The elevator doors open onto the thirty-second floor, and I become a ghost.
My eyes fix on the carpet as I move toward my desk with the precision of someone walking through a minefield. The silver ring burns against my finger like a brand, but taking it off felt like amputation, so I tucked it beneath my sleeve and prayed no one would notice.
"Ethan, I need the Morrison contracts on my desk by ten." Asher's voice reaches me from across the floor.
"Already printed and filed, sir. You'll find them in your inbox with the supplementary analysis you requested last week."
The silence tells me he noticed the formality. I feel his gaze tracking my movements as I settle into my chair, but I don't meet his eyes, don't acknowledge the weight of his attention pressing against my shoulders.
My phone buzzes. I ignore it.
The morning dissolves into spreadsheets and scheduling conflicts. Blaine passes my desk twice, his cologne trailing behind him like an invitation I pretend not to notice. Cole hovers near the water cooler around eleven with an expression I refuse to interpret.
My phone buzzes again. And again.
I silence it without reading the messages.
"Ethan, we need to discuss the Pemberton follow-up." Cole's voice materializes beside me. "Can you come to my office? There are details I'd like to review before the afternoon call."
"I've already sent the briefing document to your email, Mr. Varkas. If you have specific questions, I'm happy to address them via the internal messaging system. I have time-sensitive tasks requiring my immediate attention."
"Ethan." His voice drops to something almost pleading. "Please look at me. Whatever happened between last night and this morning, we can talk about it. You don't have to disappear."
"I'm not disappearing. I'm working." The words come out brittle. "That's what I'm here for, isn't it? Everything else was clearly a lapse in professional judgment that I'm correcting before it causes irreparable damage."
The hurt that flashes across his features nearly breaks me. He opens his mouth to respond, but Hargrove rounds the corner, his predatory gaze sweeping between us.
"Mr. Varkas, Hale." His smile stretches like a wound. "Don't let me interrupt. I just came to collect the quarterly reports that seem to have gotten lost between my department and the executive floor."
"The reports are in my outbox," I say, reaching for the folder. "Is there anything else you need?"
"Nothing at all." Hargrove's eyes linger on my face. "Just checking in on my former employee. Making sure the altitude isn't going to his head."
He retreats, but his presence leaves something toxic in the air—a reminder that every interaction on this floor is being catalogued, weaponized.
Cole watches him go, jaw tight with fury. When he turns back, his eyes hold determination.
"My office. Five minutes. That's not a request."
He walks away before I can argue.
I don't go to his office.
Instead, I grab my laptop and disappear into the conference rooms on the fourteenth floor, choosing the smallest one with the most obscured sightline. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead as I set up a temporary workstation.
This is how you survive. This is the only armor that works.
Three hours pass in productive isolation. I process expense reports, draft correspondence, build the foundation for next week's board presentation—tasks that prove my value has nothing to do with whose bed I've occupied.
"You're a hard man to find when you don't want to be found."
Jules appears in the doorway. He slips inside and closes the door.
"How did you even know I was here? I deliberately chose a room that isn't visible from the glass fishbowl."
"I've known you for four years, babe. When you go into hermit mode, you always pick the same hiding spot—small, windowless, maximum distance from anyone who might try to have an actual conversation." He settles into the chair across from me. "Want to tell me why you're eating lunch alone in a conference room that smells like desperation?"
"I'm not eating lunch. I'm working."
"There's really not a difference, and we both know it." Jules leans forward. "I saw how you looked this morning—like someone who'd finally stopped drowning. Now you're hiding in the basement pretending that moment never happened."
"Nothing happened this morning. I just got decent sleep for once."
"Ethan, sweetheart, you're a terrible liar." Jules closes my laptop with gentle insistence. "Something spooked you. Something bad enough that you're willing to throw away whatever made you glow like that, and I need you to tell me what it is."
"You can't help me with this." My voice breaks. "Nobody can. The only thing that protects me now is distance. If I'm invisible, I can't be targeted. If I don't want anything, nothing can be taken away."
"You can't protect yourself by disappearing." Jules's voice softens. "I've watched you try that strategy for years, and all it's ever done is make you miserable. Whatever you're afraid of, running won't make it less real—it'll just make you more alone when it catches up."
"Being alone is better than being destroyed." The words taste like poison. "I've spent my entire life being told that wanting what I want makes me broken. And for one stupid week, I let myself believe that might not be true. But the photograph exists, Jules. Someone is watching me, building a case that will end everything I've worked for. Distance is the only armor I have left."
Jules studies my face for a long moment, something shifting behind his eyes that I can't quite interpret. He opens his mouth to respond, but my phone buzzes against the table—another message I won't read—and the interruption shatters whatever he was about to say.
"I need to get back to work." I open my laptop and begin typing, my fingers moving across keys I can barely see. "Thank you for checking on me, but I'm fine. I just need some time alone to figure out how to move forward without making things worse than they already are."
Jules doesn't argue. He rises from the chair, pauses at the door, and looks back at me with an expression that makes my chest ache.
"You know where to find me when you're ready to stop lying to yourself."
He leaves, and I'm alone with the fluorescent buzz and the weight of my own cowardice.
At 4:47 p.m., I shut down my laptop and slip out through the service elevator, avoiding the thirty-second floor entirely. My badge swipes through the lobby turnstile, and I push through the glass doors without looking back—not at the building that holds everything I've been running from, not at the windows where three men might be watching me flee.