The door to his office shut with a soft hiss that still made her skin prickle.
He didn’t go behind his desk.
He leaned against the conference table instead, arms crossed, like he needed the solidity of wood under him.
She stood near the window, the city a glittering sprawl at her back.
They faced each other like adversaries.
Like partners.
Like something in between.
“Ground rules,” he said.
Her brows lifted. “We’re holding a summit now?”
“If we’re going to have this conversation, we’re going to have it without deflecting,” he said. “No jokes. No subject changes. No pretending.”
Her throat bobbed. “Okay.”
He studied her a moment, then nodded as if sealing a contract.
“First,” he said, “I need you to know this is not an ultimatum.”
“Not…what?” she asked.
“I’m not going to say ‘leave your job or we’re done,’” he said. “I’m not going to say ‘be with me or don’t.’ That’s not my place. This is…me showing you the options I see. Not dictating them.”
Her chest tightened. “Okay,” she repeated.
“Second,” he said, “I want you to answer honestly. Even if you think it will hurt me. Especially then.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Marcus Kane?” she blurted, then winced. “Sorry. No jokes. Strike that.”
“Unfortunately, I’m still me,” he said. “Which means this is going to be very uncomfortable for both of us.”
“Get on with it,” she said, fear and curiosity warring in her voice.
He took a breath.
“We’ve been living in a…holding pattern,” he said. “You and I. We say we’re drawing lines. And we are. But we’re also inching closer to them every day. It’s not fair to you. Or to this place. Or, frankly, to my sanity.”
“Agreed,” she said softly.
“We’re in love,” he said.
The words landed like a dropped stone.
He’d said *it*.
The thing she’d tried to keep wrapped in qualifiers—*almost, falling, maybe.*
He cut through them.
Her heart pounded.
“Yes,” she whispered. “We are.”
“Good,” he said, as if that settled something. “At least we’re not negotiating about that reality.”
“What are we negotiating?” she asked.
“How we live with it,” he said simply.
She swallowed. “Options,” she said. “You said you see…options.”
“I see three,” he said. “None of them perfect. All of them risky in different ways.”
“Lay them out,” she said, clinging to the familiarity of strategic talk.
“Option one,” he said. “We do nothing. We stay exactly as we are. You’re my assistant. I’m your boss. We pretend this is manageable.”
She almost laughed. “We’ve tried that.”
“Yes,” he said. “And it’s slowly killing us.”
She couldn’t argue.
“Option two,” he continued. “We…cross the line while you still work for me. Quietly. Carefully. Tell no one. Try to be two people at once—CEO and assistant in daylight, lovers at night.”
Heat flared in her belly at the word *lovers*, even as dread coiled.
“That’s…not an option,” she said, voice rough. “Not for me. Not after everything we’ve talked about.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m not seriously proposing it. I told you—I won’t be that man again. I won’t put you in a position where every touch is contaminated by my power over your rent.”
She exhaled shakily. “Okay. Two’s off the table.”
He nodded.
“Which brings us to three,” he said. “You leave.”
The words made her flinch.
“Leave,” she repeated.
“Not tomorrow,” he said quickly. “Not in a blaze of drama. But…eventually. When you’re ready. When you have enough saved. When your mother’s situation is…more stable. You step away from this role. From reporting directly to me. You go to another department. Another company. Another life. And then, when you’re not beholden to my signature on your paycheck…” His throat worked. “…we see what we are without this building between us.”
Tears stung.
“You’re…asking me to quit,” she said, hating how small she sounded.
“No,” he said. “I’m asking you to consider what your life looks like beyond my calendar. With or without me in it.”
She stared at him.
“You realize,” she whispered, “that is…everything I’ve been afraid of.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s everything I’ve been afraid of too.”
She blinked. “You?”
“I built my world to avoid this,” he said. “To avoid *needing* anyone in a way that could disrupt the machine. Assistants were…parts. Valuable. Valued. But replaceable. You…are not.”
Her heart twisted.
“That’s not true,” she said. “Everyone is replaceable.”
“Not to me,” he said quietly.
Silence.
The city shimmered beyond the glass.
“You’d really…let me go?” she asked, barely audible.
“If staying breaks you,” he said, “I don’t have a choice.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Say I do it,” she said hoarsely. “Say I leave. What then? You expect me to walk out on Friday and fall into your bed on Saturday?”
He flinched, just slightly, at the bluntness.
“No,” he said. “I expect…nothing. I hope you’ll want to see what we are without NDAs and org charts. But I also know leaving this job will be its own…mourning. I won’t ask you to jump from one intensity into another.”
She thought of Rachel’s voice on the phone. *I burned myself out.*
She thought of Owen’s gentle, wounded smile. *I want more than half.*
“I don’t know who I am without this job,” she confessed. “Without the constant hum. The emails. The…importance.”
He leaned against the table harder.
“Neither do I,” he said. “Without this role. This power. This building. That’s…part of the problem.”
She forced herself to meet his eyes.
“Where do *you* fall in these options?” she asked. “What do you…want?”
He laughed once, humorless.
“I want everything,” he said. “I want you in my office and in my bed and at my dinner table and in my inbox. I want to build this company with you beside me and then go home and fall asleep with you using my arm as a pillow.”
Heat flooded her.
He didn’t flinch from it.
“But I also want you to have a life that isn’t consumed by my orbit,” he said. “To see your mother without feeling guilty. To date someone like Owen without measuring him against my worst and best.”
Her chest hurt.
“So you’re saying,” she said slowly, “that the only way we get to have this…fully…is if I walk away from the one thing that’s letting me pay for my mother’s treatment and my own future.”
“Yes,” he said. “And that’s why I hate this conversation. Because every version feels like I’m asking you to jump without a net.”
“You are,” she whispered.
“Then tell me,” he said, voice raw, “what you see. Because maybe there’s an option four I’m too blinded to catch.”
She looked down at her hands.
At the fingers that had typed his flights, flagged his calls, written his apologies.
“What if…” She swallowed. “What if I don’t leave the company. What if I just…don’t work for you.”
He blinked. “You want to move departments.”
“It’s a thought experiment,” she said quickly. “What if I went to, I don’t know, PR. Or Ops. Or some new ‘special projects’ role. Somewhere where you’re not my direct manager. Where my raise and my healthcare and my rent don’t depend on pleasing you.”
He considered.
“It would still be complicated,” he said. “People would talk. HR would have a coronary. The board—”
“The board doesn’t control who I sleep with,” she said, sharper than she intended.
He flinched.
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he said. “I’m worried about…you. The way power echoes through a company. Even if I’m not signing your timesheets, I’m still the name on your badge.”
“Then maybe I leave entirely,” she said, throat thick. “Find another company. Another industry. Start my own damn thing. You invest quietly and pretend you’re not.”
He huffed a laugh. “You planning to take my money and my heart and run?”
“Maybe,” she said, lips trembling. “At least then the power imbalance is clearer.”
They stood there, two highly competent adults, floundering in the one area their spreadsheets couldn’t solve.
“Can you imagine it?” she asked suddenly. “Me not here. Someone else at my desk. No more nagging about your sleep or your coffee intake. No one to tell you your tie is crooked before CNBC.”
His jaw flexed.
“I don’t want to,” he said.
She swallowed. “Can you imagine me…happy somewhere else?”
He looked at her then, really looked, and she saw the war inside him.
“Yes,” he said softly. “If I’m not the one holding you back.”
Tears spilled.
“Fuck you,” she whispered, not unkindly. “Stop being good.”
“I’m not good,” he said. “I’m motivated.”
“To what?” she asked brokenly.
“To not be the reason you look back at thirty-five and realize you gave your best years to my ambition and got nothing that mattered in return.”
She thought of her mother again.
Of the lines around Patricia’s eyes etched by worry and pride.
“You’ve already given me things that mattered,” she said. “Freedom from panic for a while. A chance to pay off debt. A sense that I’m…very good at something important.”
“And I’ll keep doing that,” he said. “Job or no job. That’s not contingent on you staying within arm’s reach.”
She stared.
“You’d support me,” she said slowly, “even if I left. Even if we…didn’t work.”
“Yes,” he said. Unhesitating.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I love you,” he said simply.
The words hit harder than anything he’d said so far.
Not a clinical admission.
Not a grudging confession.
A fact.
She shook her head, tears spilling in earnest now.
“I need time,” she rasped.
“Take it,” he said immediately.
“I can’t decide this tonight,” she said. “Or this week. Or even this quarter. My mom is still in treatment. Hart is circling. The lawsuit. The investors. I can’t add ‘torch my career’ to the list right now.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he said. “I’m asking you to let it be…on the board. Not shoved in a drawer.”
On the board.
Like an agenda item.
An exit strategy.
“Will you wait?” she asked, voice very small.
“As long as it takes,” he said, without pause.
“You said that once,” she said. “At the retreat.”
“And I meant it then,” he said. “I mean it more now.”
“What if ‘as long as it takes’ is…years?” she whispered.
“Then I’ll be very cranky,” he said gently. “But still here.”
She let out a wet, broken laugh.
“This is fucked up,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
“Me too,” he said.
They looked at each other.
Fear. Love. Duty. Desire.
All tangled.
“I can’t promise you anything,” she said. “Not now. Not about leaving. Not about staying. Not about…us.”
“I’m not asking for a promise,” he said. “I’m asking for…intent.”
She blinked. “Intent?”
“To keep walking toward something that isn’t…this,” he said. “Half-measures. Almosts. To not let fear be the only reason we don’t try.”
Rachel’s voice echoed in her head.
*Don’t let fear be the only reason you say no.*
She took a breath.
Let it out.
“My intent,” she said slowly, “is to figure out who I am outside this job. Outside being your assistant. So that if—*when*—I choose you, it’s not because I don’t know how to live without you directing my day.”
His eyes flared at *when.*
He didn’t comment on it.
“And my intent,” he said, “is to build a company that can function without you killing yourself for it. So that if—when—you walk away from this desk, it doesn’t collapse. And we’re free to see what we are without the weight of this place on your shoulders.”
She swallowed.
“Okay,” she said. “Intent noted.”
He huffed a breath. “I feel like we just drafted the weirdest relationship term sheet in history.”
She laughed, hiccuping. “We’re very on-brand.”
He pushed off the table.
For a second, she thought he might come closer.
He didn’t.
He took a step back instead.
“Go see your mother this weekend,” he said. “Eat bad casseroles. Watch Food Network. Don’t think about Hart or me or exit strategies.”
“I’ll still think about you,” she said softly. “I don’t know how not to.”
He winced. “Try anyway.”
She smiled through tears.
“At least we’re honest,” she said.
“It’s new,” he said. “I’m still getting used to it.”
She turned toward the door.
Hand on the handle, she paused.
“Marcus,” she said without looking back. “Thank you. For giving me…a way out that isn’t just jumping without a parachute.”
“I’m not giving you anything,” he said quietly. “You’re taking it. As you should.”
She opened the door.
The office outside was dark.
Her desk sat neat and orderly, her cardigan draped over the back of her chair.
She walked toward it, the echo of his *I love you* thudding in her chest.
She didn’t know when she’d leave that chair.
Or if.
But for the first time, she had a map.
Not complete.
Not perfectly drawn.
But a map that had more than one destination.
And that, she thought as she shut down her computer and grabbed her bag, was the first step toward any real change.
You couldn’t exit a building you didn’t admit you were standing in.
Now, at least, the doors were visible.
Someday, she’d walk through one.
Tonight, she just had to get home.
Sleep.
Hold her mother’s hand tomorrow and pretend she wasn’t terrified.
And maybe, in the quiet moments between crises, imagine a future where she walked into a room and saw him not as her boss, but as…something else.
Someone else.
Someone she’d chosen.
On purpose.
Not out of fear.
Not out of necessity.
But because, after everything, he was still the person she wanted to walk toward.
***