The elevator doors open on the fourteenth floor, and I'm rehearsing my handshake. Firm but not aggressive, eye contact for two seconds, the modest smile of a woman grateful for the opportunity and absolutely not remembering the several-year-old history behind us.
The receptionist leads me toward the corner office, my heels clicking against marble that costs more per square foot than my mother's rent. I'm running through the gap year script—family responsibilities, independent consulting, eager to re-enter the workforce—when the office door swings open.
Theo Barnes is standing behind the desk, and my whole rehearsed performance flatlines. He's broader than I remember—shoulders filling out a charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled to the forearm, jaw sharper, the kind of face that got more unfair with age.
The blue-gray eyes haven't changed, though. They land on me and I forget what I was going to say, which is inconvenient because the last time we were in a room together, neither of us was wearing clothes.
"Annie Reed." He says my name like he's confirming a suspicion, not making an introduction. "Have a seat."
“I would prefer Murphy,” I correct him to my maiden name, my voice level. Theo nods, agreeing easily and not making a fuss, but his eyes glimmer with curiosity.
I sit. He sits. Between us, my résumé lies on the desk like evidence at trial, and he's reading my employment history—or the gaping absence of it—while I try not to track the way his hand moves across the page.
"Wharton, summa cum laude." He taps the page, then traces the void beneath my graduation date. "Top of the cohort, Strategic Analysis prize, then—nothing."
"I took time off for family." The words come out rehearsed and smooth, exactly as I practiced in Mom's bathroom mirror this morning.
"Family." He repeats it without inflection, leaning back. A slant of light catches the edge of his collarbone where the shirt falls open, and I stare at the résumé like it owes me money. "You married Jake Reed." It's not a question.
My left hand twitches against my thigh, and I flatten my palm hard against the fabric. "I don't see how that's relevant to the position."
"It's not." He tilts his head—a gesture I remember from seminar, the one that meant he was about to take someone apart. "But you're applying for a junior role that pays less than your Wharton tuition, and you want me to believe you spent five years arranging flowers."
"I didn't say flowers." The old Wharton reflex—matching him point for point before I can cage it—and his mouth does something that isn't quite a smile.
"So what did you do for five years, Annie?" He leans forward. "Because I remember you beating me on the Hendricks case by three points—you don't just stop."
My chest tightens at I remember. "Evaluate the candidate, not the gossip. Unless Meridian Group interviews by tabloid."
Now he does smile—brief and sharp, the same one he used to aim at me across seminar tables. He turns his monitor toward me—a market entry strategy for a biotech firm expanding into Southeast Asian regulatory markets. "Tell me what's wrong with it."
It's a test. I should play it safe, offer one small observation, stay invisible—the smart move for a woman who needs a paycheck, not a spotlight. I last forty-five seconds.
"Your market sizing uses top-down TAM without adjusting for regulatory exclusion zones—three of these countries have biosimilar protections that slash your addressable market by a third." My voice shifts into a register I haven't used since Wharton.
"GenVec filed in Singapore eight months ago, so the first-mover thesis is dead." I look up from the screen. "Did your team model the currency exposure?"
Theo is watching me—not the screen, me. Something behind his expression is rearranging itself, and I can feel him connecting wires: the gap, the junior title, the way my body went rigid when he said Jake's name.
"They modeled it—they got it wrong." His voice is carefully neutral. "You just found a blind spot my senior team missed in three weeks. In ninety seconds."
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper and fold my hands in my lap. Every instinct wants to keep going—restructure the whole approach, show him the version that actually works. "I read fast."
"You always did." He holds my gaze a beat too long, and the air between us does something I'm going to pretend I didn't notice. "The job's yours. You're overqualified and we both know it. But I presume that you have your reasons."
"I do." I don't elaborate. He doesn't push, which tells me he thinks he already knows.
He walks me toward the elevator, falling into step close enough that I catch his scent—cedar and something warm I recognize from a hotel room I've spent five years not thinking about. My skin prickles and I hate it.
"You still do that thing," he says, glancing sideways at me. "Downplay your answer, then deliver the kill shot."
"I don't know what you're talking about." I keep my eyes on the corridor, but I can feel him studying the side of my face. “And why are you following me anyway? Is that part of an interview too?”
"It’s not, I just want some coffee. Porter's negotiation seminar. You sat quiet for twenty minutes, then dismantled my entire framework in two sentences." He shakes his head. "I rewrote my thesis that night."
"Good." The word escapes before I can soften it, and his laugh is low and surprised—a sound that vibrates somewhere behind my ribs. "It needed rewriting."
We step through the lobby doors into September sunlight, and a four-year-old cannonball slams into my knees. "Mommy! Mommy, I drawed a new one, look, LOOK—"
Sarah is waving a crayon drawing so hard the paper snaps audible. Behind her, Mom is speed-walking down the sidewalk, face drained white. "Sarah Louise Reed, you do not run away from Grandma—"
Sarah is not listening—she's latched onto the tall man's hand and is thrusting the drawing up at him. "It's a dragon-cat! It breathes fire AND glitter, because me and Ava decided both kinds are real."
Theo crouches down to her level, and every organ in my chest drops with him. His face is right in front of hers—same dark blond hair, same blue-gray eyes, same stubborn jaw.
"Both kinds." He studies the drawing with the focus he once brought to case studies. "That's a strong position. Does the dragon-cat have a name?"
"Sparkle Inferno." Sarah beams like she's known him her entire life. "She's very important."
Mom reaches us breathless and grabs Sarah's shoulder. "I'm so sorry—she's faster than she looks. Sarah, we don't grab strangers."
"He's not a stranger, Grandma." Sarah twists free with unshakable confidence. "He's tall."
Mom peels her away, steering her toward the car while Sarah narrates Sparkle Inferno's full biography over her shoulder. Theo straightens up slowly, and when he turns to me the professional distance has burned away entirely.
"How old is your daughter?" His voice has dropped to something stripped down to the studs.
"Four." The word barely makes it past my teeth.
"Four." He repeats it the way you'd press a thumb into a wound to check the depth. "That's funny—because I'm pretty sure I just looked into my own eyes on someone else's face."
The parking lot noise fades to static. I can hear Sarah chattering at Mom near the car, the blood rushing in my own ears, and nothing else. Five years of buried math just detonated on a sidewalk.
The man I never admitted I slept with, the only infidelity in my marriage—which barely counts, because we broke up with Jake that night—that culminated into the sweetest, most precious child I could ever ask for. My carefully curated life is breaking down, piece by piece, it’s ugly sight mocking me.
My mouth opens. Closes. I take a deep breath, steadying myself, because another second of silence will reveal an answer I don’t want Theo to know.
“Then look closer. She has my husband’s eyes,” the lies taste like ash. My heart pulses in my ears. “I’ll see you Monday, Mr. Barnes.” And I storm off, grabbing Sarah’s hand.