Chapter 2
Tess
The overhead lights bleach the room in a steady, colorless glow, flattening every surface into a dull sameness.
A steady, dull pressure that makes it hard to tell whether time is moving or standing still.
The office smells faintly of paper and toner, clean but stale, like nothing new has happened here in weeks.
I sit behind my desk with a file open in front of me, pages neatly aligned, numbers checked twice, margins crisp. There’s nothing left to fix.
I flip the page anyway.
The columns don’t change. The projections don’t shift. Everything that needed doing has already been done, tied up and filed away with a precision that should feel satisfying. Instead, it leaves me restless, my fingers tapping lightly against the edge of the desk before I force them still.
The filing cabinet to my right is full, every drawer neatly arranged with labeled tabs and clean dividers separating each section. The folders sit in precise order, aligned so everything is easy to find. Nothing is out of place, nothing left unfinished, and there’s a quiet sense of structure.
August isn’t even close to over, and I’m already staring at next spring’s plans as if there’s nothing left between now and then.
A soft breath slips out before I can stop it.
Last Friday flashes through my mind, sharp and bright in contrast to the gray quiet of today.
Clara stood in the doorway of the office, sunlight catching in her hair, her entire focus wrapped around the small bundle in her arms. The tension that used to live in her shoulders was gone, replaced by an ease that showed in the way she shifted the baby without thinking, adjusting her hold with quiet confidence.
When someone spoke to her, she didn’t rush to answer or glance toward her desk out of habit.
She stayed where she was, her attention anchored fully on the small life in her arms, and everything about her made it clear that she wasn’t pulled in two directions anymore.
I remember the way she shifted baby Lily against her chest, instinctive, easy, like her body had always known how to do it.
The soft curve of her smile when someone leaned in for a closer look, the quiet pride in her eyes that had nothing to do with the company or the numbers or the weight she used to carry on her shoulders.
The baby had blinked up at me, tiny fingers curling and uncurling in the air, and something in my chest had tightened before I could name it.
When I hesitated a second too long, Clara laughed softly and stepped closer, placing Lily in my arms. The baby’s warmth settled against my chest immediately, impossibly small and impossibly alive, carrying that soft, sweet scent babies seemed to have no matter where they’d been or who held them.
I adjusted my grip instinctively, terrified of doing it wrong and already a little in love with the tiny life blinking up at me with wide, unfocused eyes.
Something inside me melted before I could stop it.
Holding her ignited an ache low in my chest, a quiet wondering I usually kept buried beneath schedules and spreadsheets and practical decisions. Whether someday I’d hold my own child like this. Whether I’d ever look at someone the way Clara looked at Lily.
And sitting here now, staring at spreadsheets that don’t need me, I can’t help wondering how long it will be before Clara comes back.
Or if she even wants to.
The sharp ping of a message cuts through the quiet, snapping my attention to the screen. The sound feels louder than it should in the stillness, a brief spike of something different.
I open the text from Jeremy.
Can you please come to my office?
My fingers hover over the keyboard for a second before I push my chair back and stand. The motion feels heavier than it should, like I’m stepping into something I can’t quite see yet.
The walk down the hallway is short, familiar. Jeremy’s door is closed, the frosted glass catching the overhead light, his name etched cleanly across the surface.
I knock once.
“Come in.”
I push the door open and step inside; the air is cooler here, quieter.
His office always feels a degree removed from the rest of the building, like the noise has to ask permission before it enters.
Jeremy stands behind his desk when I walk in, but he moves around it immediately, closing the distance in a few long steps.
“Close the door,” he says.
The words aren’t sharp, but I still realize I’ve been holding my breath when I exhale and turn to do as he asks. The latch clicks behind me, louder now that the hallway noise is gone.
He gestures toward the seating area off to the side, a pair of chairs angled toward each other with a low table between them. Not the chair in front of his desk. Not the place people sit when they’re being evaluated or dismissed.
Something in my shoulders loosens a fraction.
I cross the room and take the seat he indicated, smoothing my skirt before settling back. The leather is cool against my legs. Jeremy takes the chair opposite me, not crowding the space, but close enough that the conversation doesn’t feel distant.
For a moment, he just looks at me.
Not assessing. Not critical. Just… looking.
“Clara’s not coming back anytime soon,” he says finally.
The words land without surprise, but they still shift something inside me. I nod once, slow, thinking of the way she held Lily, the way she didn’t look like she was missing anything here.
“I figured,” I say.
He studies my face for a second longer, then nods, as if that confirms something for him. “She wants to focus on Lily for a while. Maybe longer. We’re not putting a timeline on it.”
“That makes sense.”
It does. Saying it out loud feels easier than the quiet restlessness that’s been sitting under my skin all morning.
Jeremy leans back slightly, one arm draped along the back of the chair, his posture relaxed but his attention still fixed on me. “You’re not happy.”
I hold his gaze, not rushing to answer. “I’m… underused.”
His mouth curves faintly at one corner, like he expected that wording. “That’s one way to put it.”
I gesture lightly toward the door, toward the rest of the office beyond it. “Everything that needs doing is done. Your assistant has most of it handled before it even reaches me. I’m not complaining,” I add, though the edge in my voice says otherwise. “I just don’t like sitting still.”
“No,” he agrees, easily. “You don’t.”
Silence stretches for a moment, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. Just… deliberate.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he continues, leaning forward slightly, his forearms resting on his thighs. “About where you fit right now, and where you’d be better used.”
Something in his tone sharpens my focus.
“Okay.”
“One of my best friends needs an assistant,” he says. “Temporarily. Maybe longer, depending on how it goes.”
I tilt my head slightly, considering that. “What kind of work?”
“Similar structure,” he replies. “Scheduling, coordination, keeping him from running his own operation into the ground. But on a larger scale. More moving parts.”
“And my position here?”
“Stays exactly as it is.” His answer comes without hesitation. “Bennett & Weston continues to pay you. Your benefits, your insurance, everything remains unchanged. This would be a temporary assignment. If you don’t like it, or if it doesn’t work out, you come back. No questions asked.”
I let that settle, turning it over in my mind. “And him?” I ask. “What’s he like to work for?”
Jeremy’s expression shifts, something that looks suspiciously like amusement flickering there before he smooths it out.
“He’s… demanding.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s a polite one.” His mouth curves again, a fraction more this time. “He’s good at what he does. Built everything he has from the ground up. But he goes through assistants.”
“How often?”
Jeremy exhales slowly, like he’s deciding how honest to be. “More often than I’d recommend.”
“A few?”
He huffs out a quiet laugh, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “More than a few.”
I sit back slightly, crossing one leg over the other. “And you think I should walk into that?”
“I think you’re competent enough to handle him,” he says, his voice firming. “And strong enough to make your boundaries clear.”
That gets my attention.
“Which one of your friends are we talking about?” I ask.
“Dylan Shaw.”
The name lands, and something in my chest tightens before I can stop it.
Dylan Shaw.
For a moment, I don't hear anything else Jeremy says.
Before the fundraiser, Dylan Shaw had simply been Iron Ridge's golden boy.
Fast as lightning on the football field, destined for the NFL before the Kansas City Chiefs made it official.
Back then, I'd admired him from a distance the way the whole town had.
He was on screens, in recaps, in conversations that stretched far beyond a small-town field.
I remember the night the Chiefs took the Super Bowl, the way his name got pulled back into it, tied to everything he’d been before the injury cut his career short.
It didn’t slow him down. If anything, it just pushed him in a different direction.
He built something else.
I’ve seen the stores his company created.
Clean lines, sharp branding, the kind of places that don’t just sell equipment but an idea of who you could be if you used it right.
One location turned into several, then into something that spread far beyond Kansas, until his name wasn’t just tied to football anymore but to a business that kept growing no matter how far it reached.
And somewhere in all of that, the other stories started to stick.
Assistants who didn’t last. Women who came and went. A pattern people mentioned with a half-smile, like it wasn’t quite a warning but wasn’t harmless either. The kind of reputation that builds quietly, reinforced by just enough truth that no one questions it.
My fingers tighten slightly against the armrest before I force them to relax.
Jeremy is still talking, but I’m looking at him differently now, measuring the gap between what he’s offering and what it actually means.
Working for Dylan Shaw isn’t a step up.
It’s stepping into something that doesn’t slow down for anyone.
And for the first time since I walked into this office, something sharp flickers under the boredom that’s been sitting in my chest all morning.
Not excitement.
Something closer to challenge.
Or maybe warning.
I capture Jeremy’s gaze. “You’re serious.”
“Completely.”
Silence settles between us again, heavier this time. I think of the files in my cabinet. The empty hours stretching ahead. The way Clara looked holding Lily, like she had stepped into something that mattered.
“I’ll do it,” I say finally. “One month. Trial.”
Jeremy nods once, like that was always the answer. “One month.”
“And if it doesn’t work—”
“You come back,” he finishes. “No loss.”
I push to my feet, the decision settling into place even as a flicker of something sharper moves through me. Anticipation. Maybe.
Or maybe just the promise of not being bored out of my mind.
“Alright,” I say, smoothing my hands over my skirt again. “Let’s see if I can keep up with your friend.”
Jeremy’s mouth curves again, slower this time, like he knows something I don’t.
“I think,” he says as he pushes to his feet, “the question is whether he can keep up with you.”