Chapter Eight The Assistants Report
Adrian Park had worked for Lena Thomson for eight years.
He had seen her acquire companies, dismantle competitors, and once reduce a sixty-year-old CEO to tears without raising her voice.
He had watched her navigate boardroom coups, family drama, and a shareholder revolt that involved actual private investigators.
He had learned to read her silences, her micro-expressions, the tiny shifts in her posture that signaled everything from mild irritation to impending catastrophe.
So when she started coming into the office with her hair slightly less perfect than usual, he noticed.
When she asked him to reschedule a Monday morning meeting for no apparent reason, he noticed.
When she spent fifteen minutes staring at her phone without typing anything, he really noticed.
But he said nothing. That was his job. Observe, assist, and keep his observations to himself unless asked.
Until the requests started.
---
"Adrian, I need you to contact Golden Thread Pictures."
Lena didn't look up from her laptop. It was Tuesday morning, three days after the move. She was sitting at her desk—the glass one, the one that didn't hold fingerprints—and her expression was perfectly neutral.
"What's the nature of the contact?" Adrian asked, notepad ready.
"Miu Srisuwan is a junior screenwriter there. I want to review her workload."
Adrian's pen paused. "Review it for what purpose?"
"Efficiency. Productivity. She's pregnant. She shouldn't be under unnecessary stress."
"Her pregnancy is approximately three weeks along."
"I'm aware."
"Most people don't announce until twelve weeks."
"I'm not most people, and this isn't a normal pregnancy." Lena's jaw tightened. "She's carrying my genetic material. Her health directly impacts the outcome. If her job is adding strain, we need to adjust it."
Adrian wrote down adjust workload and tried not to let his expression change. He had been in enough boardrooms to know when a request was actually an order dressed in neutral language.
"How would you like me to approach it?" he asked.
"Quietly. No direct communication to Ms. Srisuwan. Speak with her supervisor. Frame it as a company initiative to support creative staff."
"And if her supervisor asks why she's receiving special treatment?"
Lena looked up. Her eyes were cold in the way they got when she was about to say something that wasn't open for discussion.
"Tell him it's a Thomson Group directive. He doesn't need to know more than that."
Adrian nodded. Made another note. Left the office.
In the hallway, he paused and looked back through the glass wall. Lena was already on her phone, scrolling through something—not a spreadsheet, not an email. The screen was dark. She was just holding it.
He had never seen her do that before.
---
Golden Thread Pictures occupied the third floor of a converted warehouse. Adrian had been there twice before, both times for budget meetings. The space was loud, creative, and smelled like old coffee and new ideas. He preferred his own office, which smelled like nothing at all.
Miu's supervisor was a man named Gerald Finch. Adrian had met him once. He was fifty-seven years old, perpetually grumpy, and known for making junior writers cry. He had a reputation for being impossible to please and even harder to work for.
Adrian found him in a corner office with a window that faced a brick wall.
"Mr. Finch," Adrian said, extending a hand. "Adrian Park. I'm here on behalf of Lena Thomson."
Gerald shook his hand with the enthusiasm of a man who had just been told his flight was delayed. "I know who you are. What does she want?"
"Ms. Thomson has reviewed the productivity metrics for the writing department and believes there's an opportunity to improve creative output by reducing administrative pressure on key staff."
Gerald stared at him. "In English."
Adrian smiled. It was the smile he used when he was about to say something that wasn't quite true but wasn't quite false either. "She wants you to lighten Miu Srisuwan's workload. Extend her deadlines. Reassign some of her lower-priority tasks. Quietly."
Gerald's eyebrows rose. "Srisuwan? The junior? Why her?"
"She's working on a project that Ms. Thomson considers strategically important."
"What project?"
Adrian had prepared for this. "The Cat Revolution script."
Gerald blinked. "The what?"
"It's a comedy about a cat that starts a protest. Ms. Thomson believes it has franchise potential."
Gerald stared at him for a long moment. Then he laughed—a short, surprised bark. "That script is a mess. It's been stuck in development for six months."
"Ms. Thomson has faith in the writer."
"She's never even read it."
"Ms. Thomson has faith in the writer," Adrian repeated.
Something shifted in Gerald's expression. Not understanding—Adrian didn't expect him to understand—but recognition. The kind of recognition that came from working in an industry where powerful people occasionally made inexplicable decisions.
"Fine," Gerald said. "I'll push her deadlines. Reassign the coverage work. But I want it noted that this is unusual."
Adrian pulled out his phone and typed a note. "Noted."
He left the building and called Lena.
"It's done," he said. "Her deadlines have been extended by three weeks. Her supervisor will reassign her low-priority tasks to an intern."
"Good."
"Lena." Adrian rarely used her first name. He used it now. "He asked why. I told him it was about a cat script."
Silence.
"You told him what?"
"A cat script. The one she's working on. He believed me."
More silence. Then Lena said, very quietly, "She mentioned that script. At the apartment."
"You remembered a conversation about a cat script."
"I remember everything."
Adrian stood outside the converted warehouse, watching the clouds move across the sky. Vancouver was doing its usual thing—gray, patient, waiting for something to change.
"You like her," he said.
Lena didn't respond. The line went quiet in a way that told him she was still there, still listening, still deciding whether to hang up.
"Lena."
"I don't like anyone. You know that."
"That's not true. You liked your father. Before."
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.
"Don't," Lena said.
"I'm not judging. I'm observing. You've rearranged someone's work life because you noticed she was stressed. You moved into a building with a broken dishwasher. You bought champagne for a woman you've met three times. These are not the actions of someone who feels nothing."
"She's carrying my—"
"She's carrying your egg. Yes. I know. But you don't have to move buildings for an egg. You don't have to remember her script for an egg. You don't have to stare at your phone for fifteen minutes hoping she'll call."
Lena was quiet for so long that Adrian thought she might have hung up.
Then she said, "Adrian."
"Yes."
"Shut up."
He smiled. It was the first genuine smile he'd had all week. "Yes, ma'am."
---
The changes happened slowly.
Miu noticed them the way you notice the weather—not all at once, but in small increments. Her deadlines moved. The Thursday morning coverage meeting was canceled. Gerald, who usually snapped at everyone, walked past her desk and said nothing at all.
She mentioned it to Tina over takeout.
"My boss is being weird," Miu said. "Nice weird. Like, suspiciously nice. He didn't yell at me when I turned in pages two days late."
"Maybe he's finally on medication."
"He's been in the same mood for fifteen years. People don't change."
"People don't," Tina agreed, stealing a spring roll. "But circumstances do."
Miu frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Tina shrugged. "Nothing. Eat your noodles."
But Miu couldn't shake the feeling that something had shifted. The weight on her shoulders was lighter. The panic that had been living in her chest since the clinic had quieted to a dull hum. She had time now. Space. Room to breathe.
She didn't connect it to Lena. Not yet.
---
Adrian watched.
He watched Lena check her phone forty-seven times in one afternoon—not for calls, not for emails, just to see if there was anything from Miu.
There never was. Miu didn't text. Miu didn't call.
Miu was, as far as Adrian could tell, living her life in the apartment below Lena's with no awareness that the woman upstairs was rearranging her world.
He watched Lena leave work early on a Wednesday—something she had never done in eight years—and drive to a grocery store in East Vancouver. Not the fancy one near her old apartment. The one near Miu's building.
He watched her buy sparkling water, arugula, and a single lemon. Then, after a long pause, a bag of gummy bears.
He did not ask about the gummy bears.
He did not need to.
---
"You're staring at the ceiling again."
It was Friday evening. Adrian had stopped by Lena's new apartment to drop off documents. The space was clean—Lena's spaces were always clean—but different. Smaller. Warmer. There was a blanket on the couch that didn't match anything else.
"I'm not staring," Lena said. She was sitting on the floor, back against the couch, laptop open but ignored. "I'm thinking."
"About?"
"The situation."
Adrian set the documents on the kitchen counter. The kitchen had a cutting board, a single vase with a branch, and a bottle of champagne with two glasses beside it. The bottle was half empty.
"You're drinking alone?"
"I had a glass."
"Two glasses."
"One and a half."
Adrian sat down on the floor across from her. The hardwood was cold. Lena didn't seem to notice.
"She doesn't know," Lena said.
"Know what?"
"Any of it. The deadlines. The supervisor. The grocery store." Lena's voice was flat, but her hands were moving—folding and unfolding the edge of the blanket. "She thinks her boss just decided to be nice. She thinks everything is normal."
"Isn't that what you wanted? For her not to be stressed?"
"Yes."
"So why do you look like someone canceled your favorite meeting?"
Lena looked up. Her expression was unreadable, but Adrian had known her for eight years.
He saw what she was trying to hide. The same thing he had seen when she stared at her phone, when she bought the gummy bears, when she moved into a building with a broken dishwasher and a cat that judged everyone.
"I want her to know," Lena said quietly. "Not about the work. That's not—I don't need credit for that. I just want her to know that I'm... present. That I'm not going anywhere."
Adrian nodded slowly. "You want her to see you."
"I want her to see that I'm trying."
"That's not a business request, Lena."
"I know."
They sat in silence. Somewhere downstairs, a cat meowed. Somewhere outside, a car drove past with music playing too loud. The apartment smelled like nothing—Lena's signature—but underneath it, something new. Something almost like home.
"Have you told her?" Adrian asked.
"Told her what?"
"That you're attracted to her."
Lena's head snapped up. "I'm not—"
"You bought gummy bears, Lena. You don't eat sugar. You've never eaten sugar. You told me once that sugar was 'an inefficient source of energy.'"
"She mentioned them. At the grocery store. She had them in her basket."
"You remembered what was in her grocery basket."
Lena stood up. Walked to the window. The view was different here—not water and mountains, but rooftops and laundry lines and the neon sign of the laundromat across the street. Real. Messy. Human.
"I'm not attracted to her," Lena said to the window. "I'm invested in the pregnancy. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
Lena didn't answer.
Adrian stood, brushed off his pants, and picked up his coat. He had said enough. More than enough. But as he walked to the door, he paused.
"For what it's worth," he said, "I think she's good for you. The building. The blanket. The gummy bears. You're less... efficient."
"That's supposed to be a compliment?"
"It's the only kind I give."
He left.
Lena stood at the window for a long time after he was gone. The laundromat sign flickered. A woman walked her dog. Someone two floors down was cooking something that smelled like garlic.
She pulled out her phone. Opened Miu's contact. Stared at the name.
Miu Srisuwan.
She didn't call. She never called.
But she typed a text. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted that too.
Finally, she wrote: The gummy bears are in the top cabinet. Left side. In case you want them.
She sent it before she could change her mind.
Three minutes later, her phone buzzed.
You bought gummy bears?
Yes.
For me?
For the apartment. In case of guests.
I'm a guest?
You're my neighbor.
Neighbors aren't guests.
Then they're for you.
A pause. The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
The green ones are the best. Just so you know.
Lena smiled. Actually smiled, alone in her apartment, at a text about gummy bears.
She typed back: Noted.
Then she set down her phone, picked up the champagne bottle, and poured herself another half glass.
Downstairs, Miu opened her top cabinet. Left side. Found the bag of gummy bears. Ate the green ones first.
And for reasons she couldn't explain, she smiled too.