Monday started with a fire.
Maya had imagined her first day at Kane Global going a number of ways. Awkward HR orientation. Endless forms. Maybe a quick tour where she’d forget eighty percent of what she saw and pretend she hadn’t.
She had not expected to be literally grabbed by the elbow in the lobby and hustled toward the elevators before she’d even finished telling the front desk her name.
“Ms. Brooks?” a young man in a slim gray suit panted. “You’re Maya, right?”
“Yes?” she said, startled. “Do I owe you money?”
He blinked. “What? No. I’m Ryan. Corporate comms. Jenna sent me. We’ve been trying to call you.”
She checked her phone. Three missed calls. All from an unknown number she’d ignored because she’d been too busy trying not to puke from nerves.
“Sorry,” she said, guilt flushing her cheeks. “I thought it was spam trying to sell me an extended car warranty.”
“Right.” He yanked his tie loose as the elevator doors closed. “Mr. Kane moved your start time up. He needs you in the war room five minutes ago.”
“It’s eight forty-five,” she said. “I thought I was starting at nine-thirty.”
“That was then,” Ryan said. “Portvale leaked something, the Journal picked it up, the union reps at Arcturus are foaming at the mouth, and someone on Twitter just called Kane Global ‘the Walmart of the high seas.’ He’s…not thrilled.”
Her stomach dipped. “On a scale from one to ‘apocalypse,’ how bad is…not thrilled?”
Ryan actually laughed, a short, hysterical sound. “You’ll see.”
“Wait,” she said as the floor numbers ticked upward. “War room?”
“Conference C,” he said. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
The doors opened on sixty-two. The floor buzzed like a kicked beehive. People moved fast, voices low, expressions tight.
“Here,” Ryan said, thrusting a lanyard at her. “Temporary badge. HR will probably lose their minds that I gave you access before your official onboarding, but Jenna said she’ll deal with it.”
“Jenna is…?”
“Head of PR,” he said. “Blonde, sharp, looks like she eats press releases for breakfast. You’ll like her. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve been up since four.”
He half-jogged toward a set of double doors. Maya hustled after him, her new black ankle boots already regretting life.
He pushed the doors open.
The war room looked like mission control in a very expensive space movie. A long table, wall-to-wall screens displaying financial news, social media feeds, and what looked like live shipping routes across the Pacific. People clustered around laptops, phones glued to ears.
At the head of the table stood Marcus Kane.
If he’d looked imposing in the controlled quiet of his office last week, he looked downright dangerous in motion.
His jacket was off, sleeves rolled up, tie knotted but skewed. He held a tablet in one hand, a pen in the other, gesturing sharply as he spoke to a cluster of people who seemed to be trying not to flinch.
“—I don’t care what their narrative is,” he said, voice calm but edged with something that crackled. “We don’t respond to rumors with rumors. We respond with numbers. Show them the capital investments we’re prepared to make. New cranes, upgraded safety protocols, salary bumps across the board if we hit productivity targets.”
“And the union reps?” someone asked. “They’re saying you’ll gut their pensions.”
“I have never gutted a pension in my life,” Marcus snapped. “That’s not where I squeeze. Get me a side-by-side of Portvale’s record on labor versus ours. We’re not saints, but we’re not vultures either. We make that crystal clear.”
Ryan ushered Maya toward the table. Jenna spotted them, her eyes sharp behind black-rimmed glasses.
“Finally,” she said. “Maya, right?”
“Yes,” Maya said, trying not to shrink under all the sudden attention. “Hi. Sorry. My phone and I are having a communication breakdown.”
“Get over it,” Jenna said briskly, already turning. “Marcus. Your new assistant’s here.”
The room’s focus shifted.
Marcus looked up.
For half a second, something unreadable flickered across his face. Recognition. Assessment. Maybe the slightest hint of…relief?
“Ms. Brooks,” he said. “You’re early.”
“It’s eight forty-eight,” she said before she could stop herself. “Technically I’m forty-two minutes late if my new reality runs on your sense of urgency.”
A couple of people smothered smiles.
His eyes narrowed a fraction. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“I didn’t recognize the number,” she said. “Where I’m from, that usually means someone trying to sell me a miracle diet. Next time, leave a voicemail with the word ‘war’ in it, and I’ll pick up.”
Silence hung for a beat. Her pulse skittered.
Then, unexpectedly, his mouth curved. “Noted,” he said. “Get a phone from IT before you leave today. Work number. If Jenna calls that one and you ignore it, I’ll assume you’re dead.”
“Understood,” she said. “If I’m dead, I’ll have Ryan send you a memo.”
Ryan made a strangled sound. “Please don’t put me in your will like that.”
“Can we focus?” Jenna said, exasperated. “Marcus, we have three separate crises brewing and a finite number of humans to handle them.”
His attention snapped back to the table. “Right. Maya.”
“Yes?”
“Sit.” He gestured to an empty chair at his right. “You’re taking point on my side of this. Calendar, calls, triage. Anything that comes through my line goes through you first. Understood?”
Her heart jumped. This was…not orientation.
“Yes,” she said, sliding into the chair. “Understood.”
He slid his tablet toward her. “This is my current schedule and inbox. For now. It’ll get worse.”
She scanned the screen. Meetings stacked back-to-back, some overlapping, calls crammed into nonexistent gaps.
“Do you sleep?” she murmured.
“Occasionally,” he said. “Figure out which of these I can’t move. Jenna.”
He snapped his fingers; Jenna stepped closer.
“We need a statement,” she said. “Soon. Something for employees and one for the press. I know you hate anything touchy-feely, but they need reassurance beyond ROI.”
“Fine,” he said. “Draft something that doesn’t make me sound like a guidance counselor.”
“What’s wrong with guidance counselors?” Maya muttered.
“They told me I’d end up in prison,” he said.
She blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” he said. “Focus.”
“Okay, wow,” she whispered under her breath, fingers already flying as she opened his calendar app and email client. The man had unanswered messages from people whose names appeared in global finance headlines on a weekly basis.
Her brain snapped into gear like someone had flipped a switch.
“All right,” she said quietly, more to herself than anyone. “Let’s see what kind of mess you’ve made.”
***
She worked.
For the next two hours, she moved through his digital life like she’d known it for years.
She triaged emails—urgent, delegate, delay. She flagged the Portvale leak threads, skimmed Legal’s frantic back-and-forth about the missing compliance report, shifted a non-essential lunch with some minor celebrity CEO to next week, and crafted short, sharp messages in his voice where she could.
“Can I do that?” she asked at one point, fingers hovering over *send*.
“If it’s wrong, I’ll tell you,” he said without looking up from the pile of printed reports in front of him. “We’ll correct in real time.”
“Trust fall on day one,” she muttered. “Cool, cool.”
She rerouted calls through her headset. Shielded him from three “urgent opportunities” that were anything but. Redirected a whiny board member to Oliver. Told a reporter from a major business network, as smoothly as she could, that Mr. Kane would not be commenting at this time, but a written statement would be forthcoming.
“Can I quote you on that?” the reporter asked.
“You can quote me saying that you’ll have something in your inbox before your noon editorial meeting,” she said. “Beyond that, no.”
“You’re new,” the reporter said shrewdly. “Are you the dragon at the gate?”
“I’m the person between you and a dead air segment,” she said. “Trust me, we’re on the same team.”
She hung up and glanced sideways.
Marcus was watching her.
“What?” she asked.
“You didn’t promise something we can’t deliver,” he said. “That’s good.”
“I’ve watched enough PR disasters to know better,” she said. “Never give the press a timestamp you can’t hit.”
“We’ll hit it,” he said. “Jenna?”
“I heard,” Jenna said from further down the table. “Noon it is.”
He nodded once.
Maya checked the time. 10:57. Her stomach growled quietly. She ignored it.
A notification pinged in the corner of the screen. *Meeting: All-Hands – Arcturus Acquisition Strategy. 11:00 a.m. – Conference A.*
She blinked. “You have an all-hands in three minutes,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “We’ll use it to get ahead of the internal narrative.”
“You’re not going to cancel?” she asked. “You’re in the middle of—”
“I don’t cancel,” he said.
“Ever?” she said. “Not even when you’re on fire?”
“Especially not then,” he said.
She stared at the screen. “You can’t be in two places at once.”
“I’m aware,” he said.
“Okay.” She took a breath. “Then let’s make it work.”
She slid his tablet closer and began rearranging.
“The all-hands is internal,” she said aloud, thinking as she went. “You need to be in the room for that. It’s not just information; it’s optics. People need to see your face, hear your voice. The Arcturus union call is at eleven-thirty. Non-negotiable?”
“Yes,” he said. “If we miss that, they’ll pivot straight to Portvale.”
“Fine.” She flipped two smaller meetings into later afternoon slots, dragged a call with an investment analyst to tomorrow, and sent three short messages from his account:
*Running crisis response this morning. Need to move our call. My office will find a new time.*
She glanced at him. “That’s okay?”
“Yes,” he said. “Keep going.”
She glanced at the compliance thread. “And this missing report,” she said. “It’s still not found?”
His jaw flexed. “No.”
“Then you need to allocate time to deal with that proactively before the SEC knocks on your glass door,” she said. “We should block an hour this afternoon with Legal and whoever on operations touched that filing. And maybe—” She hesitated.
“Maybe what?” he asked.
“Maybe call the person who used to know where everything was,” she said. “The one in Seattle with the garden.”
Silence.
“Out of the question,” he said, too quickly.
“It’s one phone call,” she said. “She might remember something. A naming convention, a folder, some weird quirk in the system. It’s not about dragging her back in, it’s about respecting her institutional knowledge.”
His mouth flattened. “She left. She made her choice. I’m not—”
“Too proud to ask for help?” she suggested.
His eyes flashed. “Careful, Ms. Brooks.”
She held up a hand. “Sorry. That was…sharper than I meant. I just…if one of my old bosses called me in a crisis to ask where I’d kept something, I’d help. Most people would. It doesn’t erase the fact that they burned me out, but it might make me feel…seen. If you can get what you need and give her a chance to feel valued, that’s a win-win.”
He stared at her for a long, tense moment.
The room around them seemed to recede, the buzz of voices dimming.
“I’m not…good at that,” he said finally, quieter.
“At what?” she asked.
“Win-win,” he said. “I’m better at…win.”
There was something almost vulnerable in the admission, buried deep.
She softened her tone. “Then think of it as risk management,” she said. “A five-minute call that could save you an enforcement action. That’s just…math.”
His eyes searched her face like he was weighing the cost of letting her push this line.
Then he exhaled sharply and turned to Jenna.
“Find me a room after the union call,” he said. “Ten minutes. No interruptions.”
“Got it,” Jenna said, not missing a beat.
He looked back at Maya. “Send me her number,” he said.
“You don’t have it saved?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“New phone,” he lied.
She didn’t call him on it.
“On it,” she said instead, fingers already moving.
***
The all-hands was a masterclass in controlled force.
They moved to a larger conference space with glass walls and tiered seating. Employees filtered in, murmuring anxiously. Some had phones out, screens glowing with the latest headlines.
At the front of the room, a massive screen displayed the Kane Global logo next to Arcturus’s—old-world serif font beside sleek sans serif.
Marcus stood at the podium, tie straight, face composed. He treated the chatter and the nervous shifting like background noise.
Maya slid into a seat near the front, tablet in hand, ready to respond to whatever fires flared up while he was onstage.
He began without fanfare.
“You’ve all seen the news,” he said. “Let’s talk about what’s true and what isn’t.”
He spoke for twenty minutes.
He laid out the Arcturus strategy in crisp, unembellished terms. The value of their shipping lanes. The synergy with Kane Global’s existing infrastructure. The long-term plan for capital investment, not asset stripping.
He addressed the Portvale leak head-on.
“They’re telling a story where we’re the villain,” he said. “That’s useful for them. It rallies support, makes them look like saviors. But stories, as you all know, can be spun. What matters are the choices we actually make. Our record. Our numbers. We’re not perfect. We make mistakes. We correct them where we can. But we do not—we *will not*—build this company by cannibalizing the people who run it.”
There was a murmur at that, a subtle shift in the room’s posture.
He didn’t sugarcoat. He didn’t promise utopia. He did something more dangerous for someone in his position.
He told the truth. Or his version of it.
Maya watched him, unexpectedly…riveted.
This was the man the press liked to paint as a heartless raider. The one whose face they used when they needed a villain for op-eds about income inequality.
He was ruthless. She didn’t doubt that. But he was also…clear.
He finished with a simple directive.
“If you have questions, ask them,” he said. “If you hear rumors, bring them to your managers. We’ll answer what we can. We’ll be honest when we can’t. The only thing that makes a crisis worse is silence.”
He stepped back.
The room erupted in murmurs, then applause. Not thunderous. Not rapturous. But real.
Maya found herself clapping too, grudgingly impressed.
As people filtered out, Jenna appeared at her elbow.
“Not bad for a guy who thinks ‘empathy’ is a four-letter word,” she said.
“He wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy,” Maya said.
“He’s never going to be,” Jenna said. “But people don’t need him to be their dad. They need to know he has a plan.”
“He does,” Maya said. “Several, it seems.”
“That’s your job now,” Jenna said. “Keeping those plans straight.”
“Lucky me,” Maya said.
“You’ll do fine,” Jenna said. “You didn’t pass out in the war room. That’s always a good sign.”
“Low bar,” Maya said. “I’m a chronic overachiever. I like to aim at slightly higher.”
“We’ll see,” Jenna said, already moving toward a cluster of managers.
Maya checked the time. Eleven-twenty-eight.
“Union call in two,” she called softly to Marcus as he stepped off the little stage.
He looked at her like he’d momentarily forgotten she existed, then nodded once.
“Conference B,” he said.
She walked with him, updating as they went.
“You’re clear until twelve,” she said. “Then you have the Arcturus legal check-in, a quick hit with Oliver, and a call with the Asia team at one. I pushed your lunch with that VC guy to Thursday. He was not thrilled.”
“He’ll live,” Marcus said.
“I told him you were busy saving capitalism,” she said.
His mouth twitched. “Don’t tell people that. It makes me sound like I think I’m important.”
“You *are* important,” she said lightly. “That’s why my heart rate is at a hundred and ten right now.”
He slowed, just a fraction. “You’re nervous.”
“I was thrown into a war room my first hour,” she said. “Nervous seems appropriate.”
“You handled it,” he said.
It shouldn’t have meant anything. It was a simple statement of fact.
But something in his tone—dry, almost casual—felt like…acknowledgment.
“Thank you,” she said, a little stiffly. Compliments from men like him had strings. She wasn’t sure where these were yet.
They reached Conference B. The union reps appeared on-screen—a panel of serious-faced men and women in jackets that had seen more wind and salt than leather chairs.
Marcus straightened, adjusted his tie, and stepped into battle mode.
Maya moved to the side, tablet ready, headset on, ears pricked for anything she needed to catch or flag.
As the call began, she watched him shift.
He wasn’t the commanding presence from the all-hands now. He was something else—controlled aggression, sheathed but ready. He listened more than he spoke, but when he did, it was with a precision that made people pay attention.
“We’re not here to strip you for parts,” he said when they accused him of buying Arcturus to flip it. “We’re here because you have something we want long-term. We can’t make money off a broken company. It’s not in our interest to break you.”
They didn’t believe him. Not yet. She could hear it in their voices, see it in the way their jaws locked on-screen.
But they were…listening.
Halfway through, her tablet buzzed with an email from Legal. The missing compliance report had been found. In an incorrectly labeled folder on an archived server.
Her shoulders sagged.
She typed a quick note and slid the tablet in front of Marcus when he glanced down.
He read the message, the tension in his jaw easing almost imperceptibly.
He didn’t smile. But his next sentence came with a shade less steel.
Progress, she thought. Tiny, incremental, maddeningly slow progress.
After the call, as the union reps signed off and the screen went black, he exhaled, shoulders rolling.
“That went…not terribly,” Jenna said from the doorway.
“They still think we’re here to fire their cousins,” Marcus said. “But at least they’re willing to come to the table.”
“Which is a win,” Jenna said. “I’ll draft a summary for internal distribution.”
“Maya,” he said.
She straightened. “Yes?”
“Send an email to Legal and Ops. Thank them for finding the report,” he said. “Tell them I appreciate the speed.”
She blinked. “You…want me to put ‘appreciate’ in an email from you?”
“Yes,” he said, a hint of dry amusement. “Use the word sparingly, but use it.”
“Got it,” she said, tapping. “Anything you want to say to the person who mislabeled the folder in the first place?”
“Nothing that should be in writing,” he said.
She snorted before she could stop herself.
His gaze flicked to her, something like…approval in it.
“Come on,” he said, already moving. “Let’s go make that phone call Seattle.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Do you want privacy?” she asked. “I can give you the number and step out.”
“No,” he said. “Stay. You wanted me to make this call. You can listen to me embarrass myself.”
“I didn’t say *embarrass,*” she said. “I said *apologize.* There’s a difference.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
They went back to his office. He closed the door behind them, the city stretching out in glass and steel beyond.
He sat, pulled his phone out, and stared at it like it was a hostile witness.
“Do you want me to…dial?” she offered.
“I’m not eighty,” he said. “I can dial my own calls.”
“Okay,” she said. “Just making sure I understand the scope of my duties.”
“Your scope does not currently include being my tech support,” he said dryly.
“Noted,” she said.
He scrolled to a contact. His thumb hovered.
For the first time since she’d met him, he looked…hesitant.
Underneath the expensive suit and the reputation and the way he made entire rooms lean in to hear his verdicts, he was, in this moment, just a man about to call someone he’d hurt.
She felt an unexpected pang of empathy.
He hit call.
The line rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice, faintly breathless, filtered through the speaker.
“Rachel,” he said. “It’s Marcus.”
There was a pause.
“Wow,” Rachel said. “To what do I owe the…mildly terrifying pleasure?”
He shot Maya a look like, *See? This is why I don’t do this.*
She bit back a smile.
“I…need your help,” he said.
Silence again. Then, slowly: “Say that again. I want to record it as my ringtone.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “We’re five days out from closing a deal. There was a compliance report that went missing. They’ve just found it, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t some additional backup or quirk in the system I’m forgetting.”
“You mean the one I begged you to let me automate three years ago?” she said. “The one you said was ‘fine as is’ because ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’?”
His jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“Check the mirrored drive,” she said. “I set up a shadow folder after the last system crash and ran manual updates until I left. Password’s the same as your first dog’s name.”
He blinked. “How do you know my first dog’s name?”
“You told me once when you had the flu and were delirious,” she said. “Don’t worry, I never used it for anything nefarious. Just your fail-safes.”
Maya’s eyebrows shot up. She filed that away under *things to unpack later*.
“Thank you,” he said. The words sounded…odd in his mouth. Like he didn’t say them often enough to keep them limber.
“You’re welcome,” Rachel said. “Is that all?”
He hesitated.
Maya caught his eye and mimed zipping her lips.
“No,” he said slowly. “It’s not.”
“Oh?”
“I wanted to…apologize,” he said, the word clearly costing him. “For how I handled your resignation. I made it about…me. What I was losing. I didn’t listen to what you were telling me. That you were at your limit. That you wanted something different. That was…unfair.”
Dead silence.
Maya held her breath.
On the other end of the line, Rachel laughed softly.
“Who are you,” she said, “and what have you done with Marcus Kane?”
He shifted in his chair. “I’m still me.”
“Then that apology cost you blood,” she said gently.
“It was overdue,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “It was.”
Another pause.
“Thank you,” she added, voice softer. “I didn’t need it to move on. But it…helps.”
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“Is this sudden surge of emotional maturity your doing?” Rachel asked, apparently to the air.
Maya startled. “Me?”
“New assistant?” Rachel guessed. “I can hear someone breathing judgmentally in the background.”
“I’m not judging,” Maya protested. “I’m…supportively observing.”
“Uh-huh,” Rachel said. “What’s your name, supportively observing person?”
“Maya,” she said. “Hi. Big fan of your shadow folders.”
Rachel snorted. “You’ll need them. Pro tip: he pretends he’s terrible at gratitude, but he has a very specific love language. It’s called ‘not firing you when you deserve it.’”
“I do not fire people lightly,” Marcus interjected.
“Tell that to the guy who left avocado on your leather car seat that one time,” she said.
“That was justified,” he said. “It soaked into the stitching.”
Maya pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.
“I have to go,” Rachel said. “My husband’s about to drag me to another seminar on soil pH, and if I’m late, he’ll claim organic chemistry is more interesting than me.”
“That’s…debatable,” Marcus said.
“Look at you, flirting with self-improvement,” she said. “Take care of yourself, Marcus. Try not to forget your new assistant is a human, not an AI.”
“I’ll…attempt not to,” he said.
“Good. Nice to meet you, Maya. Call me if he makes you cry. I have a support group. We meet on Thursdays.”
“Will do,” Maya said.
The line clicked off.
For a moment, the office was very quiet.
Maya sat back. “That wasn’t so bad.”
He let out a breath. “I feel like I just survived a deposition.”
“You did great,” she said. “On a scale from one to emotionally stunted, that was at least a seven in growth.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is this how you plan to talk to me all the time?”
“Is it working for you?” she asked.
His gaze held hers, cool and speculative.
“For now,” he said.
There was something in his tone that made heat prickle low in her belly.
She shifted in her chair, annoyed with herself.
He was her boss. Her mercurial, intense, basically-married-to-his-job boss. Her *do not touch, do not crush on, do not even flirt with except in a strictly tactical, tension-diffusing way* boss.
“You should eat,” he said abruptly, glancing at the time. “It’s almost one. Grab something before the Asia call.”
She blinked. “Are you…ordering me to eat?”
“No,” he said. “I’m stating a fact. You’ve been here since eight forty-five without a break. If you pass out in my office, it will be inconvenient.”
“Oh,” she said. “Right. Can’t have that. I’ll go get some…fuel.”
“There’s a staff kitchen on this floor,” he said. “Coffee, tea, assorted things that call themselves food. Or tell my—” He caught himself. “Tell Facilities if you need a meal delivery set up.”
“My what?” she said. “You were about to say ‘tell my previous assistant to fix it,’ weren’t you?”
He shot her a cool look. “Don’t get used to guessing my thoughts, Ms. Brooks. It’s a dangerous habit.”
“Noted,” she said, standing. “One step at a time. First I learn your calendar, then maybe in six months I get to predict your coffee order.”
“You have three days,” he said.
She paused at the door. “Three days for what?”
“To figure out my coffee order,” he said, eyes already back on his screen.
“That wasn’t in the job description,” she said.
“Consider it a test,” he said.
She arched a brow. “What happens if I fail?”
He looked up then, and for a fleeting second, something like a smirk ghosted across his face.
“Then we’ll see if you’re as good at surviving my temper as you are at correcting my flaws,” he said.
A shiver slid down her spine that had nothing to do with fear.
“I’ll start taking notes,” she said, and slipped out.
***
In the hallway, she leaned against the wall for a second, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
This job was going to kill her.
Or change her.
Or both.
Her phone buzzed. A text from her best friend.
*First day update, now. On a scale from 1 to 10, how hot is he IRL, and how much of a nightmare is he?*
She stared at the screen.
Heat crept up her neck as she replayed the image of him standing at the podium, sleeves rolled, forearms tense. The sound of his low, measured voice. The way his eyes sharpened when they landed on her, like he was always calculating.
She typed.
*He’s a solid 9.5 in the “dangerously compelling” category and a 12 in “control issues.” Also, he just apologized to his ex-assistant because I told him to. So either I’m very good at my job or I’m about to get myself fired. Stay tuned.*
She hit send and pushed off the wall.
In the staff kitchen, she found stale bagels, questionable hummus, and a bank of gleaming coffee machines that looked like they required a PhD to operate.
She poured herself something that smelled like caffeine and stared out at the city through another wall of glass.
Somewhere behind her, footsteps approached.
“You’re still here,” came a familiar voice.
She turned.
Marcus stood in the doorway, mug in hand. The fluorescent lights did him no favors, and he still somehow managed to look unfairly good.
“I work here,” she said. “At least for today.”
“I meant you didn’t run,” he said. “Most people in your position would have by now.”
“I thought about it,” she said. “But my rent is due.”
He stepped into the kitchen, moving toward a machine that whirred to life at his approach like it recognized its master.
She watched him punch in a sequence. Espresso, splash of hot water, no sugar. Filed it away.
“What are you drinking?” he asked.
She glanced at her cup. “Regret.”
He huffed a laugh. “Stick to the middle machine. The left one tastes like someone’s nostalgia for college.”
“Noted,” she said, taking a cautious sip of her own. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse.”
“Where?” he asked.
She blinked. “Where what?”
“Where have you had worse,” he said. “You said that like it comes from specific experience.”
She thought of the hospital vending machine coffee she’d sipped at three in the morning while waiting for news about her mother’s surgery last year. The burnt, bitter taste that had sat in her mouth for hours.
“Nowhere that matters,” she said.
He watched her for a beat, like he knew there was more to that answer and was cataloging it for later.
“You did well today,” he said abruptly.
She swallowed. “Thank you.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he added. “This was the easy part.”
She snorted. “You have a very strange definition of ‘easy.’”
“That was my version,” he said. “You haven’t seen hard yet.”
Something about the way he said *hard* made her pulse skip.
She turned back to the window so he wouldn’t see the flush climbing her throat.
“Well,” she said lightly, “I’m looking forward to it.”
She heard his soft, surprised exhale.
“When you say things like that,” he said dryly, “I can’t tell if you’re brave or reckless.”
“Probably both,” she said.
He stepped up beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, the faint scent of his cologne—clean, woodsy, expensive.
From this angle, their reflections in the glass looked almost…compatible. Two figures in monochrome business attire, standing shoulder to shoulder, staring out at a city they both wanted to bend to their wills in very different ways.
“You know this job will take everything you give it,” he said quietly. “You won’t win points for martyrdom.”
“I’m not interested in being a martyr,” she said. “I’m interested in not drowning.”
“You swim,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Do you?”
He considered. “I don’t know. I’ve been walking on the bottom for so long I’ve forgotten what the surface feels like.”
She looked at him then, surprised by the admission.
There it was again—that flash of something human under the armor.
“You know,” she said softly, “most people just say ‘I’m fine’ when someone asks if they swim.”
“Most people lie,” he said.
“So do you,” she said.
“Less than you think,” he said.
Their eyes held.
For a brief, electric second, the air between them felt charged with something neither of them had the time—or the sense—to name.
Then his phone buzzed. The moment broke.
He glanced at the screen. “Asia call.”
“Right,” she said, stepping away. “Back to walking on the bottom.”
He moved toward the door, then paused.
“Ms. Brooks.”
She looked up.
“Yes?”
“This morning, you said you can’t promise you’ll answer the phone every time it rings,” he said.
“I did,” she said cautiously.
“If you’re going to ignore a call,” he said, “have a damn good reason.”
She lifted her chin. “Like being in the bathroom?”
“Like being in an accident,” he said. “Or dead.”
“So…never,” she said.
“Welcome to the job,” he said, and left.
She watched the door swing shut, her heart doing that stupid, traitorous stutter.
She took another sip of her coffee and made a face.
“This *is* regret,” she muttered. “And so, probably, is this job.”
But as she walked back toward his office, tablet in hand, adrenaline humming under her skin, she couldn’t deny it.
She felt more awake than she had in months.
And somewhere deep in her bones, in a place she normally saved for lost causes and impossible projects, she felt it.
The slow, dangerous spark of something starting.
She just hoped it wouldn’t burn them both to the ground.
***## Chapter 5: Lines in Wet Cement
By Friday, Maya knew three things for sure:
1. Marcus Kane drank his first coffee black, his second with a splash of oat milk, and his third only under protest.
2. He trusted his own judgment more than God, gravity, and the tax code combined.
3. He was going to be the most exhausting man she’d ever work for…and the most addictive.
Her first week moved at a pace that made “busy” sound like a nap.
The Arcturus deal devoured every waking hour. Portvale kept sniping in the press. The union reps kept circling like wary sharks. Legal kept throwing around acronyms that sounded like new forms of cancer.
And through it all, Marcus moved like someone who’d been built for pressure. Unflinching. Precise. Relentless.
She kept up.
Barely.
***
On Thursday night, it was just after nine-thirty when she slumped at her little station outside his office, every bone in her body humming with tired satisfaction.
The floor had emptied hours ago. The low murmur of copiers and conversations had faded into the distant whoosh of cleaning crews and the faint buzz of the city through glass.
Inside, beyond his closed door, Marcus was on his third call with the Asia team, voice steady even though he’d been at it since seven that morning.
Maya checked the time again. She’d stayed this late all week. Not because anyone had explicitly told her to, but because things kept…happening.
Crises didn’t respect office hours. Neither did a man who scheduled calls across four time zones like he didn’t believe in circadian rhythms.
Her stomach rumbled. She stared at the half-eaten granola bar on her desk like it had personally betrayed her.
She was debating whether to risk the walk to the all-night taco truck down the block when his office door opened.
He stepped out, rolling his right shoulder like it bothered him. His tie was askew, top button undone. He looked like a very expensive version of wrecked.
“Asia team signed off on the revised terms,” he said without preamble. “Push the summary to Legal and Oliver. Flag the two sticking points for tomorrow’s eight a.m.”
“Already did,” she said. “Subject line: ‘Things That Will Make Us Cry Before Coffee.’”
He eyed her. “You sent an email from my account with that subject line?”
“Yes,” she said. “They’ll survive.”
“And if they don’t?” he asked.
“Then we’ll add them to the memorial wall of people who took corporate email too seriously,” she said.
His mouth twitched. “How are *you* still upright?”
“Fear,” she said. “Caffeine. The knowledge that my mom’s next MRI bill is due in two weeks. Pick one.”
His gaze sharpened briefly at the mention of her mom, but he didn’t ask. He never asked personal questions directly. He collected details and filed them away like puzzle pieces.
“Go home, Maya,” he said. “We’re back at it at seven.”
“Your calendar says eight,” she said.
“My calendar is optimistic,” he said. “I need an hour to go through the Arcturus risk assessment before Legal gets here.”
“Then *you* should go home,” she said. “You’ve been here since, what, five-thirty?”
“Five,” he said. “And I’ll go soon.”
“You said that three hours ago,” she reminded him.
He leaned a hip against her desk, crossing his arms. The movement pulled his shirt across his chest in a way she definitely did not notice.
“I’m not accustomed to being parented by my assistant,” he said.
“I’m not parenting you,” she said. “I’m triaging you. There’s a difference.”
“I assure you,” he said dryly, “I can manage my own stamina.”
*I bet you can,* she thought before her brain could strangle the image. Heat flickered low and traitorous.
She cleared her throat. “Your body disagrees.”
He arched a brow. “My *body*?”
“You keep doing that shoulder thing,” she said, gesturing. “Rolling it like it’s bothering you. Also, your eyes have that squinty, over-caffeinated look. And you snapped at Jenna earlier for suggesting you eat something, which I’m told is a sign of imminent collapse.”
“She tried to feed me a protein bar that tasted like sawdust and regret,” he said. “I think my reaction was reasonable.”
“You’re deflecting,” she said. “Classic avoidance behavior.”
His eyes glinted. “And you’re analyzing me.”
“Occupational hazard,” she said, echoing her line from the interview.
Silence stretched. Not uncomfortable, exactly. Just…aware.
He watched her a beat longer, then said, “You never answered my question.”
“About?”
“How you’re still upright,” he said. “You’ve been here nearly as long as I have.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Besides, I’m still in the ‘must prove I deserve to be here’ phase. Ask me again in three months when I’ve fully devolved into a goblin.”
He made a soft sound, almost a chuckle. “If you make it three months, I’ll be impressed.”
“Is that a challenge?” she asked.
“It’s a prediction,” he said.
“Predictions can be wrong,” she said. “Ask the pollsters in 2016.”
“Please don’t compare my forecasting ability to American politics,” he said. “I have some standards.”
She smiled, unable to help it.
He straightened. “Go home,” he said again. “You’ve done enough for today.”
Her reflexive response rose—*I can stay longer, it’s fine*—and she swallowed it.
He’d called her out about martyrdom on day one. If she wanted him to respect her boundaries, she had to actually…have them.
She shut down her computer. “Fine. But only because you said ‘please’ in your own…grumpy way.”
“I did not say ‘please,’” he said.
“It was implied,” she said.
He shook his head, amused despite himself. “Text me if anything explodes overnight.”
“I’m off the clock,” she said. “Remember?”
He gave her a flat look.
She sighed. “I’ll check my work phone before I go to bed. Happy?”
“Marginally,” he said.
She stood, grabbing her tote. Shoulder strap, tablet, keys—her nightly ritual of not leaving her life behind on her desk.
He watched her shrug into her coat. Something about the way his gaze tracked the movement made her skin prickle. Not in a gross way. Not like the production CEO with his lingering eyes. This felt…evaluative. Curious. Like he was cataloging data again.
“Do you have far to go?” he asked.
She blinked. “To what?”
“Home,” he said. “You take the subway, right?”
“You noticed,” she said.
“I notice everything,” he said.
“That sounds exhausting,” she said.
“It is,” he said smoothly. “How far?”
“Two stops, then a ten-minute walk,” she said. “Why?”
He hesitated. “It’s late.”
“And?”
“And I don’t like my staff taking public transit alone after ten,” he said. “Not on a week when some of our less stable detractors are riled up. We’ve had incidents before. Protests. One or two…overzealous individuals.”
“You think someone’s going to jump me on the Red Line because my boss wants to buy a shipping company?” she asked, half skeptical, half weirdly touched.
“I think people do stupid things when they feel threatened,” he said. “You’re carrying a laptop and a company badge. You’re a target even without my name attached to your security pass.”
She’d grown up with a nurse mother who’d drilled safety into her from the moment she’d been old enough to toddle down a grocery aisle. She wasn’t reckless.
But there was something about a billionaire worrying about her on the subway that made her squirm.
“Are you offering me a limo?” she asked lightly. “Because I already mentally decorated my future therapist’s office with that image.”
He gave her a look. “There’s a car service account in your onboarding packet,” he said. “You can use it for late nights. It’s not a limo. It’s an SUV with a driver who knows how to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open. Use it.”
“I didn’t want to seem…high maintenance,” she said.
“You work for me,” he said. “If anyone accuses you of being high maintenance for not wanting to get stabbed on the subway, send them to HR.”
She tilted her head. “Is this your version of caring?”
His jaw flexed. “This is my version of managing risk.”
“Right,” she said softly. “Of course.”
She didn’t press the point. If he wanted to dress concern up in enterprise-speak, she could let him.
“I’ll read the packet,” she said. “Maybe let someone in a car get me home without adding another anxiety line to my mom’s face.”
He stilled. “She worries about you.”
“She worries about everything,” Maya said. “But yeah. Me on the train at night near Boyle Heights? Not her favorite thought.”
His eyes softened, barely. “Text her,” he said. “Tell her you have a driver from now on. Consider it a signing bonus.”
“That’s not standard, is it?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “But neither are you.”
The words hung between them, heavier than they should have been.
She swallowed. “Goodnight, Marcus.”
The moment the name left her mouth, she realized.
She’d never called him that before. Always *Mr. Kane* or plain *you*.
He stilled.
She saw the exact instant it hit him too. The faint tightening around his eyes. The way his breath paused, just long enough to register.
She backpedaled instinctively. “Sorry—Mr. Kane. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” he said, too quickly. “You can call me Marcus. Eventually. Not in front of the board.”
“Obviously,” she said. “They’d combust.”
“Most of them still think my first name is ‘Mr.,’” he said.
She smiled, tension easing. “Noted.”
He stepped back, opening the path to the elevator.
She walked past him, pulse surprisingly high for someone who’d just said a two-syllable name.
At the door, she stopped and looked over her shoulder.
“You too,” she said.
He frowned faintly. “Me too, what?”
“Goodnight, Marcus,” she said again, a little steadier.
His throat worked.
“Goodnight, Maya,” he said.
And there it was again—that little stutter under her breastbone that had nothing to do with work and everything to do with the way his voice wrapped around her name.
She really, really needed sleep.
***
She dreamed about him that night.
She woke at four-forty-three a.m. with her heart racing and images she absolutely could not unsee replaying in high-definition behind her eyes—Marcus in his office, tie off, shirt open, that voice saying her name in a tone that had nothing to do with daily stand-ups and everything to do with—
She flung an arm over her face and groaned into the pillow.
“No,” she whispered to the dark. “Absolutely not. We are not doing the ‘hot boss’ fantasy arc, brain. Try again.”
Her brain, rude and uncooperative, replayed the part where he’d said, *You’re not wrong*, about needing someone with boundaries, and then spliced it with the way he’d stood next to her at the window in the staff kitchen, close enough that his body heat had brushed her arm.
She rolled onto her back, staring at the cracked ceiling of her studio.
“You are tired,” she told herself. “You’re under stress. This is just…the lizard part of your brain having a field day. You are not actually attracted to a man whose idea of rest is changing from one kind of spreadsheet to another.”
The lizard part of her brain pointed out that his forearms were objectively unfair and that competence was, unfortunately, hot.
She made a strangled noise and grabbed her phone.
No new texts. No emergencies. Just the faint glow of the time.
Five hours until the deal meeting.
Four hours until she had to look him in the face and pretend she hadn’t just dreamed about undoing his tie with her teeth.
“Boundaries,” she muttered. “Set them. Respect them. Do not lick them.”
She threw off the covers and forced herself out of bed.
Work first. Feelings…never.
***
By seven fifty-eight, she was back on the sixty-second floor, hair wrangled into a low bun, navy dress replaced with black trousers and a cream blouse that miraculously hadn’t wrinkled in her bag.
The office was already humming. Legal had colonized a conference room. Jenna was on her third coffee, eyes blazing at a printed draft. Oliver stood by the window, phone at his ear, brow furrowed.
Marcus was where he always seemed to be—at his desk, sleeves rolled, scanning a document with laser focus. He glanced up as she slid into her chair outside.
“You’re early,” he said.
“I had an…energetic morning,” she said. “Figured I’d channel it into capitalism.”
He studied her a beat too long. “You look tired.”
“So do you,” she shot back.
“I always look tired,” he said. “It’s part of the brand.”
“And what brand is that?” she asked. “‘Haunted billionaire with a god complex’?”
“For someone who works for me,” he said calmly, “you have a surprising lack of self-preservation.”
“It’s in the job description,” she said, lifting her tablet. “Right under ‘must be able to handle light emotional damage.’”
The smallest hint of a smile ghosted across his face.
“Eight o’clock,” he said. “Let’s go.”
She followed him into the smaller conference room where Legal waited.
For the next ninety minutes, they walked through the Arcturus deal step by step. Financials, liabilities, projected returns. Environmental compliance. Labor concerns. Portvale’s latest moves.
Maya took notes, flagged follow-ups, and occasionally interjected when someone tried to schedule something that stomped all over an already-packed block on his calendar.
“No,” she said at one point, when Daniel suggested a four p.m. call with outside counsel. “He’s on with London then. We’ll be lucky if that ends before five-thirty.”
“We could move London,” Daniel said.
“We could,” she said. “But we won’t. They’re already annoyed we rescheduled yesterday, and we need them happy to untangle insurance issues. Six-thirty.”
Daniel looked between her and Marcus, clearly not used to being told no by someone without a title.
Marcus didn’t even glance up from the contract. “Six-thirty,” he said. “She’s right.”
Heat flushed Maya’s cheeks. Not from embarrassment.
From the sharp, quiet thrill of being backed up.
After the meeting, when they filtered out, she lingered behind, tidying papers.
Marcus watched her.
“You didn’t flinch,” he said.
“Should I have?” she said.
“Most people tiptoe around Legal,” he said. “They’re afraid of being…incorrect.”
“I’m afraid of double-booking you with a bunch of lawyers and bankers and watching your brain melt out your ears,” she said. “Also, I’m allergic to unnecessary rescheduling.”
“You do realize,” he said, “that if you schedule my days like this long-term, we will both die of exhaustion by forty-five.”
“Bold of you to think you’ll make it to forty-five under your current habits,” she said.
“How old do you think I am?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“Late thirties?” she guessed. “Thirty-eight?”
“Thirty-six,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “Then yeah, you’re not making forty-five like this.”
He huffed a laugh. “Your confidence in my longevity is touching.”
“I just don’t want to have to find a new job because you had a stress-induced coronary mid-earnings call,” she said. “Do you know how hard it is to write ‘reason for leaving: boss spontaneously combusted on Zoom’ on your résumé?”
He shook his head, amused despite himself. “Most people are afraid to joke about my death.”
“Most people are trying to ingratiate themselves,” she said. “I’m just trying to keep you alive long enough to cash my equity.”
His gaze sharpened briefly. “You read the equity terms.”
“I may have cried a little,” she said. “In a good way. Do you know how many student loans I can crush with that if the stock continues to climb?”
“That depends,” he said. “On whether you help me keep it climbing.”
She felt the weight of that. The acknowledgement that she mattered, even in a small way, to the machine he ran.
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
“I expect nothing less,” he said.
It should have been intimidating.
Instead, weirdly, it felt…motivating.
***
By Friday afternoon, the war room screens finally showed something that looked like progress.
Portvale’s leak had been blunted by a combination of Jenna’s messaging, Marcus’s all-hands, and a pointed op-ed by a retired Arcturus captain who’d called Portvale “fair-weather investors with delicate stomachs.”
The union reps weren’t hugging anyone, but they weren’t calling for a walkout either. Legal had found the missing report and triple-backed it up. The Journal’s second-day story on the saga used phrases like “complex” and “multi-layered” instead of “predatory” and “soulless,” which Jenna considered a win.
Marcus, for the first time all week, looked less like someone holding three grenades.
“You have an opening at six,” Maya told him around four-thirty, scrolling through his calendar. “Forty-five minutes. No calls, no meetings, no one scheduled to ask you for anything.”
“It’s a trap,” he said.
“It’s literally a blank space,” she said. “I’m pretty sure Stephen Hawking would back me up that those exist.”
“Use it,” he said.
“For what?” she said.
“Whatever you assistants do when you’re not saving idiots from themselves,” he said. “Go home. Go get a drink. See a friend.”
“And you?” she asked.
“I have work to do,” he said.
“You *are* work,” she said. “That doesn’t count.”
He gave her a look. “I’ll leave by eight.”
“You said that yesterday,” she said.
“And I left at nine-thirty,” he said. “Improvement.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
He caught the aborted words. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Maya,” he said warningly.
She sighed. “I was going to suggest you…not come in this weekend.”
He stared at her like she’d spoken in tongues. “Excuse me?”
“I know there’s a ton going on,” she said quickly. “And I know you probably have a tradition of ‘crisis weekends’ or whatever, but you’ve been operating at a hundred and twenty percent all week. You’re snapping less, but you’re…quieter. Tight. It’s only a matter of time before your body stages a coup. Take Sunday. Just…Sunday. Don’t come in. Don’t log on. Let your brain defrag.”
He just looked at her.
She should have stopped. Backed off. Let the silence eat the suggestion.
Instead, her mouth kept going.
“I’m not saying this because I’m some wellness influencer who thinks crystals can cure burnout,” she said. “I’m saying this because I watched my mom work double shifts for years and then get knocked on her ass by a stroke at fifty-two. She didn’t think she was ‘the burnout type’ either. No one does, until their body says ‘surprise.’”
Something shifted in his expression at the mention of her mom. A flicker of genuine interest under the annoyance.
“What happened?” he asked.
She took a breath. She hadn’t meant to go there. Not yet. But here they were.
“She pushed,” Maya said. “And pushed. And pushed. Because patients needed her and the hospital was understaffed and someone always had it worse. She used to say she’d rest when she retired. She didn’t make it that far.”
“She’s…alive,” he said, carefully.
“Yes,” Maya said. “But different. Slower. Half her face droops if she’s tired. She can’t work the floor anymore. She hates it. So now I work my ass off so she doesn’t have to. And one of the things I promised myself after that was that I wasn’t going to worship at the altar of work the way she did. That includes not enabling my boss to do it either.”
He absorbed that, his gaze steady on her face.
“I’m not your mother,” he said quietly.
“I know,” she said. “But you’re not invincible either.”
They held each other’s eyes. The office hummed softly around them.
Finally, he looked away.
“I’ll…consider it,” he said.
For him, that sounded like a concession.
“Consider faster,” she said lightly, breaking the tension. “Your calendar’s not going to clear itself.”
“Dismissed,” he said, but there was no heat in it.
She smiled and turned back to her screen.
He didn’t take Sunday off.
But on Saturday afternoon, when she impulsively checked her work email (violating the boundary she’d tried to set), she saw something that made her pause.
No sent messages from his account after noon.
No calendar invites. No forwarded deals.
Just a single, short thread with Oliver.
> From: Marcus Kane > To: Oliver Chen > Subject: Sunday > > I’m taking it. Don’t call unless we’re on fire.
She stared at the screen, a weird warmth blooming in her chest.
She typed a note to herself in her private doc:
*Remember: victory doesn’t always look like a revolution. Sometimes it’s a ruthless CEO not checking his email for 24 hours.*
She shut her laptop and, for the first time in months, let herself take a nap in the middle of a Saturday without guilt.
***