Spring slid into summer with alarming speed.
The six-month mark loomed closer.
So did everything else.
In May, an activist investor took a stake in Hale and started making noise about “underleveraged synergies” and “excessive focus on stakeholder concerns at the expense of shareholder value.”
“Translation,” Eliza said in a late-night meeting, flicking through the investor’s deck. “‘Stop worrying about the little guys and give us our money.’”
“Over my dead body,” Declan said.
“Let’s not offer ideas,” Margot murmured.
They built a response.
Poised, data-driven, firm.
Hale’s stock wobbled.
Settled.
In June, two NexTelis plants in the Midwest voted to unionize.
“It’s about damn time,” Darryl said.
Corporate HR panicked.
“So much for ‘cultural integration,’” one Hale VP grumbled.
Declan surprised them all by telling HR to stand down.
“They have a right to organize,” he said. “We’re not NexTelis.”
Internally, Margot lit up like a Christmas tree.
Externally, she wrote three different versions of a memo that said, *We’re not afraid of unions* without spooking the board.
In July, a supplier in Ohio threatened to sue over a contract signed in 2012.
Priya pounced. “Let me buy that one,” she said. “Fun.”
Margot watched.
Took notes.
Sent flowers to the supplier’s wife when the case settled.
Her days were full.
Her nights… were a different story.
Some evenings, she went home and fell onto the couch, too tired to move.
Others, she went for drinks with Lila, listening to her cousin complain about swipe fatigue.
Once, she went on a date with a man from Maya’s building—a dentist named Arun who liked jazz and had very strong opinions on floss.
It was… fine.
He was nice.
Smart.
Funny enough.
Halfway through the second drink, he made a joke about CEOs as “psychopaths with better suits.”
She laughed.
A little too loudly.
“Bad experience?” he asked, amused.
“You have no idea,” she said.
At ten, when his hand brushed hers, she smiled, demure.
Felt nothing.
She went home alone.
Lay in bed.
Picked up her phone.
Stared at his name.
Did not text.
They were doing… well.
On paper.
Six weeks had become eight.
Eight had become twelve.
They hadn’t crossed lines.
Not physically.
Emotionally, they were… entangled.
She’d stopped pretending otherwise.
He had too.
“So, how’s your ‘delayed launch’ plan going?” Maya asked one Friday.
“Buggy,” Margot said. “But no catastrophic failures. Yet.”
“Any regressions?” Maya asked.
“We hugged once,” Margot said. “We haven’t… since.”
“And how’s that?” Maya asked.
“Awful,” Margot said. “Good. Awful.”
“And your father?” Maya asked.
“He complains less about Declan,” Margot said. “More about his back. I consider that an upgrade.”
“And you?” Maya asked.
“I still can’t say the words ‘Hale’ and ‘NexTelis’ in the same sentence around him without him grinding his teeth,” Margot said. “But he stopped calling me a traitor. Progress.”
“Progress is the word of the year,” Maya said.
“I hate it,” Margot grumbled.
“I know,” Maya said.
* * *
By late July, the city was a steam bath.
Hale’s air-conditioned offices felt like a cruel tease.
“Conference,” Marissa said one morning, leaning on Margot’s desk with a too-bright smile. “You’re going.”
Margot looked up from her calendar. “Conference?”
“TechForward,” Marissa said. “San Francisco. Three days. Panels. Networking. Declan’s keynote.”
“Oh,” Margot said. “No.”
“Yes,” Marissa said. “You have to come. He’s doing fireside chats, investor meetings, a live interview. We need you there to keep him from telling the world he thinks VC culture is a pyramid scheme.”
“He *does* think that,” Margot said. “Because it is.”
“Exactly,” Marissa said. “We don’t need that on record. Yet.”
“Send Raj,” Margot said. “Or Eliza. Or Nina. I have a task force. And a life.”
“Do you?” Marissa asked, unimpressed.
Margot glared.
“Look,” Marissa said. “I don’t pull you out of the building lightly. But this is big. Optics. Narrative. Declan in a room with a thousand journalists and founders. We need his… human wrangler.”
“I’m an EA,” Margot said. “Not a zookeeper.”
“Same skill set,” Marissa said.
“You’re very persuasive,” Margot said. “And very annoying.”
“Compliments, all,” Marissa said. “Book your ticket.”
Declan didn’t even pretend to argue.
“Of course you’re coming,” he said when she brought it up. “I need you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You need me?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly. “To filter. To ground. To tell me when I’m about to tell a billionaire their startup is dumb to their face.”
“That’s… all of them,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
She sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “But I’m not sharing a car with you. Or a hotel floor. Or a late-night seat at the hotel bar. We’re not… doing that.”
“I know,” he said. “We have rules.”
“Good,” she said.
She booked separate flights.
Separate hotel rooms.
She told herself it would be fine.
She’d traveled with bosses before.
Shared time zones.
Shared cars.
Shared crisis calls at two a.m. in empty lobbies.
This would be the same.
Except it wasn’t.
Because this was *him*.
Because they had a matrix.
Because six months loomed.
* * *
The conference hotel was a glass-and-steel behemoth near the Moscone Center, filled with people in hoodies and Allbirds and the occasional suit that screamed “old money slumming it.”
Margot checked in ahead of him, her suitcase small, her blazer light.
Her room on the twenty-second floor overlooked the city, the bay a hazy shimmer beyond.
She unpacked with the efficiency of habit.
Laptop.
Notebooks.
One dress for the keynote.
The rest, conference chic: slacks, silk blouses, flats.
Her phone buzzed.
> *Landing. 30 minutes. – D*
: *I’ll meet you in the lobby with your schedule. Don’t talk to anyone in a logo hoodie until then.* she replied.
> *No promises.*
She rolled her eyes.
Downstairs, the lobby teemed.
Banners. Lanyards. Coffee stations.
She spotted him immediately.
He cut through the crowd without trying, in black jeans and a charcoal shirt, the conference badge already around his neck.
People’s eyes slid toward him, like he was a magnet.
Some recognized him.
Most didn’t.
Yet.
He walked up to her, a small smile tugging at his mouth.
“You look… different,” he said.
“So do you,” she said.
“Travel,” he shrugged.
She handed him an envelope. “First draft. Keynote flow. Investor meetings. Panel questions. Pre-briefs.”
He flipped it open, scanning rapidly.
“Efficient,” he said.
“Always,” she said.
“Color?” she asked.
“Yellow,” he said. “Curious.”
“Good,” she said. “Curiosity plays well on stage.”
He snorted. “Unless someone asks about crypto.”
She grinned. “We’ll pre-screen.”
They moved through the next two days like dancers on familiar steps.
He spoke.
She watched.
He answered questions.
She noted which ones made him stiffen.
They had a system.
Signal words.
She’d brief him on moderators.
He’d scan rooms for exits.
Their shorthands were so smooth now they barely noticed them.
The weirdness came in the in-betweens.
Elevators.
Hallway walks.
Ten-minute breaks where they found themselves leaning against the same wall, coffee cups in hand, eyes on the same chaotic flow of humanity.
“Remember,” she murmured before his keynote. “No ‘I’m just a nerd’ jokes. They’re tired. You’re not.”
“You’re biased,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Also right.”
He stepped onto the stage to polite applause.
He left to more.
His talk—about infrastructure, about building systems that didn’t treat people as disposable, about the dangers of “move fast and break things” when the “things” were supply chains—landed.
People tweeted.
*“Not your typical tech keynote. Hale’s CEO sounds like he wants to fix capitalism from the inside.”*
*“If Declan Hale is serious about this ‘no more collateral damage’ talk, I might actually care about B2B infrastructure.”*
*“Man on stage says ‘we can’t optimize away ethics.’ VC bros look confused.”*
Backstage, he exhaled, a little wild-eyed.
“How was that?” he asked.
“Human,” she said. “Scary.”
He laughed.
They grabbed coffee before his fireside.
As they stood in line, two founders in front of them whispered.
“…Hale’s doing interesting stuff,” one said. “But he’s… intense.”
“The autism thing?” the other said. “Did you see the profile?”
Margot’s spine stiffened.
“What about it?” First Founder asked.
“I mean… he talks about it,” Second Founder shrugged. “Makes it… a thing. Some people think it’s… oversharing. Others think it’s… brave.”
“I think it’s… smart,” First Founder said. “He’s pre-empting whispers.”
“Or feeding them,” Second Founder said. “Either way, people can’t shut up about him and that assistant.”
Margot froze.
Here we go.
“What about her?” First Founder asked.
“Rumors,” Second Founder said. “She’s in every room. People say they’re… close.”
First Founder snorted. “Rich man and his hyper-competent Asian assistant. Original.”
Margot’s jaw clenched.
Declan, behind her, went very still.
“You think she’s sleeping her way up?” Second Founder asked.
“Sleeping her way sideways at best,” First Founder said. “He doesn’t look like he… touches.”
They laughed.
Margot turned.
“Excuse me,” she said, voice cool as glass. “My coffee order goes: oat milk latte, no foam, no misogyny. Can you manage that?”
They startled.
“Sorry,” First Founder said quickly. “We weren’t—”
“—talking about me?” she finished. “You were. Loudly. In public. At a conference where half the people in this line know who my boss is and what I look like.”
Second Founder flushed. “We didn’t mean—”
“You never *mean*,” she said. “That’s the problem. You think gossip is harmless. It’s not. It shapes who gets invited into rooms. Who gets believed. Who gets blamed when a man in power fucks up.”
They gaped.
Declan stepped up beside her, looming just enough.
“She’s not sleeping her way anywhere,” he said flatly. “If anything, she’s working her way *away* from men like you.”
Their eyes bulged.
“I—uh—” First Founder stammered. “We’re… fans. Of your… piece. On NexTelis.”
“That doesn’t absolve you,” Margot said. “Read it again. Out loud. To each other.”
They nodded frantically.
Slunk away.
Declan watched them go, expression a mix of disgust and guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her, low.
“For what,” she asked. “Existing?”
“For… putting you in their mouths,” he said.
She snorted. “That’s not on you. That’s patriarchy.”
He stared at her.
“You’re not… mad at me,” he said, surprised.
“I’m always a little mad at you,” she said. “But not for this. For this, I’m mad at… the world. With you.”
His shoulders dropped.
“This is why I need you,” he said quietly.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t make it romantic. It’s logistics.”
“It’s both,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
They got their coffees.
Moved on.
Later, in her hotel room, she replayed it.
The way he’d stepped up.
The way he’d said, *She’s not sleeping her way anywhere* with that quiet, fierce conviction.
Maya’s voice echoed in her head. *You’re not here to fix his soul. You’re here to make sure he doesn’t break yours.*
She stared at the ceiling.
She was doing a terrible job of the second.
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