The weekend at her mother’s was a study in contrasts.
Saturday morning, Patricia insisted on making pancakes.
“You’re not supposed to be standing this long,” Maya complained, hovering nearby.
“I’ve been standing since before you were born,” her mother said, flipping a pancake with more force than necessary. “I won’t let some overgrown Gary Junior put me in a chair.”
Maya laughed, caught between exasperation and awe.
They ate at the small laminate kitchen table, sunlight slanting in through the blinds, a plant in the corner valiantly refusing to die.
“How’s the man with the suits?” Patricia asked over syrup.
“Which one?” Maya asked, stabbing a piece of pancake.
“The one whose name you say like a swear and a prayer at the same time,” her mother said.
Heat prickled at the back of Maya’s neck. “Marcus is…fine.”
“Marcus,” Patricia repeated, rolling the name in her mouth. “Hmm.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maya demanded.
“It’s a good name,” her mother said. “Solid. Roman. Men with names like that either conquer or cry.”
“He’s doing both,” Maya muttered.
Her mother’s eyes softened.
“You told him,” Patricia said. “Didn’t you?”
Maya set her fork down.
“Yeah,” she said. “I did.”
“And?” her mother asked.
“And he felt the same,” Maya said. “Of course. Because the universe is cruel and likes drama.”
Patricia smiled faintly. “Any other time in your life, you’d be thrilled to have someone love you back.”
“Thrilled is a strong word,” Maya said. “Terrified with a side of thrilled, maybe.”
Her mother reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
“Do you trust him?” Patricia asked.
“Yes,” Maya said, surprising herself with the speed of it. “I do.”
“With your heart?” her mother pressed.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“With your rent?” her mother asked.
Maya hesitated.
“That’s the problem,” she said. “Those two things shouldn’t be in the same sentence.”
“Hence exit strategies,” Patricia said.
Maya blinked. “Did I…talk in my sleep?”
“You talked on the phone,” her mother said. “Loudly. In my hallway. Sound carries.”
Guilt pricked. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“You didn’t,” Patricia said. “You made me proud. Cutting deals with your love life like it’s a corporate merger.”
“It is a corporate merger,” Maya said weakly. “I’m merging my body with my boss’s future trauma.”
Her mother snorted. “You always were good with metaphors.”
Maya toyed with her fork.
“He suggested I leave,” she said. “Eventually. Not now. But…someday. That the only way we can do this right is if I’m not working for him.”
Patricia considered that.
“And what do *you* think?” she asked.
“I think he’s right,” Maya said. “And I hate that.”
“Why?” Patricia asked.
“Because I like my job,” Maya said. “I’m good at it. I like the money. The chaos. The feeling that I’m at the center of something big and complicated. The idea of giving that up, even for something—or someone—I love, feels…wrong.”
“Do you think I regret working double shifts all those years?” Patricia asked quietly.
Maya looked up, startled.
“I regret the damage,” her mother said. “The stroke. The scars. The fear in your eyes. But I don’t regret the work. The people I helped. The way it made me feel like I mattered.”
“You mattered regardless,” Maya said fiercely.
“Maybe,” Patricia said. “But it took me a long time to believe that. Too long.”
She held Maya’s gaze.
“Promise me you won’t wait for a stroke to realize your worth isn’t tied to a job,” Patricia said. “Or to a man. Even a decent one.”
Tears pricked again.
“I’m trying,” Maya whispered.
“I know,” her mother said. “You’re doing better than I did.”
Maya laughed weakly. “Low bar.”
“High for me,” Patricia said. “You cleared it. That’s enough.”
Later, while her mother napped in the recliner, a blanket over her knees and an episode of some home renovation show murmuring in the background, Maya sat on the back steps with her laptop.
Emails lined up like little soldiers.
She triaged.
Jenna: new framing for the Portvale story. Legal: updated timeline for discovery. Oliver: revised deck for a rating agency meeting. Facilities: an alert about an A/C issue on 47.
She handled what she could.
Scheduled what she couldn’t.
Then opened a blank document.
Title: *Exit Options.*
Her fingers hovered.
She began to list.
1. Stay as Marcus’s assistant indefinitely. Pros: Money. Proximity. Power. Cons: Emotional torture. Burnout. No clean way to be with him.
2. Lateral move within Kane Global. Pros: Keep salary/benefits. Still in ecosystem she understands. Potentially more balanced role. Cons: Still under Marcus’s umbrella. Gossip. Power dynamics.
3. Move to another company in similar role. Pros: Fresh start. Less emotional entanglement. Cons: Less pay? Less equity. Emotional whiplash. Leaving mid-crisis.
4. Start own thing (consulting, operations, chaos management agency). Pros: Autonomy. Unlimited potential. Able to choose clients. Cons: Risk. Income instability. Health insurance nightmare.
She stared at the list.
None of them were easy.
All of them involved loss.
She added a fifth.
5. Do nothing. Delay.
Pros: Familiar. Immediate stability.
Cons: Prolonged agony. Missed opportunities. Resentment.
She saved the document.
Closed the laptop.
She didn’t have to choose today.
But having the options in black and white made something inside her settle.
Later that night, she texted Marcus from her childhood bed.
Maya: *My mom says your name like she enjoys it. Be afraid.*
Marcus: *She terrifies me already.*
Maya: *Good instinct.*
Marcus: *How is she?*
Maya: *Tired. Bossy. Arguing with a TV chef about garlic. So…herself.*
Marcus: *Relief disguised as complaint. You learned from the best.*
Maya smiled in the dark.
Maya: *How’s the beast?*
Marcus: *Hart is still sending letters. Portvale is still leaking. The beast is hungry and petulant.*
Maya: *You feed it too much.*
Marcus: *You leaving crushed red pepper on my desk is not helping.*
Maya: *Spice is good for you. Keeps your arteries clear.*
Marcus: *My arteries are fine. It’s my judgment that’s clogged.*
She exhaled softly.
Maya: *We’ll unclog it. One terrible metaphor at a time.*
He didn’t reply for a minute.
Then:
Marcus: *Thank you. For…coming back to me. Even after hard days.*
Her chest squeezed.
Maya: *We’re not a couple, Marcus.*
Marcus: *Not yet.*
Her breath stuttered.
Maya: *Don’t.*
Marcus: *Honesty, remember? No more pretending. Not with you.*
She pressed the phone against her sternum, counting heartbeats.
Then typed:
Maya: *I’m not promising you anything.*
Marcus: *I know.*
Maya: *Except that I’ll show up. Until I can’t.*
Marcus: *Then I’ll take it. All of it. However long I get.*
She turned off the screen before she could reply.
In the dark, listening to the quiet hum of the house she’d grown up in, she let herself imagine, just for a moment, what life would look like if she did it.
If she left.
Not in defeat.
In…completion.
If she handed the chaos baton to someone else and stepped into a world where she wasn’t always ten seconds from a calendar notification.
If she walked into a restaurant or a bedroom or a Sunday morning and saw him not as the embodiment of her workload, but as a man.
Just a man.
With too many suits and too many scars.
And a heart, apparently, capable of growing in directions even he hadn’t planned for.
The thought was terrifying.
And, if she was honest, thrilling.
Crosswinds.
Pushing her toward something she couldn’t quite see.
She fell asleep somewhere between fear and hope.
It was becoming a familiar place.
***
On Monday, back in the icy womb of sixty-two, things accelerated.
“Hart’s filing a 13D amendment,” Oliver said in the war room, pushing his glasses up his nose. “He’s increased his stake. Not by much. But enough to signal he’s serious.”
“Serious always looks like a few more zeros,” Jenna muttered.
Legal rattled off response options. Poison pills. Rights plans. Quiet deals with friendly investors.
Marcus listened.
Then shook his head.
“No scorched earth,” he said. “No structures that punish everyone because of one man’s ego. We engage. We build coalitions. We win on merits.”
Daniel’s replacement, a woman named Alisha with a calm manner and eyes like steel, nodded. “We’re already lining up calls with the big holders,” she said. “We’ll make sure they know our side before Hart spins his narrative.”
Maya scribbled notes.
Slotting calls. Flagging times.
Her phone buzzed with a text from her mom.
Mom: *Radiation done. Nurse gave me a sticker. It’s a turtle.*
She smiled.
Maya: *Of course it is. Slow and stubborn. Like you.*
Marcus glanced at her tablet.
She hesitated, then angled it so he could see.
His mouth softened.
“Tell her congratulations,” he said quietly.
“You tell her,” she said. “She asked about you.”
He blinked.
“She did?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “She wants to know when she gets to meet the man who schedules my panic attacks.”
His gaze flicked away.
“That’s…premature,” he said.
“Oh, absolutely,” she said. “No one is meeting anyone until I decide it’s not going to implode my life.”
He huffed. “Good.”
“But you should know,” she added, “that she already likes you. Mostly because you clear my Fridays sometimes.”
“I like her too,” he said. “Mostly because she raised you into an irresistible pain in my ass.”
Warmth spread under her ribs.
“Careful,” she said. “That almost sounded like flirting.”
“It was,” he said. “Blame Monday.”
It struck her then, with a jolt, that flirting had become their safety valve.
The thing they did instead of crossing the line.
“I’m assigning you to a new project,” he said suddenly.
She blinked. “What?”
“A pilot,” he said. “Two days a month, you work on something that is not directly tied to my schedule. A process. A system. An initiative. Anything you choose. Inside or outside the company.”
Her mouth fell open. “You’re…cutting my hours?”
“I’m reallocating them,” he said. “If you’re going to leave me eventually, I’d prefer you have practice building things that aren’t me.”
Her chest squeezed.
“This is not how most men react to their assistants plotting an exit,” she said.
“Most men are idiots,” he said. “And most assistants don’t terrify them into self-reflection.”
“What would this…project…even be?” she asked, brain whirling. “A side hustle? A new department? A podcast where I complain about rich people?”
“Whatever you want,” he said. “Within reason. You tell me. I’ll give you the time and seed money.”
“You’re funding my future mid-life crisis,” she said faintly.
“I prefer to think of it as diversifying my investments,” he said.
Her eyes stung.
“This feels like…” She swallowed. “Like you’re pushing me out.”
“I’m trying to give you room to step sideways,” he said. “So when you step away, if you do, it’s not from nothing. You’ll have something that’s yours. Not mine.”
She shook her head, at a loss.
“You don’t have to decide today,” he added. “Just…think about what you’d build if you could.”
She thought of the nonprofit chaos. The production firm fiasco. The people she’d met along the way who were brilliant and disorganized and drowning.
“I’d build a…bridge,” she blurted.
He frowned. “A…what?”
“Not literally,” she said. “A company. A consultancy. A thing that sits between people who are building good things and the systems they need to not fall apart. Ops for idealists. Structure for chaos. A place where someone like me walks in, fixes the mess, and trains them so they don’t burn through three assistants a year.”
His eyes sharpened.
“You’ve thought about this,” he said.
“Not like a real thing,” she said. “More like a fantasy I have when I’m elbow-deep in someone else’s inbox.”
He leaned forward.
“Write it,” he said. “A plan. A deck. A sketch on a napkin. Show me.”
Her heart raced. “Why?”
“Because if you’re going to jump, I want to know what you’re jumping to,” he said. “And because I might want to invest.”
She laughed, incredulous. “You want to be my…angel investor?”
“I prefer ‘silent partner,’” he said. “Very silent.”
“With opinions,” she said.
“Always,” he said.
She stared at him.
“You’re serious,” she said.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Emotion swelled.
She wanted to protest. To say he was doing too much. To accuse him of trying to control her exit by owning a piece of it.
But she knew, in her bones, that this wasn’t about control.
It was about…love.
Messy. Inconvenient.
Real.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, voice shaky.
“Good,” he said. “In the meantime, schedule me with Hart’s lawyer on Wednesday. If he wants a war, we’ll give him one. On our terms.”
She nodded, mind spinning.
Exit strategies.
Sideways steps.
Bridges.
She thought of Rachel’s garden.
Of Owen’s server room.
Of her mother’s turtle sticker.
And of the man in front of her, offering her time and money and space to build something that might, someday, take her away from him.
If that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was.
***
That night, she opened a new document on her laptop at home.
Title: *BridgeOps (working name).*
Bullet points flowed.
— Target clients: nonprofits, small businesses, creative shops, under-funded operations with over-worked staff.
— Services: systems design, executive assistant training, crisis triage, implementation of processes that don’t suck.
— Value proposition: we make your chaos survivable without turning you into a soulless corporation.
She laughed to herself.
She added:
— Tagline ideas: “We fix your mess so you can change the world.” / “Ops for people who hate ops.” / “Because burnout is not a business model.”
Her phone buzzed.
Marcus.
Marcus: *If you name your company “Ops for Idealists,” I want royalties.*
Maya: *Are you spying on my Google Docs?*
Marcus: *I’m not that accomplished. Yet.*
Maya: *I’m working on a deck. Don’t get excited.*
Marcus: *Too late.*
She bit her lip.
Maya: *You know this might take…years. If it even happens.*
Marcus: *I know.*
Maya: *And in that time, I might change my mind. About everything. About you. About this.*
Marcus: *I know that too.*
Maya: *And you’re…okay with that?*
Longer pause this time.
Marcus: *No. I’m not okay with any version where I lose you. But I’d rather lose you to something you build than keep you by breaking you.*
Tears blurred her vision.
Maya: *You keep saying things that make it very hard to stay mad at you.*
Marcus: *I consider that a feature, not a bug.*
She laughed, wiping her eyes.
Maya: *Go to bed, Marcus.*
Marcus: *You first.*
She rolled her eyes.
But she did.
And for the first time in a while, her dreams weren’t just about glass elevators and almost-kisses.
They were about whiteboards.
Logos.
A little office with plants and good coffee and people who weren’t afraid to tell their clients no.
And, occasionally, about a very rich man dropping by with takeout and a new spreadsheet and a look in his eyes that said, *We did it.*
Together.
Eventually.
Maybe.
***