CHAPTER 8 #4
"People see the towers and the private cars," Helisa murmured, her eyes tracing the pattern on her juice glass with a touch of melancholy.
"But they don't see the nights where you're sitting in an empty office at two in the morning, wondering if the entire structure is going to collapse because a shipping line decided to change their rates.
It's a very small room at the top, Miley.
You sacrifice everything to get there, and then you realize you're entirely alone. "
I looked across the white linen at her, my voice soft and entirely sincere.
"Well... you don't look like you're collapsing to me, Helisa.
You look like you own every single square inch of the pavement.
But I get what you mean about the silence.
Sometimes the spaces we build to protect ourselves end up becoming our own personal cages. "
Helisa looked up, her dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made the alfredo sauce go cold in my throat.
A soft, beautiful smile touched her face, and for a second, the billionaire vanished entirely, leaving just a woman looking for a real connection.
"Thank you, Miley. That means more than you know. You see things most people miss."
After we finished what was easily the best chicken pasta I’d had all year, Marcus was already waiting by the curb, the massive black Nismo idling smoothly against the sidewalk.
He escorted us back into the leather cabin with his usual silent efficiency, closing the heavy door to seal us back into our private airspace.
The ride back to Mid-town felt entirely different from the journey out.
The nervous tension was completely gone, replaced by a low-key, comfortable intimacy that hummed between us like a radio frequency.
We didn't sing this time, but as the SUV crawled through the gridlock near Times Square, Helisa shifted her weight across the seat one last time.
She didn't say a word. She just reached out, her fingers catching the back of my neck beneath my box braids, her thumb caressing the sensitive skin right behind my ear.
She pulled my face down to hers for one last, spectacular kiss.
It was a long, deep, affectionate goodbye to the morning, our tongues meeting with a familiar, lazy heat that left my head spinning and my knees weak as the car pulled into the E-Tech executive garage.
"Tomorrow night," she whispered against my lips before pulling away. "Don't make me wait."
"I'll be there," I promised, my voice raspy.
The minute the vehicle stopped, the corporate visor slid back over Helisa’s face with a terrifying speed.
By the time the elevator doors opened in the basement level, she was behaving all professional again, her posture straight, her face a mask of unreadable executive focus as we stepped onto the floor.
As we made our ascent in the high-speed glass elevator, the digital numbers flashing past—10...
20... 30...—I stood a step behind her, using the reflection in the glass to adjust the hem of my charcoal skirt and check the alignment of my cream blouse, trying desperately to get back into that professional, disciplined condition before the doors opened onto the floor.
I couldn't let Ciara see a single crack in my composure.
I side-eyed my boss through the mirror, a tiny, uncontrollable smile playing at the corners of my mouth as I remembered the taste of the champagne on her tongue.
Helisa caught my eye in the reflection, her face completely stoic, but a tiny, near-invisible smile twitched at the edge of her lips as she cleared her throat loudly, signaling to me that we were almost at the forty-second floor and the performance was about to begin.
The elevator chimed, the doors sliding open to reveal the busy, high-stakes hum of the executive suite. Ciara was already standing by the central desk, holding a fresh stack of folders, her eyes instantly tracking the two of us as we walked back onto the floor in perfect, synchronized rhythm.
"Welcome back, ladies," Ciara called out, her eyes scanning my face for any signs of the talent retention metrics. "The London data stream just cleared, Helisa. You have exactly seven minutes before Japan calls back to finalize the signature parameters."
"Thank you, Ciara," Helisa said, her voice an absolute sheet of ice as she strode past her toward the glass office door without breaking her stride, the perfect image of a detached chief executive.
"Ms. Palmer, return to your station and begin compiling the third-quarter fuel surcharges.
I want them on my desk before the afternoon review begins. "
"On it, Ms. Smith," I said, my voice perfectly level, my face completely neutral as I turned toward my cubicle, my dimples tucked away as the corporate game resumed.
But as I sat down in my immaculate office chair and reached for the keyboard, the sweet, lingering scent of strawberry and vanilla rose from my collar, a quiet reminder that the forty-second floor would never feel like an ordinary workplace ever again.