Chapter 12
ETHAN
By the time I get to the office after a series of offsite meetings, I already know something’s off.
I don’t know how yet, but the certainty is there, solid and irritatingly precise.
I spot Lila through the glass wall before she notices me, and the read is immediate.
She’s working fast, she’s working clean, and she’s stripped all warmth out of her movements like it’s excess weight she doesn’t want to carry.
That’s new.
Lila’s efficient on her worst days and prolific on her best ones, but she’s also expressive in a way that’s subtle enough to miss if you don’t pay attention.
Today, there’s none of that. There’s no brightness under the surface, no spark of commentary in the way she’s scanning the document.
She’s not singing under her breath, her eyes look dead, and at best she’s contained, but not in a good way.
I don’t stop at her desk. I let that be my first test. From my office, I watch her through the glass, and I take inventory like I always do.
She doesn’t fidget. She doesn’t glance my way.
She doesn’t soften when she speaks to anyone else.
She’s running on control, which tells me something got under her skin hard enough to make her pull everything inward.
I give it a few minutes, then I call her in.
She arrives prepared, tablet tucked under her arm, posture straight, expression neutral enough to be almost impersonal. It’s a good look on her. It just isn’t her.
She sits across from me without waiting to be told, and we get into work without ceremony.
She’s working with the kind of efficiency that points to a professional who’s uninterested in anything that doesn’t directly serve the task at hand.
If this were any other employee, I’d call it professionalism and move on.
With her, it feels like a wall.
When she finishes the last update, she waits. Hands folded. Eyes steady. No tell.
“You haven’t been responding to my messages,” I say, keeping my voice even.
She doesn’t flinch. “I saw them, I just didn’t have the time to respond.”
Ouch. So she’s in a mood, but the question is why. Lila doesn’t snap for sport, and the tension in her replies, paired with her careful refusal to look at me, tells me something is wrong.
“Noted,” I reply, and I let a beat pass. “You’re tight today.”
Her mouth twitches, the smallest tell I’ve seen all morning. “I’m focused.”
“That’s not what I said.”
She studies me for a moment, then exhales slowly. “I’m taking space.”
There it is. Clear. Chosen.
I lean back in my chair, not to disengage, but to show her I’m not crowding this conversation. Control works better when it isn’t theatrical.
“That’s within our agreement,” I say. “You don’t owe me access.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you look like you’re waiting for a counterargument?”
She holds my gaze. There’s a flicker there now, something live and wary and far more honest than the calm she’s been wearing.
“I don’t want this to turn into something where I have to justify myself,” she says. “I’m allowed downtime. Nothing happens without my consent, and right now I’m choosing to clear my head.”
I nod once. “Correct.”
She blinks. Just once. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She watches me carefully, like she’s trying to decide whether I’m setting a trap or closing one.
“You’re not angry,” she observes.
“No.”
“Disappointed?”
I consider that then shake my head. “No. I prefer clarity.”
That earns me the first real reaction of the day, a small huff of breath that might have been a laugh if she’d let it. Her shoulders loosen a fraction.
“I’ll finish out the morning,” she says. “Then I’m taking the afternoon.”
“Take the day,” I tell her. “Or don’t. Your call.”
She stands then hesitates near the door, which is the only sign she’s been holding something back.
“This isn’t me pulling away,” she says quietly. “It’s me thinking.”
“I didn’t assume otherwise.”
She studies my face, searching for something she doesn’t quite trust yet. “You’re good at this,” she says. “At not pushing.”
I let one corner of my mouth lift. “I’m good at listening when someone knows what they need.”
I can tell by the way her posture shifts, less guarded, more herself, that I’ve said the right thing. She leaves, and the office feels smaller immediately. I sit there longer than I need to, staring at the closed door, and I don’t bother lying to myself about the concern sitting in my chest.
Lila’s sensitive in the way sharp people often are, bright enough to see patterns others miss and vulnerable enough to feel the weight of them. That combination makes people interesting, and it also makes them easy targets when the wrong kind of attention comes knocking.
I don’t know what happened yet, but I do know I’m not imagining any of this.
The edge of my attention stays strained on the door, the space she occupied, and the certainty that whatever rattled her hasn’t finished making noise, even as I turn back to my desk and force my focus onto the work in front of me.
The next day is more of the same. She’s back at the office, but she’s distant. Whatever is eating at her hasn’t been resolved.
By the time I leave the building, the day has settled into my shoulders in the familiar way, not heavy exactly, just present, like a hand that hasn’t decided whether it’s friendly or not.
I take the side exit instead of the main doors, mostly out of habit and partly because I want air that hasn’t been filtered through a lobby full of other people’s urgency.
The street is loud but ordinary, traffic inching along, horns flaring and dying, the city doing what it always does when it thinks nothing important is happening.
I’m halfway down the curb toward my car when something shifts in the soundscape, a pitch change sharp enough that my attention snaps up before my mind has time to label it.
An engine revs hard, too hard for the distance it’s covering, and the car comes into view from the corner of the block moving fast enough to make the rest of the street look stalled.
It’s cutting through traffic with intent, not swerving, not correcting, just bearing down like the driver has picked a line and decided to keep it.
I register the speed first, then the angle, then the fact that I’m directly in its path.
I step back on instinct, but the curb catches my heel and throws my balance off by just enough to matter. For a brief, unhelpful moment, my brain does the math and lands on the wrong answer. This is going to hurt.
I don’t get the chance to finish the thought.
Someone hits me hard in the chest and shoulder, driving me sideways with enough force to knock the air clean out of my lungs.
I stagger, stumble, and go down awkwardly against the hood of a parked car as the vehicle that should have hit me roars past close enough that I feel the heat of it on my leg.
The world tilts, then steadies.
Hands are on me immediately, gripping my coat, my arm, my shoulder, checking me with frantic efficiency. I hear my name, sharp and broken, like it’s being dragged out of someone.
“Ethan. Ethan. Oh my god.”
I look up and find Lila kneeling in front of me, her face gone pale in a way I’ve never seen before, her eyes wide and glassy, her breathing fast and uneven.
One hand is still fisted in my coat like she’s afraid letting go might undo whatever miracle just happened, and the other is already moving, checking my arms, my chest, my legs, touching me everywhere at once.
“Hey,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “I’m here.”
She sucks in a breath that turns into something between a sob and a laugh, then presses her forehead into my chest without asking, her whole body shaking as the adrenaline crashes through her.
I wrap an arm around her automatically, not thinking about who might be watching or what this looks like, only that she’s holding on like she needs the contact to stay upright.
“That car,” she says, pulling back just enough to look at me, her hands still splayed across my chest like she’s checking for proof. “It came out of nowhere. You didn’t see it. You were right there.”
“I see it now,” I say, dry on purpose, trying to anchor her. “You tackled me.”
“I didn’t tackle you,” she snaps, then immediately presses her lips together like she’s afraid of what might come out next. “I pulled you back.”
“You knocked me sideways,” I correct gently. “That’s more than pulling.”
Her mouth trembles and she laughs again, breathless and wrecked. “I don’t care what you call it. You were going to get hit.”
The sound of sirens starts somewhere down the block, and people are staring now, murmuring, phones out, the moment already turning into a story that isn’t ours.
I guide her to her feet and keep my arm around her, not because I need the support but because she does.
She leans into me without hesitation, her fingers curling into my sleeve like she’s still bracing for impact.
“You’re shaking,” I say quietly.
“So are you,” she shoots back, and she’s not wrong. The aftershock is working its way through me now, delayed but insistent.
We move toward the sidewalk and away from the street. Once we’re clear, she turns to face me fully, her hands still on my arms, her eyes searching my face like she’s checking for cracks she might have missed.
“Are you hurt?” she asks. “Anything at all.”
“No,” I say. “You got to me in time.”
Her throat works, and she looks down for half a second before meeting my eyes again. “I saw it,” she says, quieter now. “I saw the car, and I didn’t think. I just moved.”
I study her, really look, and the picture sharpens in a way that hits harder than the near miss. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t weigh options or consider consequences. She acted, purely and instinctively, and the fear on her face isn’t abstract. It’s personal.
“You saved me,” I say, not softening it.
Her breath catches at that, and she blinks fast. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it means something.”
I don’t answer immediately, partly because I’m still catching up to the moment and partly because lying feels like the wrong move. I reach up and brush my thumb under her eye, wiping away a tear she didn’t notice had escaped.
“It does mean something,” I say instead.
She goes very still, her pulse jumping under my fingers where my hand rests at her wrist. For a second, the noise of the street fades again, not from danger this time but from proximity.
“I was scared,” she admits, her voice barely above the city hum. “I thought I was going to watch you get hurt.”
“I know.”
She searches my face like she’s looking for permission to feel what she’s feeling, and something in her expression shifts, the panic giving way to something rawer and more vulnerable.
“Can I,” she starts, then stops. Swallows. “Can I kiss you?”
The question lands cleanly, no bravado, no assumption, just honest want threaded through fear. It hits me harder than anything else today.
“Yes,” I say.
She steps into me and kisses me like she needs the contact to breathe, her hands sliding up my chest, her mouth warm and a little unsteady against mine.
I keep it slow, grounding, one hand at her back, the other steady at her hip, letting her set the pace until her body relaxes and the tremor eases out of her.
When we pull back, she rests her forehead against my shoulder, exhaling like she’s finally letting the moment end.
“I didn’t mean to break your space,” she says quietly.
“You didn’t,” I reply. “You chose.”
She nods and her breathing begins to slow. “I should—”
“Don’t go,” I say before she can make up her mind that leaving me is the best option for her. The truth is, I need her here, close to me. “I want to show you something, if you’re up for it.”
A pause falls between us, and it’s so loud I can almost hear it. Then, she dips her head slightly. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
I realize I’m smiling too hard as I lead her to my car.
I open the door for her, help her into the passenger seat, and keep her hand in mine for the first few seconds before I let go and start the engine.
She doesn’t ask where we’re going. She just watches me with that look she gets when she’s trying not to feel too much.
I drive.
We climb out of the city—winding roads, thinning lights, the skyline shrinking behind us. I take the turnoff most people miss, the one that leads to the overlook I’ve only ever come to alone.
The car slows to a stop on the gravel shoulder and the view opens in front of us—wide, clean, glittering. The city below looks small from here, like it can’t touch us.
I kill the engine. The silence after is thick.
She doesn’t move at first. Then she shifts in her seat and looks at me.
“You okay?” she asks softly.
I don’t answer. I reach across the console, cup the side of her neck, and pull her in.
The kiss is a sharp pull, a release, her mouth parting under mine like we’ve been circling this moment since the second we met.
Her hand fists in my shirt, nails biting through the fabric.
I tug her closer, until she’s halfway over the console and I can feel her pressed up against me, soft in all the places I’ve already imagined claiming.
She gasps into my mouth when I slide my hand under her thigh, grip strong enough to anchor. Her hips shift instinctively, and I feel the jolt go through her.
“This,” I murmur against her jaw, “is going to happen.”
She breathes fast, hands braced on my chest. “Right now?”
I smile. “Right here.”
She’s still straddling the space between wanting to think and needing to feel, but I’m already past the point of negotiation. I push her back gently into the passenger seat, lean over her, kiss her like I’m starving—and I am.
I take my time. I learn the way her breath catches when I bite her bottom lip, the way her thighs tighten when I run my palm up under her skirt. She makes a sound, sharp and needy, and I swallow it with my mouth on hers.
She pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. “You’re not going to be gentle, are you?”
“No,” I say, voice rough with how much I want her. “Not tonight.”
The city lights shimmer in the window behind her. She’s gorgeous in the dark. And as I slide my hand up the inside of her thigh, I already know I’m going to take her apart in this car.