The first thing Isabelle noticed that morning was the smell.
Not coffee or paper or the faint perfume of the cleaner's spray — but damp soil.
Her heart dipped as soon as she saw it.
Her office plant — the small, thriving fern she'd brought from home — lay on its side, the ceramic pot cracked, soil scattered across the carpet like dark confetti. The chair had been moved, her files slightly skewed, and the little space behind the plant, where she'd hidden the camera, was empty.
For a moment, she simply stood there, coffee still in her hand.
Then her throat tightened.
It was gone.
She dropped her bag onto the chair and crouched, fingers brushing through the soil as if the camera might somehow have fallen into it, as if she might uncover it like a lost coin. But the space was bare. Clean. Wiped.
Someone had found it.
And not by accident.
Her pulse thudded in her ears. Whoever had done this had known exactly what they were doing. The cleaner wouldn't have removed a small black lens hidden in a pot — they barely looked up from their mops, let alone searched among desk plants.
She swallowed hard and stood, brushing soil from her hands. The air felt too close, the room too bright. The camera had been her one silent ally — her quiet reassurance that she might catch whoever was undermining her. Now it was gone.
And she had no proof.
The bathroom on her floor was mercifully empty. Isabelle locked herself into a stall, sat on the closed lid, and pressed her palms over her face.
For the first time in months, she cried.
It wasn't loud or dramatic — just a few quiet, shaking breaths, the kind that came when frustration finally caught up with exhaustion.
She'd worked too hard, held herself together too long to let someone take this from her.
Her job wasn't just a paycheck. It was security. It was structure. It was what stood between her children and the chaos she'd fought to escape.
Becca needed new school pe shoes. Luke's birthday was in a week. Rent was due on Friday. She didn't have time to be sabotaged.
When the tears stopped, she took a slow breath, wiped her face with tissue, and stared at herself in the mirror.
Her reflection looked tired but composed — only the faint redness around her eyes betrayed her.
"You've got this," she whispered to herself, her quiet mantra, and straightened her shoulders.
By the time she walked back into the open office, her expression was calm again. Controlled.
Or so she thought.
Robert was standing at her desk.
He was crouched, of all things, picking up the broken pieces of the pot and dropping them neatly into the bin. The sight of him there — tall, perfectly put together, tie already loosened — made her stomach tighten in some indefinable way.
He looked up when she approached. "Rough morning?"
Her voice came out sharper than intended. "It appears someone's clumsy."
He rose, dusting his hands. "Cleaner?"
"Maybe."
He studied the scene for a moment longer, eyes moving from the scattered papers to the faint smear of soil beneath the desk. Then, in that unhurried, infuriatingly calm tone of his, he said, "You should check with the night security guard. They'd know who was here last."
She shook her head. "It won't help."
"Why not?"
"Because whoever did this isn't going to admit it, and it won't be on any log."
His gaze lingered on her face, unreadable. "You sound certain."
"I'm certain," she said tightly, "that this wasn't an accident."
Something flickered in his eyes — interest, maybe, or calculation. Then he stepped closer, lowering his voice just slightly.
"Then perhaps you need a better way to monitor your desk."
She froze.
The air between them shifted, a faint static charge.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Then she said, carefully, "What makes you think I was monitoring it?"
He didn't answer right away. His gaze held hers — steady, assessing, unblinking. Then, with infuriating composure, he said, "Because you strike me as someone who plans ahead."
Her pulse jumped. She couldn't tell if it was fear or anger or both.
"Interesting observation," she said. "Does everyone get psychoanalysed before eight thirty, or am I just special?"
A corner of his mouth lifted, not quite a smile. "Just observant, Belle."
"Isabelle," she corrected sharply. "And I don't recall inviting your observation."
His expression didn't change, but something in it cooled. "Duly noted."
He turned slightly, as if about to leave, then hesitated. "Whoever's doing this," he said finally, "you'll figure it out. I've seen you work. You don't miss much."
And with that, he walked away.
She stood there for a long moment, watching his retreating figure disappear into the corridor.
Her hands were shaking.
Had he known about the camera before today?
Had he seen it?
Had he been the one to remove it?
The thought made her stomach knot. He'd been the one person who'd seemed vaguely decent, if distant — the only one who hadn't tried to undermine her or patronise her. But perhaps that was the trick. Perhaps aloofness was just another kind of camouflage.
He'd known too much — about her work, her methods, her attention to detail. He'd tested her once, she was sure of it now.
And he'd passed by her desk late in the evenings, after everyone else had gone. She'd noticed.
She pressed a hand to her temple. "Don't jump to conclusions," she muttered to herself. "You don't know anything yet."
But the doubt was planted, and once there, it wouldn't leave.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of meetings and half-heard conversations. She went through the motions; typing, replying, coordinating Richard's calls, but her mind kept circling back to that missing camera and the quiet certainty in Robert's voice.
By late afternoon, she'd almost convinced herself she was being paranoid — until she opened her email and saw it.
A message had been sent from her account to a client, missing an attachment, signed off with a typo in her name.
It wasn't disastrous, but it looked sloppy. And she hadn't sent it.
Her fingers went cold.
She corrected it immediately, resending the proper file with a professional apology, but her heart was pounding. Someone had used her credentials. Someone had accessed her email.
Whoever had removed that camera had done it for a reason.
When she finally shut down her computer that evening, London was already dark beyond the windows, streetlights smearing amber across the rain-slick pavements. She packed her bag in silence, double-checked her drawer locks, and caught her reflection in the glass — tired, wary, but determined.
If they thought they could scare her off, they'd chosen the wrong person.
Still, as she left the office and walked into the drizzle, she couldn't shake the image of Robert standing by her desk that morning — his eyes sharp, his tone too knowing.
She told herself it was coincidence.
But she didn't believe it.