Chapter 7
Margo floated around his office like she owned the air in it.
Rune didn't need to guess what was in her contract, the one Dorian had handled personally.
She'd sat across from him, six years ago, as he calmly explained the terms of exclusivity.
He had explained the medical screenings, the clause about silence and then the clause about compliance.
The lack of trust, he had said, wasn't personal, just practical.
To be fair, he had also offered her another contract to work in his Manchester office, minus the sex clause.
She should have taken option B, damn it, but the stars in her eyes had blinded her.
He didn't believe in intimacy, however much she thought things would change between them. And she'd stayed despite knowing that she was losing the war.
Now she was only a liability. Now, she watched from the periphery as Margo tried on her old life like it was a sample sale dress.
Dorian had let Margo redecorate the shared office space, trading Rune's clean, minimalist layout for powder-pink chairs and a side table cluttered with crystals, glittered coasters, and framed quotes about manifesting your destiny.
Finn had wandered down from Accounts for a coffee at "the boss's special machine," the one Rune had kept pristine for years.
They stood side by side at the counter, the hiss of the steamer covering their low commentary as they watched Margo swan about in a skirt that could pass for a belt, arranging her crystals into some sort of "energy grid. "
"Is she summoning the client list?" Finn murmured with a smirk.
Rune's lips twitched. Her filters, usually tight as bank vault doors, slipped.
"Maybe a portal into another dimension. Maybe she would let me have a free pass to escape this hell."
Finn snorted into his cup, and she was startled at herself. She never did this, but maybe she should do it more often.
The sound of a door opening silenced them. Dorian emerged from his office, eyes scanning the room, but lingering on Margo as she bent to polish the glass side table, her blouse gaping at the back. His gaze cut sharply to the coffee counter.
"I don't pay you two to stand around drinking coffee," he said in that emotionless, flat tone Rune had grown to hate.
Finn, unbothered, took a long sip, tossed his cup down into the bin, then deliberately turned back to get another.
"See you around," he told Rune, as if Dorian weren't right there. "Come up for a chat sometime."
She opened her mouth to reply, but a shadow fell across the counter.
"No," Dorian said, voice low and quiet behind her. "She won't."
And that was that.
Finn walked away with an amused smile and another cup of premium coffee, while Rune returned to her "desk", a temporary perch shoved to the edge of the room with no title plate and no real purpose, just a vantage point to watch the craziness unfold.
Tom watched too, eyes flicking from her to Dorian to Margo, the worry on his face growing every day. Rune, who was counting the days with similar desperation, would have told him, "Be afraid, be very afraid” if she knew him better.
The final blow came during a high-stakes meeting with a Japanese investment group. Margo had been in charge of printing and preparing the proposal packets. Old habits died hard, and Rune had offered to double-check them, but Margo had waved her off, insisting she had everything handled.
She hadn't.
When the delegation arrived, they opened their glossy binders to find the wrong data – an outdated version, missing half the translated content.
Rune knew immediately what had happened.
She had emailed Margo the final file two nights before.
It was timestamped and tracked. Plus, she had sent her a reminder yesterday.
Still, when the confusion broke across the polished meeting table, Margo turned toward Dorian with wide, panicked eyes and said, "These are the documents Rune had emailed me."
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence from the delegation who had worked with Rune before.
Then Dorian turned to Rune with murder in his eyes.
His tone was artic.
"Is that true?"
Rune looked directly at him and replied succinctly, "No."
Margo's voice turned syrupy. "I'm just saying, maybe it was miscommunication-"
Dorian cut her off. "This was your task. If you couldn't manage it, you should've said so."
He turned back to Rune. "You should've checked anyway. You knew she is new here."
The words were unnecessary. For once, Rune held his gaze. "It won't be a problem as I have only a couple of days of employment to go."
Then she opened her laptop and printed out the right document .
The meeting continued after a delay of half an hour, salvaged through fast thinking and gracious apologies.
But the damage had been done. Later, long after the delegation left, Dorian passed her in the corridor.
He slowed for a moment, his mouth opening slightly before he changed his mind and walked away with Margo at his heels.
He didn't say anything. There was no apology or acknowledgment.
As Rune watched him walk away, she realized he had burned off the last of her respect as well. Because that pause was the closest Dorian Albury had ever come to regret. A pitiful attempt, and that too accidental.
The office emptied slowly after the disaster of a meeting.
Margo flounced off early, citing "a stress migraine" and dropping her new gel pen with unnecessary aggression on the table, like it was a casualty of war.
Tom lingered awkwardly, then left with a sympathetic glance. Rune pretended not to see any of it.
She stayed. She had always been the last to leave until recently. She was sorting through old files when she heard familiar footsteps behind her.
Dorian.
"Still here," he said, his tone edged with something she had never heard in his voice. Dorian making small talk?
She didn't turn or meet his eyes. "Someone has to make sure the right version goes out before Tokyo gets the wrong impression."
There was a pause before Dorian said something that made Rune freeze.
"You look tired, Rune."
Still, she didn't turn.
"Worn down," he added. "You used to take more pride in how you looked."
She paused. Then she set the file down before turning to face him. Her blouse was soft cotton, pale grey, tucked into dark trousers. No lipstick for her naturally pink lips. No disguising the freckles that dotted her face. No effort to impress.
"I dress like someone who's here to work," she said quietly. "Not to accessorize your furniture."
He laughed once. "Jealousy is not a good look on you.".
"Cruelty isn't a good look on you either," she shot back seriously.
His eyebrows drew together in surprise at the comeback.
Probably surprised the furniture is talking back, thought Rune bitterly.
"You think I regret what I said in there?" he asked.
Rune shook her head. "I don't think you're capable of regret. Or emotion. Your heart is made of stone."
She picked up the folder again and then seemed to change her mind, dumping it on Margo's desk in a show of defiance.
Then she collected her tote, but before she could make a move towards the lifts, Dorian's hand shot out to capture her arm in a tight grip.
He stood there looking into her defiant blue-grey eyes that refused to look away.
It was like he was searching for a crack that wasn't there anymore.
Then he said, his voice, the familiar blade he used to cut her with, "You've become boring and predictable."
"No. I am no longer your puppet, dancing to your tune. I've just stopped begging to be noticed. I don't want your love anymore."
Dorian recoiled as if bitten.
"Love?" he asked in a tone that implied he had smelt something rotten.
"Yes, love. Grow up, Dorian. I am not going to hide how I felt especially as it is no longer relevant. I have given up. Congratulations. You no longer have my attention. I have finally realized you are not worth it," she said, surprising even herself.
"If you had any humanity left in you, you would let me leave now instead of making me go through this. You have Margo, and as much as it turns my stomach, it has stopped hurting me to watch you both. This gives me hope that in a month, you will be nothing but a distant memory and a lesson."
"So fucking blacklist me if you want. See what happens," she muttered defiantly, and marched to the lift and pressed the down button gently instead of jabbing it repeatedly like she was poking out Dorian's eye.
There was more to say. And she would get it all off her chest. Just two more days.