By the following Thursday, the clock on the whiteboard read: **13 days**.
Someone—Raj, she suspected—had drawn a tiny bomb under the number with a crooked wick.
Declan had left it there.
“It’s not inaccurate,” he’d said when she’d raised an eyebrow.
The days blurred.
Priya and her father negotiated. The NexTelis board wavered, then hardened, then wavered again. The FTC asked for clarifications, then—bless them—granted a tentative green light pending some divestitures.
The press circled like sharks.
“No comment” became Margot’s mantra.
She was triaging three inboxes now: his, a general “CEO” alias, and the internal NexTelis channel, where every rumor about Hale was dissected in painful detail.
“Do they not have work to do?” she muttered one afternoon, scrolling through a thread where someone had speculated that Declan “probably does ayahuasca with other tech bros in the desert.”
“I’ve barely done weed,” Declan said dryly from behind her. “And it made me vomit.”
She jumped. “You read their Slack?”
“I read *what you send me*,” he said. “Otherwise I’d drown.”
“True,” she said.
He perched on the edge of her desk, ignoring the way a pair of junior analysts gawked from the doorway.
“They’re scared,” he said, nodding at the screen. “Humans make jokes when they’re scared.”
“Some of these jokes are very bad,” she said. “You’d hate them.”
“I hate most jokes,” he said.
“Noted,” she said.
He watched her fingers fly over the keyboard, toggling between windows, dragging and dropping, shooting off quick replies.
“You’re fast,” he murmured.
“Occupational hazard,” she said. “Slow assistants get fired. Or eaten.”
He smirked. “By whom.”
She shot him a look. “Don’t ask questions you know the answer to.”
He huffed a laugh.
She flipped to his calendar. “You’re double-booked at four,” she said. “Regulatory prep and NexTelis HR intro. I can move one. Which is more likely to blow up if we bump it?”
“Regulatory,” he said immediately. “HR can wait. They’ve been dysfunctional for years; another day won’t fix it.”
“Considerate,” she said.
“Realistic,” he corrected.
She scooted her chair back a few inches to see better. The movement brought her closer to him.
Too close.
She could feel the heat of his thigh next to her shoulder.
She stiffened.
He did too.
“Color,” she said abruptly, more to cut the tension than because she needed the data.
He paused.
“Yellow,” he said. “You?”
“Greenish,” she said. “Maybe a hint of chartreuse. Meetings have been… oddly functional today.”
His mouth twitched. “Chartreuse is a terrible color.”
“On you,” she said. “It would wash you out.”
“On you?” he asked, before he could stop himself.
Heat licked up her neck.
“I don’t wear chartreuse,” she said. “I have standards.”
He looked like he wanted to say something about other colors she might wear. Or not wear.
He didn’t.
Progress, she thought wryly.
Her phone buzzed.
A text from Priya.
> Your father signed.
Her breath caught.
She swallowed, fingers trembling just slightly as she typed back:
: *Thank you.*
> Don’t thank me yet. Now the work starts.
Her throat tightened.
She turned to Declan.
“He signed,” she said.
He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant.
“Good,” he said. “How’d he take it?”
“Like a man making a deal with the devil,” she said. “Except you’re not the devil in this one.”
“I’m adjacent,” he said. “By association.”
“Better than being center,” she said.
His gaze softened. “He’ll have breathing room now.”
“Yes,” she said. “He might even sleep. I vaguely remember what that feels like.”
“You slept four hours last night,” he said.
She stared. “Are you tracking my REM cycles now?”
“You emailed me at 12:37,” he said. “And again at 5:01. Subtract some time for falling asleep and waking up, extrapolate, you get maybe four hours. I can do basic math.”
Her heart did a stupid little flip at the fact that he’d noticed. That he’d thought about it enough to calculate.
“I’ll sleep when this is done,” she said, deflecting. “Last week, you said rest is for after the deal. I’m just following your example.”
“Do as I say, not as I do,” he said. “Haven’t you heard?”
She snorted. “I don’t do hypocritical management styles.”
“Noted,” he said.
He slid off her desk. “Board dry run in ten,” he said. “You coming?”
“Of course,” she said. “Who else will glare at them when they start mansplaining your own deck to you?”
He smiled. Wide enough to show teeth this time.
“They hate it when you do that,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “It’s my favorite part of the job.”
***
The board dry run was exactly as tedious and infuriating as she’d expected.
Ten people, three screens, twenty-two opinions on font size.
Declan kept his cool. Mostly.
When one older member suggested they “tone down the social responsibility language” in the integration plan—“We don’t want to sound like activists, Declan”—she saw his jaw tense.
“Being less cruel than NexTelis isn’t activism,” he said evenly. “It’s table stakes. If you’re allergic to that, we can talk about whether you’re aligned with the company’s long-term goals.”
The man spluttered. “Now see here—”
Margot caught Declan’s eye, gave the tiniest shake of her head.
Not yet, she thought. Save it.
He inhaled, adjusted.
“What I *am* open to discussing,” he said, softer, “is how we frame it. We can lead with efficiency gains and cost savings if that makes you more comfortable. But the reality is, regulators and customers care about how we treat suppliers. Pretending otherwise is… bad risk management.”
That landed better. Even Mr. Allergic-to-Activism begrudgingly shut up.
After, in his office, he collapsed into his chair and dropped his head back.
“I hate them,” he said.
“You don’t,” she said, closing the door. “You hate what they represent. Old power. Old rules. Old bullshit.”
“Yes,” he said. “That.”
She leaned against the door, arms crossed.
“You did well,” she said. “You didn’t call anyone a dinosaur to their face. Growth.”
“I thought it,” he muttered.
“Thinking is allowed,” she said. “Saying it out loud is… suboptimal.”
“Sometimes optimal,” he countered.
“Not today,” she said.
He cracked an eye. “You enjoyed that.”
“Watching you not implode? Yes,” she said. “Watching them squirm when you said ‘misaligned’? Also yes.”
He smiled faintly.
She hesitated.
“You know,” she said slowly, “most CEOs in your position would have thrown my father under the bus. Or ignored my email. Or suggested I take a ‘personal day’ and figure it out on my own.”
He studied her.
“I didn’t… do that for you,” he lied.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Try again,” she said.
He sighed. “I did it because it’s efficient. Because if your father’s situation got worse without you having options, you’d be more distracted. Less effective.”
“And?” she pressed.
“And,” he said, gaze steady, “because I… care. About what happens to you. And to him. Even if I wish I didn’t.”
Something in her chest cracked.
“Thank you,” she said. “For admitting that. Finally.”
He exhaled, a rough laugh. “Kline says I need to practice ‘naming my feelings.’ I told her feelings don’t need names. They need to go away.”
She snorted. “You’re terrible at therapy.”
“Yes,” he said. “She says that too.”
She walked closer, until she was at the corner of his desk.
“Declan,” she said quietly. “I’m glad you’re not NexTelis.”
He flinched at the name.
“I was afraid,” she went on, “that working for you on this deal would feel like… betrayal. To my father. To myself. It doesn’t. Not… entirely.”
“Only partially,” he said dryly.
“Fractionally,” she corrected. “You’re making his life harder, in some ways. There’s no sugarcoating that. You’re also… giving us tools he never had.”
He swallowed.
“I don’t deserve your gratitude,” he said.
“I didn’t say you did,” she said. “I said I’m glad. There’s a difference.”
His lips twitched.
They looked at each other.
The air thickened.
He stood.
For a second, she thought he was going to round the desk again. Come closer.
Instead, he walked to the whiteboard, picked up the marker, and changed the number.
**13** became **12**.
“Almost there,” he murmured.
“Or almost over a cliff,” she said.
He glanced at her. “You always have to balance my optimism with doom?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s in my job description.”
“Fine,” he said. “Doom it is.”
“Doom with a side of hope,” she amended.
He nodded once. “Fair.”
Her phone buzzed.
A Slack DM from Nina.
> Emergency. Floor 31. Now.
Her gut clenched.
She showed him the screen.
“Nina,” she said. “Emergency.”
He frowned. “Go. I’ll survive ten minutes without you.”
She doubted that, but nodded.
As she left, he watched her go, something like unease knotting his stomach.
Emergencies he couldn’t see made him itch.
***
On 31, the emergency was of a very different kind.
A cluster of people stood outside a mid-sized conference room, faces pale, voices low.
Nina met her at the door.
“What—” Margot started.
“Fire drill,” Nina said tightly. “Not literal. Emotional.”
She stepped aside.
In the room, a woman sat at the table, shoulders shaking.
Mid-thirties, maybe, blonde hair in a messy bun, Hale hoodie zipped up to her chin. Her hands were clenched around a mug of tea.
“I’m fine,” she was saying to no one in particular. “It’s stupid. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Nina said calmly.
“What happened?” Margot asked quietly.
Nina lowered her voice. “NexTelis employee. Found out this morning that her plant’s on the list of ‘potential divestitures.’ Her husband works there too. They have two kids. She heard it in a rumor channel before she heard it from us.”
Margot’s stomach dropped.
“Shit,” she whispered.
“Exactly,” Nina said. “We were trying to keep that list tight until we had plans. Someone leaked. Now we’ve got pockets of panic. And we haven’t even closed yet.”
She rubbed her temple. “I’m good at policies. I’m good at structures. I’m not as good at… this.”
Margot stepped forward.
“Hi,” she said softly, approaching the table. “I’m Margot.”
The woman sniffled, looking up with red-rimmed blue eyes.
“I know who you are,” she said. “You’re his… handler.”
Margot smiled faintly. “Something like that.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman blurted. “I shouldn’t… they told us not to bother you. That you’re… busy. With big things.”
“Big things don’t matter if we screw up people,” Margot said. “What’s your name?”
“Jess,” she said. “Jess Carter. Senior process engineer. NexTelis. For now.”
“Jess,” Margot repeated. “Okay. Tell me what you heard. Not what Slack said. What you actually know.”
Jess took a shaky breath.
“My plant manager called an all-hands,” she said. “Said he’d heard from someone at regional that Hale’s ‘strategic optimization plan’ had us on the chopping block. That we might get sold. Or closed. No details. No timeline. Just… maybe you’re all screwed.”
Her laugh was bitter. “I checked my email. Nothing. I checked our internal FAQ. Nothing. I checked your company’s press site. Nothing. So I went to Slack. And there it was. Thirty-seven people speculating about whether I’ll be unemployed by Christmas.”
Margot’s jaw tightened.
“And your husband?” she asked.
“Maintenance,” Jess said. “Same plant. Same rumors. Different Slack thread.”
“And kids,” Margot said gently.
“Eight and five,” Jess said. “We just refinanced the house. We thought we were… stable. Stupid, right?”
Her voice broke on the last word.
Margot sat down across from her.
“It’s not stupid,” she said. “You did what people are told to do. Work hard. Buy a house. Trust the system. The system is the problem. Not you.”
Jess wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “That sounds like something he’d say.”
“He who?” Margot asked.
“Declan,” Jess said. “I watched his TED Talk.”
Margot raised an eyebrow. “His what?”
“Tedx,” Jess amended. “Whatever. He talked about ‘optimizing for human outcomes.’ Sounded nice. But then I see this,” she gestured wildly, “and I think, maybe he meant ‘human outcomes somewhere else.’ Not in my town. Not in my house.”
Guilt stabbed Margot.
“Okay,” she said. “Here’s the honest part: I don’t have answers yet. We haven’t closed. Legally, we can’t make promises about specific plants until we do. Strategically, we *shouldn’t* until we’ve seen all the data. Anything I say right now would be half-truth at best.”
Jess’s face crumpled. “So you *are* closing us.”
“No,” Margot said firmly. “I said I don’t know. There’s a difference. And I’m not going to lie to make you feel better for five minutes and worse in five weeks.”
“Then what are you going to do?” Jess demanded, anger sparking under the tears. “Tell me to ‘trust the process’? ‘Lean into the change’? We’ve heard all that shit before.”
“I’m going to get you a conversation,” Margot said.
Jess blinked. “With who? An HR bot?”
“With him,” Margot said.
Nina’s head snapped up. “Margot—”
“She deserves to hear it from the person making the calls,” Margot said. “Not through rumor, not through a memo. Even if all he can say is ‘I don’t know yet, and here’s why.’ That’s still better than this.”
Nina hesitated. “His calendar—”
“Is my problem,” Margot said. “He’ll take ten minutes for this.”
“You’re sure,” Nina said quietly.
“No,” Margot said. “But I’m going to make him.”
Jess stared at her. “You’d… do that.”
“I can’t promise outcomes,” Margot said. “But I can promise access.”
“That’s… more than we’ve ever gotten,” Jess whispered.
“Then your old company sucked,” Margot said bluntly. “Let’s start fixing that now.”
She stood.
“I’m going to go drag a billionaire out of his model,” she said to Nina. “Keep her here. Get her water. Or whiskey. But not both.”
Nina saluted weakly.
Margot left, adrenaline spiking.
This was risky.
This was… necessary.
She strode back to 33, heart thudding.
Declan was at his desk, eyes on his screen, fingers flying over the keyboard. The numbers on the NexTelis dashboard glowed.
“Declan,” she said, not knocking.
He looked up, startled. “Margot. I—”
She shut the door behind her.
“We have a problem,” she said.
He sat up straighter. “What kind?”
“Human,” she said. “NexTelis plant rumor, Slack panic, an engineer named Jess on 31 who thinks you’re about to ruin her life.”
His eyes narrowed. “Details.”
She gave them. Fast. Specific.
He listened, expression tightening with each word.
“Who leaked the plant list?” he asked.
“Does it matter right now?” she countered. “The fire’s already lit.”
“Yes, it matters,” he said. “But not as much as talking to her.”
She blinked. “You’ll do it.”
“Yes,” he said, already standing. “You were right. She deserves to hear it from me.”
Relief crashed over her, followed by fresh fear.
“This will set a precedent,” she warned as they walked fast down the hall. “Word will spread. Others will want the same access.”
“Yes,” he said. “Good.”
“Good?” she repeated, incredulous.
“Controlled pressure is better than a blind explosion,” he said. “If they’re going to panic, I’d rather they panic to my face than in dark corners.”
“You’re going to exhaust yourself,” she said.
“I’m already exhausted,” he said. “Might as well be for something that matters.”
Her chest squeezed.
As they rode the elevator down, he leaned back against the wall, eyes closing briefly.
“Color?” she asked.
“Orange,” he said. “You?”
“Also orange,” she said. “We’re matching. How cute.”
He cracked an eye, lips twitching. “Cute is not the word I’d use.”
They stepped onto 31.
Nina met them, eyebrows up. She hadn’t entirely believed Margot could pull this off.
“In here,” she murmured, leading them back to the conference room.
Jess sat where Margot had left her, shoulders hunched, mug empty.
When she saw Declan, her eyes widened.
She half-rose, then sat again, clearly torn between fleeing and lunging at him.
“Jess,” Nina said gently. “This is Declan Hale.”
“I know who he is,” Jess said hoarsely. “He’s the reason I might lose my job.”
Margot flinched.
Declan’s jaw tightened.
“I’m the reason,” he said quietly, “that your company’s mess is about to hit a wall. I’m not the one who made the mess.”
Jess barked a bitter laugh. “That’s… a tidy distinction.”
“It’s also true,” he said. “Sit?”
She sat, stiffly.
He took the chair opposite her. No head of table. No standing over her.
Margot and Nina slipped in along the side, silent.
“I heard you saw a plant list,” he said. “And that it has your facility on it.”
“Yes,” she said. “And a bunch of my coworkers heard too. And our kids. And our neighbors. Everyone but you, apparently.”
“I saw it,” he said. “I helped make it.”
She flinched.
He didn’t soften the blow.
“I’m not going to insult you by pretending that list doesn’t exist,” he said. “It does. It’s real. It’s based on utilization, cost, proximity to suppliers, regulatory constraints. It also has ‘draft’ stamped on it in big red letters.”
“That doesn’t mean shit,” she snapped. “Everything starts as a draft.”
“It means,” he said evenly, “that nothing on it is decided yet. It means that your plant is in a cluster of scenarios, some of which end in closure, some of which end in sale, and some of which end in investment and retooling. I don’t know yet which path we’ll take. That’s the truth.”
She stared at him.
Tears welled again. She blinked them back angrily.
“So you’re saying,” she said, “that my life depends on a spreadsheet. Again.”
“Your life,” he said, “depends on a lot of things. Those spreadsheets are one input. So is what you just did: forcing me to look you in the eye while I say the words ‘I don’t know.’”
She swallowed hard.
“If you close my plant,” she said, voice shaking, “what happens to us?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “That’s not good enough. But it’s honest. What I *do* know is that I will not leave you in the dark until the last minute like NexTelis did with your last round of layoffs.”
Her eyes widened. “You know about that.”
“I’ve read your internal memos,” he said. “The ones your executives tried to bury. The way they handled those closures was… cruel. I won’t repeat that.”
“How is it less cruel to cut my paycheck six months from now instead of six weeks?” she demanded.
“It’s not,” he said. “Losing a job is losing a job. I can’t make that not hurt. What I can do is give you as much warning as possible so you can plan. Save. Train. Move. Rage. Whatever you need to do.”
She laughed helplessly. “Move where? Train for what? I’ve spent ten years optimizing that plant. No one else wants a thirty-seven-year-old process engineer who only knows NexTelis.”
“I do,” he said.
She blinked rapidly. “What?”
“I want people who know where the bodies are buried,” he said. “If we close your plant, I will need people who understand how it works to help us reallocate work. To make sure we don’t screw up eight other places in the process. That expertise has value. To me. To others.”
“So I can get a job… closing the place I love,” she said, bitter.
“Or redesigning how we do it somewhere else,” he said. “Or helping me make the case that closing it is a bad idea in the first place. I don’t know yet. But I’m not going to pretend your only options are ‘full-time at the same plant’ or ‘unemployed.’”
She stared.
“What about my husband?” she asked. “He doesn’t have a degree. He fixes things. Machines. People. Whatever’s in front of him.”
“We need those too,” he said. “If your plant stays open, great. If it doesn’t, we’ll have severance. Retraining. Relocation support. It won’t be enough. It never is. But it will be more than you’ve seen before.”
Nina shot Margot a quick look. *We will?*
Margot answered with a tiny nod. *We’d better.*
“Why should I believe you?” Jess asked, voice very small.
He didn’t look away.
“Because I came down here,” he said. “Because I didn’t have to. Because it would have been easier to send a memo. Because I’m telling you to your face that I don’t know and that it will hurt and that I’m going to try, within the constraints of this shitty system, to minimize that hurt.”
Silence.
Jess’s shoulders shook.
“You sound… tired,” she whispered.
“I am,” he said.
“Good,” she said, with a watery laugh. “You should be.”
He inclined his head. “Fair.”
She scrubbed at her eyes. “What do you need from me?”
“Your honesty,” he said. “About what works and what doesn’t. About how NexTelis cut corners. About where the risks are. If we do keep your plant, I want it to be because a case was made that it *should* be kept, not because it was easier on a spreadsheet. If we don’t… I want to know we made that call with full information. Not just numbers.”
She sniffed. “Can I… send you an email?”
He half-smiled. “You can send it to Margot. She’ll make sure I read it.”
Jess glanced at Margot.
“You’re really his… filter,” she said.
“Yes,” Margot said. “And his pain in the ass.”
Jess let out a watery laugh.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll send you everything. The stuff they told me not to write down. The stuff they made me pretend I didn’t see. Maybe it’ll… matter.”
“It will,” Declan said.
She searched his face.
“Okay,” she repeated softly. “Okay.”
He stood.
“So,” he said. “Short version: I don’t know. I can’t promise you’ll keep your job. I *can* promise you won’t be the last to know what’s happening to your life. That’s the bar I can clear right now. It’s low. I’ll raise it as we go.”
She let out a shaky breath. “You’re… very bad at reassurance.”
“Yes,” he said. “But very good at… not lying.”
“That’s… something,” she said.
He nodded at her, then at Nina, then looked at Margot.
She held his gaze.
*Thank you*, she thought.
He gave the tiniest nod.
Then he left.
Nina blew out a breath. “Well,” she said. “That was… something.”
Jess stared at the door he’d gone through.
“He’s weird,” she said.
“Yes,” Margot said. “He is.”
“But I… believe him,” Jess added reluctantly. “That he’ll… at least *try* not to screw us as hard as the last lot.”
“That’s his whole thing,” Margot said. “Trying. Failing sometimes. Trying again. Annoying as hell.”
Jess huffed a laugh.
“I’ll send that email,” she said. “You’d better read it.”
“I will,” Margot said. “And I’ll make sure he does too, even if I have to tape it to his screen.”
Jess smiled faintly.
As Margot walked back to 33, her heart pounded.
She’d just set a precedent. An open-door policy, of sorts, for people whose lives were on the line.
It was the right thing.
It was also going to complicate the hell out of her job.
She stepped into Declan’s office without knocking.
He sat at his desk, hands flat, breathing hard.
“Color,” she said quietly.
“Red,” he ground out.
She shut the door, walked around the desk, and crouched beside his chair, like she had by the couch.
“Look at me,” she said softly.
He did.
His eyes were bright. Not with tears. With something sharper.
“That hurt,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “It was supposed to. It means you’re not… gone yet.”
“It would be easier if I didn’t care,” he said. “If I could just… treat them like variables.”
“Yes,” she said. “It would. And then you’d be NexTelis.”
He flinched.
“You’re not,” she said. “You chose the harder thing. Again. That’s the point.”
He exhaled. “I hate this point.”
“I know,” she said.
He looked at her. “Do you… hate me? For this? For… them?”
She blinked. “No.”
“You should,” he said. “It would be simpler.”
“For you,” she said. “Not for me.”
He huffed a laugh that sounded like a sob.
“I want,” he said slowly, “to be the kind of person you don’t have to… rationalize.”
“You’re not there yet,” she said. “But you’re… closer than most.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, he said, “Stay.”
Her breath caught.
“Here?” she asked. “Now?”
“Yes,” he said. “In this.”
She swallowed.
“Okay,” she said. “I will.”
He leaned back, eyes on the ceiling.
They stayed like that for a minute. Two. Three.
Breathing. Existing.
Together.
The fire drill, she thought, was not just for Jess.
It was for them.
To see how hot they could run without burning down.
So far, they hadn’t.
She wasn’t sure how long that would last.
But for now, for this moment, she let herself be there with him.
No boss. No EA.
Just two people balancing on the edge of a very sharp line.
---