Chapter 15
Callum
Friday had the nerve to arrive like it did not know what I had done.
Seattle was bright after two days of rain, all glass and wet streets flashing under a pale spring sun, and Rowe Tower rose out of it as if it had never housed a single bad decision in its life.
I arrived before seven with an overnight bag in the back of the car, two hours of sleep behind me, and a weekend trip ahead of me that I did not want to take.
Hartwell had become the kind of problem that fed itself while everyone else slept.
Lang had managed to get two council members asking for an ‘independent pause,’ which was political language for someone said something loud enough to frighten the herd.
Marcus had arranged meetings at the capital.
Tom wanted me in a room with outside counsel.
Elise wanted me in front of the third-party safety reviewer before Lang got there first. Dana wanted me to stop writing statements that sounded like I was defending myself.
Benjamin wanted me to stop fucking the new hire.
He had not said it exactly that way, though, which was a mercy neither of us deserved.
Avery was already in my office when I walked in, sitting at the desk that I had paid facilities to assemble and install before anyone sensible could stop me.
She wore a charcoal skirt today with a pale blue blouse tucked into it and her hair swept back from her face in a way that made her look composed, clear-eyed, and painfully young until she looked up at me.
Then the youth vanished under something more private.
Mine, some caveman part of me supplied, and I set my briefcase down before the thought could reach my face.
“Good morning, Mr. Rowe,” she said.
“Good morning, Miss Hale.”
Her eyes heated at the formality, just enough for me to notice.
I sat down and worked while Avery worked a few feet away from me.
She took notes on the mayor’s office call with more detail than Marcus, who had been doing this for fifteen years.
She cleaned up Dana’s briefing summary without removing the spine of it.
She caught a timeline inconsistency in a risk memo that Tom had missed, then immediately looked startled by her own usefulness, as if competence were something that had happened to her by accident instead of something she had been carrying around under fear and bad bosses for years.
I wanted to praise her for it.
I did. Twice.
The first time, she smiled down at her keyboard like she was trying to hide the effect. The second time, she bit her lip and pretended to reach for a pen.
I noticed.
God help me, I noticed everything.
By three, my office had turned into a war room.
Benjamin moved in and out with documents, legal updates, coffee, and the expression of a man suffering on behalf of civilization.
Dana came in at least five times, once to argue with me, once to argue with Marcus over speakerphone, twice to retrieve Avery for ‘useful work that does not involve Callum’s gravitational field,’ and once to stand in my doorway, look between us, and say nothing at all.
Avery survived it with her chin up, but I saw the flush creep along her throat after Dana left.
At five-thirty, the floor began thinning around us.
The Hartwell team had moved from panic to siege mode, which was progress.
Legal had drafted notices. PR had a statement that did not make me want to throw it through the glass.
Marcus was already on the train to the capital, and I was due to follow in a private car at seven that night so I could spend my Saturday morning explaining to people in expensive suits that anonymous insinuation was not evidence, safety was not a campaign slogan, and Lang could go to hell through the proper channels.
Avery was still working.
She had a pen in one hand, a stack of internal summaries beside her, and that particular furrow between her brows that appeared when she was trying to turn nonsense into language people could use.
I watched her for longer than I should have.
The evening light had gone gold against the glass behind her, catching in the loose strands of her hair and softening the severe line of her blouse.
She looked tired. She looked proud. She looked like trouble I had already chosen to engage in and would definitely choose again.
“You’re done,” I said.
She looked up. “I still have two more.”
“They’ll be there Monday.”
“I can finish them.”
“I know. That isn’t what I said.”
Her mouth tightened with what looked like disappointment. It hit me harder than it should have.
“You’re sending me home?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Because of the trip?”
“Because of the trip. Because you’ve worked a full day. Because if I keep you in this office any longer, Benjamin will develop a medical condition purely out of spite.”
Avery smiled, but it was smaller than usual. “And because you need distance?”
I leaned back in my chair.
“No,” I replied. “Because I need to exercise some restraint.”
I should not have said that. It was too honest for the office and too harsh for what had been happening between us.
She stood slowly, gathering her things. “I can get myself home.”
“I know.”
“Callum…”
“I have a car waiting for you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I am capable of ordering an Uber.”
“Yes.”
“And taking the train.”
“I know.”
“And walking in a straight line without falling into a storm drain.”
“Debatable.”
That earned me the smile I wanted. The sight of it eased something in my chest and made the rest of me ache.
I stood and came around the desk. Avery’s hands stilled around the strap of her bag.
She knew, now, what it meant when I moved toward her.
I watched her pupils widen and hated how much I liked it.
I stopped two feet away.
“You’re going straight to the airport?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you won’t be back until Sunday?”
“Late Sunday, if the gods of municipal panic are kind.”
“Are they usually?”
“Never.”
She looked down, and there it was again—that small, human disappointment she had every right to feel and no right to be punished for. I wanted to take it from her. I wanted to put my hand in her hair, tilt her face up, and kiss away the expression I had caused.
Instead, I reached for her coat. She let me help her into it.
The gesture was old-fashioned enough to be safe if anyone saw it and intimate enough to be dangerous because we both knew what my hands had done to her.
My fingers brushed the back of her neck as I lifted her collar into place. She inhaled softly.
I stepped back.
“Go home,” I said gently. “Eat. Shower. Sleep.”
Her mouth curved, but her eyes revealed her vulnerability. “Is that an order?”
“It’s mercy.”
“For whom?”
I looked at her and the question hung between us, bright and reckless.
“For both of us,” I said.
Her smile faded into something warmer. “Okay.”
I walked her to the door, but not beyond it. At the threshold, she turned.
“Have a good trip,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“Try not to murder anyone important.”
“I’ll delegate.”
“Benjamin?”
“He prefers psychological warfare.”
“That tracks.”
For a second, she looked like she might say something else. Maybe something that would have made leaving harder. Then she only nodded and stepped out.
Benjamin was at his desk.
He looked up as Avery passed, his expression immaculate and unreadable. “Good evening, Ms. Hale.”
“Good evening, Benjamin.”
“Safe ride home.”
Her gaze flicked to him with mild surprise. “Thank you.”
She walked toward the elevators, and I watched her go for approximately one second too long.
Benjamin waited until the elevator doors closed.
Then he said, without looking at me, “You know, many executives prefer scandals that do not arrive with their own workstation.”
I closed my office door behind me but did not retreat inside. “Good evening to you too.”
“It was, briefly. Then I had to reschedule your car, placate Marcus, soothe Tom, threaten PR, and observe whatever this is.”
“This?”
He looked up. “Do not make me define this. I am undercaffeinated and spiritually tired.”
I leaned against the doorframe. The floor was mostly empty now, the after-hours hush settling over glass walls and darkening monitors.
Far across operations, Dana was still in her office, visible through the glass, jacket off, shoes kicked under her desk, red pen in hand.
She looked like a woman who would survive the collapse of civilization and correct the grammar of the announcement.
Benjamin followed my gaze. “She knows.”
“I assumed.”
“She has eyes.”
“She told Avery that yesterday.”
“She has also told me, twice, that if you make her complicit in nonsense she will resign and become a judge out of spite.”
“She’d be a terrible judge.”
“She would be magnificent. Everyone would be guilty by lunch and executed by dinner.”
I pushed off the doorframe. “Say whatever you’ve been rehearsing.”
Benjamin set his tablet down with unnatural care, which was how I knew this was not going to be one of his ornamental lectures. The ornamental ones came with footwork, props, sometimes tasty muffins. This one came with a particular kind of stillness that made me uneasy.
“You know how big of a scandal this would be if it went public.”
I said nothing.
“Not office gossip public. Not Dana-glares-at-you-across-a-conference-table public. I mean public public. Newsletters. Columns. Council members with microphones.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” His voice sharpened. “Because the story writes itself, Callum. Powerful CEO hires his dead friend’s beautiful daughter after a late-night email, installs her inside his office, and suddenly she’s leaving after hours in company cars.
Add goddaughter, add age gap, and congratulations, you have handed our enemies a bouquet of daggers with which to eviscerate you. ”
My jaw tightened.
“I am not saying she is a mistake,” he appended.
That surprised me enough that I looked at him.