By Monday morning, whispers had already started.
It began in the elevator—two assistants murmuring about late-night lights on the thirty-second floor, one of them claiming she'd seen Adrian Voss and Leah Morgan leave the building after midnight on Friday. By the time Leah arrived at her desk, the whispers had turned into theories.
She could feel it—the shift in the air when she walked past, the half-second pauses in conversation, the way people pretended to be busy when she looked up.
She told herself to ignore it. Work. Focus. Numbers don't lie, people do. But even numbers blurred when tension pressed against her temples.
"Rough morning?" Jules, her cubicle neighbor, leaned over the divider with her usual half-smirk.
"Just busy," Leah said, keeping her tone neutral.
"Busy, huh? Heard you were at the office late on Friday. Burning the midnight oil… or something else?"
Leah froze for only a second, but that was enough. Jules caught the flicker, grinning wider. "Relax. I'm just kidding."
"Don't," Leah said quietly, eyes fixed on her screen.
Jules blinked. "Wow. Okay. Touchy." She rolled her chair away, leaving behind the faint scent of peppermint and the sting of accusation unspoken but felt.
Leah exhaled slowly. She'd faced worse—criticism, competition—but gossip? That was poison in a place like this.
By noon, even the accounting interns had heard.
Adrian noticed it by lunch. Not the gossip itself, but the sudden shift in tone when he entered a room. The laughter that stopped mid-breath. The glances that broke too late.
He didn't need to ask. Offices were predictable ecosystems—rumor, envy, speculation all feeding on silence.
When he stepped into the elevator, one of the senior managers, Haynes, cleared his throat. "You might want to be careful, sir. The staff talk too much."
Adrian's gaze cut to him, steady. "About what?"
"Late hours. Who stays where." Haynes hesitated, clearly regretting opening his mouth. "It's just noise, of course."
Adrian didn't answer. The elevator doors slid open, and he walked out without a word.
Back in his office, he stood by the window, jaw tight. It wasn't the gossip that bothered him—it was the unfairness of it. Leah had done nothing wrong. She'd worked harder than anyone else, delivered results no one else could, and this was her reward—being reduced to whispers because she happened to stand too close to him in the wrong room.
He hated how predictable it was. How human.
He called her in.
Leah entered, already sensing the undercurrent in his tone. "Sir?"
"Close the door."
She obeyed. The sound clicked like punctuation.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me?" he asked.
Her brows furrowed. "About what?"
"The rumors."
She went still. "So you've heard."
"Yes." His voice was low, deliberate. "And I want you to know—I don't tolerate this kind of noise. It'll die off soon."
Her fingers tightened around the folder she was holding. "It's not dying off. Not yet. People stare when I walk by. They think—" She stopped herself.
He studied her, tone softening. "They think because they can't imagine earning what you've earned."
"That's not the point," she said, frustration slipping through. "It's that they see me differently now. Not for what I do. Just for being near you."
Adrian was quiet for a moment, the weight of her words cutting deeper than he wanted to admit. Then, quietly, "Would you rather I keep my distance?"
Her breath hitched. "That's not what I meant."
"But it's what you're thinking," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "And maybe you're right."
Silence stretched—thick, uneasy, yet strangely fragile.
Finally, Leah spoke, choosing every word. "If you step back now, they'll think they were right. That I needed your help. I don't want that either."
He looked at her then—not as an employee, but as someone standing in the same storm, refusing to bend.
"Then we hold our ground," he said quietly.
Leah nodded. "We hold it."
When she turned to leave, his hand brushed her sleeve—just a second, an accidental contact—but it was enough to draw her breath short.
"Leah," he said, voice gentler now. "Don't let them decide what you've earned."
She met his eyes, steady this time. "Neither should you."
She left, and for the first time in years, Adrian smiled—not out of amusement, but something sharper. Respect.
Outside, the office buzzed with rumor, but Leah walked straighter, quieter, her expression unreadable. If they were going to talk, let them.
Because between her and Adrian Voss, something had already shifted—and no whisper could define it.