The days stretched into a blur of quiet tension.
Jaden had become colder — not the deliberate kind of coldness that comes from pride, but the kind that stings because it hides something deeper. Lydia could feel it every time he walked past her without meeting her eyes, every time his replies became shorter, every time she caught him staring… only to look away.
It hurt more than she wanted to admit.
At the office, whispers began. Some said Jaden had gotten tired of her. Others claimed he was seeing someone else — a foreign investor's daughter. Lydia pretended not to care, burying herself in work, yet every message notification made her heart jump, hoping it was him. It never was.
One evening, as rain tapped gently on her apartment window, her phone buzzed.
Jaden: "You're working late again."
Her heart skipped. It was the first time he'd texted in days.
Lydia: "You noticed?"
There was a long pause before his reply came.
Jaden: "I always notice."
She stared at the screen, breath catching in her throat.
Why did his words still have that effect? Why did she still care about someone who kept pushing her away?
The next morning, Lydia walked into the boardroom to find him standing by the window, dressed in black, his usual calm masking something stormy beneath.
"Good morning, sir," she greeted quietly.
He turned, his eyes unreadable. "You're early."
"I've always been."
Jaden studied her face for a second longer than he should have. Then he said something unexpected:
"You should stop trying so hard, Lydia."
Her brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"
He looked away. "Sometimes… effort doesn't change how things are meant to be."
The words cut deeper than she wanted to show. She smiled faintly, masking her hurt.
"Noted, Mr. Steele," she said, her voice calm. But as she left the room, her hands trembled.
That night, as she walked home through the drizzle, her mind replayed his words.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she was the only one still holding on.
But what she didn't know was that Jaden was battling his own storm — torn between protecting her from the secrets in his world and the growing pull he could no longer deny.