The next day began with silence.Not the comfortable kind that Leah had grown used to sharing with Adrian, but a stretched, uncertain quiet that filled the office like fog.
She had slept poorly. Clara's smile — sharp and knowing — had followed her into her dreams, and Adrian's steady eyes had lingered there too, a reminder of everything left unsaid.
By noon, the tension still hadn't eased.Emails were shorter than usual. His office door, usually left slightly ajar, remained closed.
Leah tried to focus on the new client proposal spread across her desk, but her concentration broke every few minutes. Her coworkers' voices carried across the room, low but clear enough to sting.
"Did you see him with her last night?" one of them whispered. "The ex? I swear they looked close."
"Close? Please. He hasn't looked at anyone like that in years."
Leah's pen slipped in her hand. The ink smudged across the page. She didn't look up, but her pulse picked up, that sharp, irrational twist of jealousy she hated herself for feeling.
She forced herself to keep typing.
It was almost a relief when the phone on her desk buzzed.Adrian Grant — Office.
Her breath hitched.
When she stepped in, he didn't look up right away. He was by the window, jacket off, sleeves rolled, eyes fixed on the skyline as if the city itself had wronged him.
"You wanted to see me?" she asked quietly.
He turned then, the sharp light from the glass cutting across his features. "You didn't submit the client report."
"I'm still finalizing—"
"I asked for it before lunch."
His tone wasn't cold, exactly, but it was clipped — precise. The way he spoke when he was forcing control.
Leah held his gaze. "It's been a busy morning. I'll have it ready in fifteen minutes."
The silence that followed was taut. Then something in his expression softened, just barely.
He exhaled. "You didn't deserve what happened last night."
Her throat tightened. "It's fine."
"It's not." His voice lowered. "Clara shouldn't have spoken to you like that."
She blinked, surprised. "You noticed?"
He met her eyes — steady, unwavering. "I notice everything."
That admission did something to her chest — a flicker of warmth beneath the ache.
She shook her head lightly, trying to steady her tone. "It wasn't anything serious."
"It was deliberate," he said. "She wanted a reaction."
Leah's fingers fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve. "And did she get one?"
Adrian's eyes lingered on her face. "From me? No."
From her? She couldn't say.
A moment passed, too long, too quiet. Then he straightened, slipping his composure back on like armor. "You haven't eaten yet, have you?"
She blinked, thrown off. "I wasn't hungry."
"Come with me."
It wasn't a request.
Minutes later, they were in the small café across the street — far from the glittering event halls and company pretense. It was quiet, dimly lit, the kind of place where people came to hide from the day.
They sat opposite each other in a corner booth. The air between them was thick with everything unspoken — the lingering aftermath of Clara's reappearance, the strange awareness neither wanted to name.
Leah stirred her coffee absently. "You didn't have to bring me here."
"I know." He sipped his drink, eyes unreadable. "But if I hadn't, you'd have skipped lunch."
"Since when is that your concern?"
A pause. Then, softer — "Since it started affecting your work."
She almost smiled. Almost. "That's a very managerial way of caring."
His lips twitched, the faintest hint of humor breaking through. "I don't do sentiment."
"I've noticed."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then she said quietly, "She's someone important to you, isn't she?"
He froze for half a second. "She was."
The finality of the word carried weight. It didn't need elaboration.
Leah looked down at her cup, her reflection fractured by the dark surface. "Then why did it feel like I was standing between something unfinished?"
Adrian's gaze fixed on her. "Because you were."
The honesty in his tone startled her. She looked up, meeting his eyes — gray, sharp, softened only by fatigue.
"I don't mix the past with the present," he said. "But last night blurred things."
Leah hesitated. "And what about now?"
He leaned back slightly, expression guarded. "Now… I'm trying not to make it worse."
Something inside her shifted — quiet understanding wrapped in confusion.
The conversation ended when their phones buzzed almost simultaneously — work intruding again, reality cutting in like it always did. They both stood, the spell broken.
Back at the office, they walked separately — no words, no acknowledgment. But Leah felt it anyway, that pull that refused to fade.
Later, when she returned to her desk, a message waited for her.From: Adrian GrantSubject: Report
You handled yesterday better than most would have.
– A.G.
She stared at it for a long time.Then, slowly, she smiled — small, private, and dangerous.
Because somewhere between confrontation and quiet coffee, something had shifted again.
Something that neither of them could name — but both of them felt.