Cassidy #2
I shake my head quickly. “No, no, he helped, he did—”
“I’m sorry, little moonlight,” he says gently. “I’m teasing, but clearly, my sense of humour is not a good fit.”
My grimace was accidental, and his expression darkens slightly anyway like he’s cataloguing it despite himself.
“No, I just—” I shake my head quickly. “I thought you meant he was angry.”
Silas stills, and I don’t recognise the expression on his face.
“Angry at you?” he asks pointedly. The disbelief in his voice catches me off guard.
I look down instead of answering, fingers tightening against the edge of the lookbook. What am I meant to say?
Silas is my boss—in a way—and he’s also my boss’s brother. I can’t exactly sit here and tattle about one to the other.
“Cassidy.” His voice lowers slightly, and I peek at him under my lashes. “Do you genuinely think Harlan spent hours working on this because he was angry with you?”
Heat crawls painfully up my throat, and I look back down at my hands.
“I made extra work for him.”
“Yes,” Silas says easily.
He shrugs one shoulder, entirely unbothered by my horror.
“That tends to happen when people experience inconvenient biological events like collapsing.”
Despite myself, a startled laugh escapes me.
Silas’s mouth twitches at the sound like he wasn’t entirely sure he’d get it.
“There you are,” he murmurs.
Before I can recover enough to analyse that, he reaches across the desk and flips the lookbook open again.
“Come on,” he says. “Show me what you were building before my brother attacked it with his colour-coded violence.”
“I think the tabs are ranked by threat level,” I mutter before I can stop myself.
Silas snorts.
“Oh, absolutely. But he’d never be so plebeian to do it using the standard traffic lights. It’ll be some kind of code, for sure.”
My hand flies to my mouth to hide another laugh, and something warm flashes briefly through Silas’s expression before he settles back in his chair.
“There’s the campaign arc,” I say eventually, forcing myself to focus as I turn the pages toward him. “The opening is supposed to feel very polished and distant. Aspirational, I guess.”
“Mhm.”
“And then the later spreads soften progressively as the collection develops.”
“Because?” he prompts lightly.
I hesitate.
Not because I don’t know, but because I’m suddenly hyper-aware of him watching me. Of how close he is.
His eyes always leave the softest burn on my skin.
“The collection itself softens,” I say quietly. “The tailoring becomes less rigid. The fabrics move differently. It felt wrong to keep the campaign emotionally cold once the clothing stopped being cold.”
Silas studies me for a second too long and then nods. “That’s exactly the right instinct. Good observation, little moon.”
My pulse stutters, and my flush is back, covering practically my entire body. If my scent wasn’t obvious before, it definitely is now.
I’m a mess.
How can he offer praise so… simply? Like it’s actually true?
He leans forward slightly, turning another page.
“You’re very good at emotional continuity,” he says conversationally. “Most people at Opus can style beautiful things. Very few understand narrative progression.”
I stare at him, my mouth open like a fish. My brain genuinely doesn’t know what to do with that.
“I—”
“You think visually like a storyteller,” he continues, still scanning the pages. “That’s harder to teach than technical skill.”
Something in my chest twists tight. Nobody’s ever spoken to me like this professionally before.
Silas taps one of the pages lightly.
“This spread is probably my favourite.”
I glance down automatically, confused. This one has a few comments from Harlan, so I wasn’t expecting it to be okay.
“The silk one?”
“The one where the model looks like she’s about to ruin someone’s life,” he corrects.
I choke on a laugh, looking up at him with a soft smile.
“That was not the brief.”
“No?” His eyes flick toward me lazily. “Then why is it the strongest image in the campaign?”
Heat blooms across my cheeks again. Talking to him is exhausting in a completely different way than talking to Harlan.
Harlan makes me feel dissected. Silas makes me feel noticed.
He shifts closer slightly to turn another page, his forearm brushing mine for half a second.
The contact is brief.
Accidental.
And my entire body notices it instantly, my scent perfuming around us.
I’m mortified because I know Silas notices, but he doesn’t say a single thing. The weight of it hangs in the air, and I’m hyperaware of every minuscule move he makes as he deliberately turns the page again.
The conversation keeps flowing easily, like nothing happened at all, as he continues going through the lookbook page by page.
Where Harlan’s extremely critical, Silas seems to prefer to focus on what he likes and how it actually fits.
“The lighting transition here works,” he says, pointing to the page near the end of the book. “But this page needs grounding visually or the warmth spike feels abrupt.”
I lean closer automatically, trying to follow what he means. Our shoulders almost touch now, and my breathing hitches.
“This one?” I ask quietly.
“Mhm.” His finger taps near the corner of the spread. “You lose your anchor texture for too long.”
My stomach drops immediately. Oh. no.
Now that he’s pointed it out, I can see it instantly.
The silk motif disappears completely for several spreads before returning later in the campaign.
“I should’ve caught that,” I say softly, disappointment curling hot beneath my ribs as I look at him wide-eyed. “That’s such an obvious gap, and such a stupid mistake. I am so sorry, sir.”
“Hey,” he says gently but firmly. There’s no way I can keep talking when he’s this… in control, so I pause and look at him.
Of course, he’s already watching me—that familiar burn is there—but the expression on his face is one I’ve never seen before.
The word lands gently.
“Harlan already reviewed this and missed it, moonlight,” he says. “You’re not to blame for my brother’s crappy teaching, and I’m not going to sit here and let you apologise for a mistake he also made.”
A startled huff escapes me, halfway between a laugh and a sniffle. But guilt still lingers stubbornly in my chest.
“I still should’ve noticed.”
“Probably,” he agrees easily.
I blink at him in betrayed surprise, and he winks. The gesture is so unlike him, and yet, so expected at the same time.
“But now, you’ll never miss it again, which is generally how learning works.”
My cheeks burn, and I nod.
“You really don’t sugarcoat things, do you?”
“No.” His gaze drifts over my face briefly before settling back onto the page. “It would just be an insult.”
Silas nudges the lookbook gently back toward me.
“Fix the transition spread,” he says. “Then we’ll send this out before the executives start inventing emergencies for attention.”
Somehow, over the next hour, that’s exactly what happens.
Silas sprawls across the spare chair drinking increasingly terrible office coffee whilst I adjust the layouts and swap the visual references, getting his okay on each before I approve it.
We argue over a fabric pull, and I’m surprised by how easy it is, despite my usual nerves around him.
Even better, he admitted defeat.
“Fine. Keep the chiffon. But when it destroys the entire western world emotionally, this is on you.”
By the time the final version is exported and distributed to production, merchandising, creative, and executive review, my shoulders feel lighter than they have in days.
Silas glances at the sent confirmation before pushing to his feet.
“Well,” he says. “Nobody cried, passed out, or committed homicide. I’d call that a successful Monday.”
I roll my eyes despite smiling faintly at the alpha with a dry sense of humour.
“That feels like an incredibly low bar.”
“Working with Harlan?” He picks up his empty coffee mug. “Trust me, moonlight, it’s aspirational.”
I laugh softly, but it fades quicker than I expect.
Silas doesn’t leave immediately.
He should. The meeting is over, the lookbook is submitted, and there are at least three departments probably waiting for him to make decisions.
But he stays beside my desk, fingers curled loosely around the handle of his mug, watching me with that unreadable intensity again.
“You seemed more rested today,” he says, his gaze not moving from mine.
My spine straightens instinctively. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask if you were fine.”
The words are mild, with no real snap to them, not like they would’ve been if they came from Harlan.
Or Evander.
Nothing about Silas feels threatening, despite being an alpha. But he can still stop me from protesting further.
I glance down at the sent confirmation still glowing on my screen, trying to think of something normal to say.
Something professional.
“I… I slept,” I say eventually.
Silas’s mouth twitches faintly. “Revolutionary.”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it, and he winks at me.
“I know. Very impressive.”
“You know,” he says after a moment, his voice almost careless, “there are easier ways to prove you belong here than trying to work yourself into an early grave.”
My throat tightens.
“I’m not trying to—”
“Little moon.”
I stop. The nickname lands differently this time.
More like a warning.
Silas’s gaze stays steady on mine. “I know what overcompensating looks like, and that’s what you’re doing.”
“Harlan wasn’t always easy to keep up with,” he says quietly. “Especially when we were younger. After I lost my parents… I wanted desperately to fit in with Harlan.”
I blink, thrown by the admission. He doesn’t elaborate further, and I don’t ask.
I’m not sure I’m allowed to.
But there’s something in his tone that makes me think he isn’t talking about work at all.
“He’s brilliant,” Silas continues, “which is irritating because it means he’s convinced he’s right even when he’s being a complete asshole.”
I blush, looking at my lap. “I can imagine that was hard, especially when you were younger.”
“It was.” His eyes flick back to mine. “But he’s also brilliant, and you’ve got to remember that he chose you for this role because of your talent, Cassidy.”