This was about me. My judgment. My instincts. My company.
I pulled out my phone and dialed.
The number my father gave me for the private investigator was still saved. I had never used it. Never needed to.
Until now.
It rang twice.
“Yes?” came the voice on the other end.
“This is Liam Duarte,” I said. “I need you to look into someone for me. Immediately.”
“Name?”
I stared out the window.
Tightened my jaw.
“Ava Green,” I said.
Then I paused.
“No—Avelina Sinclaire.”