Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Walls Up
Catalina
I always know when something’s off. It’s the first thing they teach you at the Vaquer dinner table, how to clock a mood, how to hear an argument three rooms away by the way a fork hits the ceramic, how to predict the next two days based on the sound of a door closing.
It’s why, when I step out of the elevator and hit the glass half-mile that is Precision’s executive corridor, I know, before I even see him, that Aiden is not himself.
By Wednesday, the wrongness has spread to the air itself.
Precision Dynamics is engineered to suffocate error, every surface immaculate, every light tuned for maximum dopamine drip, but even the recycled air tastes a degree off this week.
I’m at my desk at 7:51, hair scraped into a bun, skirt pressed, blazer sharp.
I don’t need the armor, but sometimes you wear it for the other guy’s benefit.
I type a quick status update for Aiden and slide the portfolio under his door, because the usual open invitation is gone.
At 8:02, he calls: “Ms. Vaquer?”
I answer before the second ring. “Yes, Aiden.”
He doesn’t look up when I enter. He slides the marked-up contract across the desk, left hand steady, right knuckle tapping a metronome on the mouse pad. His eyes are on the LCD, the blue of the screen making him look half a shade paler.
“Edits are done,” he says. “Thank you.” He says it into the space next to my left shoulder, not to me. Four nights ago he had his mouth against that same shoulder, biting hard enough that I wore a bruise to a breakfast meeting. Now I might as well be air.
The “thank you” is meant to be a period, but I don’t move. “Should I book Zurich for next week?”
He gives the smallest shake of his head, still not looking. “No travel for me. I’ll brief remotely.”
I wait for a question, a joke, anything. All I get is a silence so dense it could compress into a diamond if I stood here long enough. I pick up the folder and leave, closing the door with the softest possible click.
The next day, I go to his office at 8:30 with the weekly compliance report. I knock twice, like always.
Instead of, “Come in,” I get, “Leave it on the desk, please.” The voice is flat, perfect.
I push the door open two inches, enough to see his shoulders hunched forward, both hands white-knuckled on the armrests.
At 10:00, I ping him with the daily summary. He responds in single syllables, barely even verbs:
“Noted.”
“Received.”
“Confirm.”
I try to sneak in a joke: “If I don’t hear from you in 30 minutes, I’ll assume you’ve been abducted by the Swiss again. Should I ransom you, or let them keep you?”
His reply: “Busy. Please handle Zurich as discussed.”
I type out three different snarky responses, then delete them all. I want to throw my phone through the window, but settle for slamming it face-down on my desk.
The thing is, I don’t do this. I have a whole system: keep it fun, keep it light, keep one foot already out.
It’s served me fine all these years. So I don’t know what to call the feeling currently eating through my sternum like a slow acid, except wrong.
Wrong and inconvenient and not something I agreed to.
11:00 I’m in his office, stack of folders in my arms that are there primarily just for show.
“Am I booking you a car to meet with Soto next Wednesday?” I ask, stepping into the office farther until I’m right in front of his desk and impossible to ignore.
“No. Reschedule that meeting.” He doesn’t even look up from his computer screen.
I put the stack of folders down on the corner of his desk and lean over toward him until he looks at me and ask, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just a heavy week.”
I don’t buy it. I’ve been studying this man almost obsessively since I got here and I know when he is lying.
“You know I’m not an idiot, right?” I say, sliding the folders back into my arms before walking out of the office.
By noon, I’ve caught the pattern, every time I get close, he puts up a wall. Every interaction is a little colder, a little more automated. I spiral.
Maybe he’s mad at me for something. Maybe I overstepped at the dinner with Marcus. Maybe the project is falling apart, and I’m just collateral damage. Maybe he just doesn’t care.
I tell myself I don’t care either. I almost believe it.
Friday morning, I come in early because I haven’t slept right since the last night I spent beside him. I open my calendar and see three appointments I didn’t set.
7:00 am: Security Consult / External
1:00 pm: PDI Internal Review – Restricted
4:30 pm: Final Interview, candidate: Samantha Z
I don’t recognize the last name. I check our shared inbox, and there’s nothing about a new hire or interview. I search the company database; there’s no “Samantha Z” in HR or Operations, or in the Zurich office. My scalp prickles.
I’m paranoid, but what if he’s planning something without me? What if I’m about to be benched, ghosted? Replaced.
I try the personnel log. Last update, 1:07 am, by Aiden St. James.
I go through the travel logs. Two car service bookings from the last 24 hours, both to the east side, both round-trip, both flagged as “private.” I did not arrange these.
I open the shared drive and see a new project folder: 0415828A1. No label, no contents, and when I try to access it, I get “access denied.”
I press my two fingers to the edge of my desk, the way I do when I can’t decide if I should push the button or just wait for the next alarm to go off.
I feel the pulse in the tips of my fingers, the phantom memory of his hands wrapping my wrists in silk, the pressure of his lips against the skin he now won’t even look at.
I stare until my screensaver kicks in.
I tell myself it’s none of my business. I tell myself I’m being crazy. But the confusion and the self-doubt just keep growing, louder than the endless, pointless office noise.
I don’t text ahead, because I’m not giving him a chance to dodge me.
The ride deposits me outside the glass tower, and I punch in the code at the lobby like muscle memory.
When I finally get off the elevator on the top, penthouse floor, I don’t even pause at his door, just knock twice, loud enough to carry.
He answers in rolled sleeves and a mess of hair. No tie. Dress shirt open at the throat. His hair is tousled, the same way it looks after I’ve ran my fingers through it thoroughly. The thought of someone else doing that to him makes my stomach churn so I push it down.
He seems surprised, but only for a second. “Cat,” he says, no inflection. Not Catalina, not Ms. Vaquer.
I keep my arms loose at my sides. My voice is so even it almost sounds synthetic. “You didn’t answer my message.”
On the kitchen island, his laptop glows, surrounded by a minefield of paper and a half-empty rocks glass. He walks over and closes the laptop with one hand, then wipes at his face, like he’s trying to erase all evidence of himself. “Sorry. Things have been…intense.”
The fuck does that mean?
I drop my bag on the counter, every movement calculated to broadcast this is normal, I’m fine, you can’t get to me. “Cut the shit. Are you going to tell me what’s actually going on?”
He leans back against the fridge, arms folded. I track the tic in his jaw, the way his shoulders roll forward like he’s bracing for impact.
“It’s not personal,” he says, but I can already feel the knife between my ribs.
“Are you firing me?” I ask. The question comes out sharp. “Because if so, at least do it in writing, Aiden.”
He flinches at my tone, but recovers. “Nobody’s firing you. But there’s a situation. Something I have to handle. Alone.”
I snort. “You’re a CEO, not fucking Batman.”
His face goes stone. “There’s a project. It requires absolute confidentiality, even from you for a while, and I need to handle it without distraction,” he says, and it sounds practiced, but the way he looks away when he says “distraction” gives away more than he thinks.
I lean on the counter, arms crossed now. “You think I’m a liability.” I don’t ask it. I state it.
He starts to answer, stops. He looks out at the city, then back down at the whiskey glass. “I think it’s complicated.”
I let out a sound that’s not quite a laugh. “No, Aiden. Quantum mechanics is complicated. This is simple. You either trust me or you don’t.”
He’s silent long enough that I want to smash the glass just to force a reaction.
Then, soft: “Maybe we should take a step back. At least until this project is through.” His voice has that CEO-calm, the kind that says “we’re sunsetting your position” instead of “you’re fired.”
I let the silence sit between us, a loaded chamber.
“So that’s it?” I say. “Just ‘Please handle Zurich, and by the way, fuck off ‘til I call you’?”
His eyes flick away, to the window, to anywhere that isn’t my face.
There’s this sound my head makes when I’m about to lose it, a ringing, like the feedback loop on a bad mic. I hear it now, whistling between my ears.
“Let’s just…” He runs a hand through his hair, which is getting longer than he used to let it, “take a step back. For now.”
I want to scream, but all that comes out is a tight laugh. “Step back?” I repeat. “Is that what you want?”
He looks at me, then away. “I think it’s necessary.”
I wait, but he doesn’t say more. I nod, twice, just to feel like I’m still in charge of my body.
I walk to the kitchen, pick up my jacket from where it hangs, and drape it over my arm. I turn back to him, and he’s still standing at the counter, but his shoulders are slumped, the line of his jaw sharp with regret, or maybe just relief.
“I may have begged for a lot of things in the past, Aiden, but I won’t beg you to be honest with me,” I say, voice flat. “You either are or you aren’t.”
He doesn’t answer. I don’t wait for him to.
At the door, I pause. I want to say something clever, something that will stick in his mind and rot there, but all I can manage is the truth.
“When you figure out if I’m someone you trust or just someone you want to fuck occasionally, let me know.” My voice cracks a little on “trust,” but I don’t let it show.
I let the door close behind me, quiet, final. The latch catches with a click that sounds louder than the slam would have.
The elevator is empty. In the mirrored walls, my reflection is split in three, each one more cracked than the last.
Hold it together, Cat. No tears. Not here.
I watch the numbers count down, one floor at a time, and I pretend I’m getting lighter with every stop.
But by the time I hit the lobby, my knees are jelly and my eyes burn, and all I can think is that I have never, ever, felt this alone.