[Cora’s POV]
The office at nine-forty on a Tuesday has the energy of a library after a funeral—quiet in a way that makes every sound confessional. Everyone left hours ago. Now it's me, Edmund, and a pitch deck refusing to behave.
"The Whitmore projections need to lead slide six, not follow it." He leans over the conference table, pen tapping the printout. "If we bury the growth numbers behind the analysis, we lose them before we've made the case."
"Agreed, but if we lead with projections, they'll ask for methodology before we've built the framework." I pull the laptop closer and start rearranging slides. "Credibility first—then hit them with numbers while they still trust us."
He's quiet for a beat, reading what I've restructured. Sleeves rolled past the forearms, tie gone since seven, collar open one button—details I'm noting against my will and billing to overtime I'll never see.
"That's better." He nods slowly, pulling the laptop toward him. "Much better. Move the case study to follow and we've got a narrative."
We've been at this for three hours—passing the laptop back and forth, arguing margins and messaging, formality thinning because it doesn't survive shared exhaustion. He pushes back on my phrasing; I push back on his structure.
"Section four—pull up the revenue breakdown." He reaches across me for the printout, his forearm close enough that the hair on mine responds to the warmth. I keep my eyes on the screen as if I’m defusing something explosive.
I click into section four and my fingers freeze on the trackpad. The figures are wrong—not slightly, fundamentally. Q3 actuals replaced with projections, margin calculations inverted, decimal points shifted in directions that turn profit into fantasy.
"What's wrong?" He's watching my face, because this man notices everything at precisely the moments I need him not to.
"The figures." I scroll down, and the damage multiplies—every data point altered, my work replaced with numbers that would embarrass an intern. "I entered these correctly. I'm certain I did."
He leans closer to the screen, shoulder near mine, and I can feel the assessment—his eyes moving between the wrong numbers and the woman responsible for them.
"Could you have pulled from the wrong data set?" Patient, measured—worse than irritation, because patience from a boss means they're already managing your failure.
"No. I used the file you sent directly—the one marked final." My hands are already on the keyboard, pulling up the source. "Give me fifteen minutes. I'll rebuild the section."
"Take what you need." He straightens and walks to the window, giving me space without making it obvious, which is its own kind of grace.
I rebuild it in twelve. The real numbers come from memory—the ones I entered correctly, the ones someone changed. A sync error, my own exhaustion—explanations queue and I accept the most self-punishing one, because that's what makes sense when you're new and desperate.
"Done. Verified against the source file." I turn the laptop toward him and watch his eyes move through the corrected data.
He reviews it, nods, and something in his posture loosens. "Good. We're back on track." He pulls out his phone. "We need food—any preferences, or do you trust me?"
"I trust anyone still working at ten on a Tuesday." My stomach has been staging communication attempts for the past hour. "Anything without fryer grease—I've had a lifetime supply."
Twenty minutes later we're in the conference room with Thai containers spread across a table designed for twelve, eating like people who forgot meals happen at intervals.
"Oliver's going through a phase." Edmund opens pad Thai with the ease that suggests he eats most dinners from cardboard. "Won't sleep unless I read the same book three times and sit in the doorway until he's out."
"Which book?" The question is small and safe, and every answer is a room in a house I gave away.
"Something about a bear who loses his hat." He twists noodles around his fork. "Read it so many times I could recite it under anaesthesia. Last night he told me I was doing the bear's voice wrong—honestly, he might be right."
My chopsticks pause mid-lift. I set them down and reach for water, because my hands need occupation that isn't betrayal. "Does he fall asleep fast once you're in the doorway?"
"Depends on the night. Sometimes five minutes, sometimes an hour answering questions about why the moon doesn't fall." Every edge in his face dissolves when he talks about Oliver. "My Mum says I'm creating a dependency. I say he's three."
"Three-year-olds are tyrants with the moral high ground." I take a slow drink and swallow the sentence I actually want to say, which is: does he still grip things in his sleep—a car, a blanket corner, someone's finger?
"Do you have family nearby?" He asks it reaching for another container, not looking at me—which means he's been waiting and chose this moment on purpose.
My spine goes straight against the chair. "A younger sister—she's sixteen." I deliver it like a business card, flat and final.
"Big age gap." He glances up, fork pausing between the container and his mouth. "Are you close?"
"Very." The word seals shut, and I redirect before he can follow the thread. "We should finalise the closing slides tonight—if we leave them for tomorrow, we lose momentum."
He holds my gaze a half-second longer than the redirect deserves, then nods. We clear the containers and return to the laptops, the conversation folding back into safe territory—transitions, client psychology, the shade of blue that says trustworthy versus desperate.
My phone buzzes against the table. I glance at the screen and everything behind my ribs draws tight—Blythe's name: Dennis broke the bathroom lock. I'm in my room. Door's blocked with the dresser. Please come home.
"Cora." Edmund's voice reaches me from across a distance that has nothing to do with the table between us. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing—family thing." I pocket the phone and start closing tabs, fingers clumsy on the trackpad. "I should head out."
"It's nearly eleven, buses stopped an hour ago." He's already standing, reaching for his coat. "I'll drive you."
"You don't need to do that." I'm gathering my bag, calculating cab fare against the nothing in my account.
"I know I don't need to." He holds the coat, watching me with an expression that makes arguing feel like cruelty. "I'm offering."
The car is warm and quiet and smells like leather and cedar. Edmund asks twice during the drive whether everything is alright, and I answer with a version of fine that satisfies neither of us, steering toward the Whitmore timeline because work is the one language where I don't lie.
"Here is fine." Two streets before my building, because Edmund Hale cannot see the eviction notice or the stairwell or any part of the life attached to my name. "This is me."
"Here?" He slows, scanning the dark street, and I can see him noticing the absence of anything that looks like home. "You're sure?"
"Positive. Thank you—for the ride and the food." I open the door and cold air floods the warm interior. "Final deck on your desk by eight."
I close the door and walk. Behind me, the car pulls away, and I track the taillights in a shop window's reflection—red, receding, gone. Except they're not gone—brake lights, forty metres back, engine running, headlights still burning into the dark.
Edmund Hale is parked on my street, and he is not leaving.