Every head in the hallway turned.

I went still.

The tall man in front of me looked straight past me, his expression perfectly neutral, and gestured toward the door at my back.

"Excuse me. Could you move?"

I realized I was blocking the entrance. Heat rushed to my face, and I stepped aside.

Elliot Blackwood gave me a brief, polite nod — the kind you give a stranger — and walked into the chairman's office like he owned it.

Which, as of this morning, he did.

I went to the break room and made myself a cup of coffee.

Does he recognize me? Did he not recognize me?

That line—

Was it deliberate? Or just a coincidence?

I turned to look at my reflection in the glass cabinet beside me.

A thirty-three-year-old woman with a blurred face stared back. Chin-length hair, washed-out makeup, black-framed glasses. I'd been pulled away mid-audit, so I was still wearing my fraying old cardigan — the kind with the pilling fabric that said: I have been at a desk for a decade.

Versus the girl from five years ago, on that open road.

Reckless. Bright. Alive.

Two entirely different people.

Coincidence, I concluded.

He didn't recognize me.

Back at my desk, two of my junior staff were buzzing.

"He's impossibly good-looking — I thought he was some kind of celebrity at first. If I'd known the new chairman looked like that, I'd have stopped fighting the acquisition months ago—"

"He's twenty-eight, apparently. Built the startup from scratch and then took over the family company. This is a real-life romance novel CEO. I'm posting this on Instagram—"

"Don't be ridiculous—"

"Cleo went to block his way at the door and I'm not supposed to fangirl? Excuse me—"

I walked to my desk without expression.

"No office gossip during work hours."

Both of them went silent so fast their chins nearly hit the desk.

A sharp click of heels came down the corridor outside, and then Vivian Ashby walked in. Tight-fitted blazer, flawless makeup — her usual armor.

She dropped a stack of expense reports on the junior analyst's desk.

"Why were these sent back?"

The junior analyst flinched, fumbling through an explanation: "Ms. Ashby, the new reimbursement policy — anything over the limit by fifty percent needs the general manager's signature—"

Vivian cut her off. "Marketing is out there doing the heavy lifting while you sit in here finding reasons to slow us down?"

I looked up.

"Ms. Ashby." My voice was level. "The new expense policy was published weeks ago. We held a dedicated training session. If you don't understand the rules, go back and review them. If you disagree with them, bring it to leadership. Throwing a fit at a junior analyst doesn't prove anything except that you're louder than her."

Vivian turned, blinked once, and arranged her face into a look of slow realization.

"Cleo. You wouldn't happen to be settling a personal score here, would you?"

I adjusted my glasses.

"What personal score? You and I don't have one."

She gave a small, floating laugh.

"I suppose we'll have to let Preston come sort this out. You two do have a history, after all."

Preston Mercer arrived quickly.

Vivian was already positioned perfectly — eyes cast down at her shoes, lower lip caught between her teeth, the picture of a woman who'd just been treated unfairly.

"There's no need to make things difficult for her," Preston said, glancing at me with the mild tone of someone discussing the weather.

I knew this scene by heart. Before the divorce, he'd said variations of this to me more times than I could count.

We'd been married for three years. After he made Marketing Director, his relationship with his assistant Vivian had become something I couldn't comfortably name. I asked him to reassign her. He found this quaint and slightly absurd.

"You sit at your desk all day. Marketing teams socialize — it's part of the job. You're not really going to make an issue over a junior staff member, are you?"

There was one evening he came home drunk and I drove him back. Vivian was already in the back seat, hovering. When she got out at her stop, her skirt had ridden up. I saw enough.

I'm a low-energy person.

I didn't confront anyone. Didn't stage a scene. I filed for divorce.

Preston's response was mostly scorn.

"Cleo, if this is some strategy to get me back, you've misread me completely. I don't respond to ultimatums."

And then: "You're in your thirties. Divorced. Quiet. Inflexible. Let me know when you find a man half as good as me — I'll come kneel on the company steps."

We finalized the divorce quickly enough.

The problem was that we worked in the same building.

He and Vivian walked in and out together. He made a visible point of looking out for her in front of me — "of course I protect my own people" — while I watched from across the room.

Colleagues whispered that I was impressively patient. Why haven't you quit by now?

A few years ago, I would have. Quit. Left. Made myself invisible.

But I'm thirty-three now.

Thirty-three gives you a kind of ballast. I worked a long time to reach Finance Director. Why should I be the one to walk away?

They were the ones making a spectacle of themselves. Not me.

Right now.

Preston tilted his head and looked at me with that familiar edge of a smile.

"Dragging a junior into our personal business is a bit beneath you, don't you think?"

"Following procedure is dragging her into it? Is the company's expense policy something that exists to inconvenience her specifically?" I looked at him. "Preston, are you genuinely confused about this?"

He studied me for a few seconds, then laughed quietly.

"All right. We'll let the new chairman settle it tomorrow. Though, Cleo—" He lowered his voice, and something faintly pleased entered it. "If this is meant to provoke some reaction from me — honestly? A little low-effort."