Axel
The quarterly review meeting was not going according to plan.
Partly because the projections were off by three percent—unacceptable but fixable. Mostly because I couldn’t stop replaying the way Delia had leaned toward me on her balcony, how her lips had been right there, how close I’d come to doing something I’d wanted to do for seventeen years.
“Mr. Irving?”
I looked up to find twelve board members staring at me expectantly.
“Sorry. Continue.”
Robert, my CFO, cleared his throat. “I was asking about the Singapore expansion. Whether we should move forward with the revised timeline.”
Right. Singapore. Museums. Work. Things that used to consume my entire attention now felt distant compared to the memory of Delia crying against my shoulder.
“Yes,” I said. “Move forward. But get me the final numbers by Friday.”
“Of course.”
The meeting continued. I contributed when necessary, approved what needed approving, but my mind kept drifting back. To her.
“That’s settled then,” someone said, and everyone started gathering papers.
I’d apparently agreed to something. Hopefully nothing catastrophic.
As people filed out, Jessica from acquisitions paused by my chair. “That was a great point about the London partnership. Very insightful.”
I had absolutely no memory of making any point about London.
“Thank you.”
When the room finally cleared, Mark was the only one left, looking at me suspiciously.
“So what happened?” he asked.
“Nothing happened. We had a meeting.”
“You let Henderson talk about his daughter’s soccer game for five minutes. Voluntarily. You don’t even know what soccer is. Last month you asked if the Super Bowl was a bowling tournament.”
I’d been reading an article about Delia’s favorite artist when Henderson brought it up. I hadn’t wanted to interrupt.
“I can’t be interested in my employees’ lives?”
“No. You can’t. It’s against your nature.” Mark leaned back in his chair. “So I repeat: what happened?”
I began to gather my laptop. “Is there a point to this?”
“Just concerned for your mental wellbeing. Yesterday you left a board meeting early to buy takeout. Today you’re acting almost human. Tomorrow you’ll probably start using the company slack channel.”
“That’s not happening.” I cut him off with a grimace. I wasn’t that social.
“Thank god. There are still limits.” He stood when I did, following me toward my office. “Seriously though. You seem… lighter. Less like you’re carrying the weight of Western civilization on your shoulders.”
I stopped at my office door. All the time Mark had worked with me, he barely commented on my personal life.
The fact that he was doing it now meant my distraction was more obvious than I’d thought. Still, he was probing too much.
“Since when is it the employee’s turn to interrogate their boss? I suppose you have so much free time, how about submitting the Maximillian project this night,”
Mark extended his hands in surrender, “Sorry Sir. Do whatever you’re doing that’s making you act human. I’ll go home to my wife this night,”
He left before I could respond, which was probably for the best.
The drive to her place felt longer than usual.
Traffic crawled through Manhattan while my mind replayed last night on a loop.
About Delia pressed against my side, about the way she’d looked up at me with those hazel eyes still wet from crying, about how I’d been half a second from kissing her when Daniel called.
Bad timing. Or maybe perfect timing. I didn’t know anymore.
What I knew was that I’d spent years keeping polite distance, and somewhere in the last few weeks that distance had collapsed entirely.
Now I was thinking about her constantly—the way she talked with her hands when excited, how she made those sounds when eating good food, the paint stains that never quite came off her fingers.
I was missing her. Being away from her apartment felt wrong—like I’d forgotten something essential and couldn’t remember what.
This was dangerous. This was everything I’d spent years avoiding. This was going to end badly because it always ended badly when you wanted things you shouldn’t want.
But I couldn’t stop myself from stopping at Hector’s restaurant on the way back.
The same restaurant from last night. The place that made her light up like someone had switched on every lamp in her body. I wanted to see that expression again—wanted, selfishly, to be the reason for it.
I placed the order and waited, checking my phone for messages from her. Nothing. Which was normal. We didn’t text at all.
The food was ready in twenty minutes. I drove with the takeout warming the passenger seat, thinking about how I’d present it.
Casual, like I’d just happened to be nearby.
Not desperate, not obvious, not revealing that I’d left work early specifically to buy her dinner because making her happy had become more important than anything else.
I parked on her street and grabbed the bags, and that’s when I saw them.
Delia standing in her doorway—tense, guarded, not smiling.
And Jake Foxx on the landing, holding flowers like a man begging for absolution.
I stopped walking.
Jake looked different than I remembered from the wedding.
Thinner. Hollowed out, like someone had scooped out his insides and left just the shell.
He was talking rapidly, hands moving in agitated, desperate gestures as he tried to push the roses toward her.
Delia stood with her arms crossed, body angled away, looking overwhelmed and exhausted.
I walked toward them in purposeful strides.
Jake stopped mid-sentence when he saw me. We stared at each other—two men who’d made polite conversation at industry events, discussed market trends and investment strategies, who now had Delia standing between us like a fault line.
“Axel.” Jake recovered first, arranging his face into something approaching friendly. “Good to see you. What are you doing here?”
“He lives here,” Delia said before I could respond. “Temporarily. Axel’s staying with me.”
Something warm unfurled in my chest—small, primitive, entirely inappropriate. The satisfaction of being chosen to stay.
Jake’s expression twitched with surprise, then something that might have been anger wrapped in tight control. His knuckles whitened around the flower stems, like he was holding on to the last thing he still controlled.
“That’s generous of you,” he said, eyes flicking to me with calculated politeness. “I remember you mentioning at that gala that you were family friends. Very kind of you to help out Daniel’s sister.”
The emphasis on “sister” was deliberate — a reminder of exactly where he thought I belonged.
“It’s not generous,” I said evenly. “It’s necessary. Someone needed to be here.”
Jake’s jaw clenched but he didn’t take the bait. Smart. Or maybe just desperate enough not to pick a fight. He turned back to Delia, still holding out the roses like an offering.
“Please, at least take these—”
“I don’t want them.” Delia’s voice was quiet but firm. “Jake, I don’t want flowers.”
“Right. Of course.” He lowered them, looking lost. “I really need to talk to you though. I know I have no right to ask, but I’m asking anyway.” His voice cracked slightly. “Please. Just give me the chance to explain.”
Delia’s expression softened. I watched it happen—the way her walls lowered despite everything, as she probably remembered whatever version of him she’d loved.
“Coffee,” she said. “Tomorrow. One hour.”
The takeout bags nearly slipped from my grip. Just slightly—just enough that I had to catch them, the plastic handles cutting into my palms as I tightened my hold.
“Thank you.” Jake looked so relieved I wanted to put my fist through the brick wall beside us. “Thank you. I’ll text you the details.”
He left, glancing back once before turning away, the roses a spray of red disappearing down the stairs.
We stood on the landing in silence.
“Are you okay?” I asked finally.
“I don’t know.” She wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “He says Jennifer lied. About everything. He was drunk at some charity gala, she told him they’d slept together and she was pregnant. He believed her. Found out yesterday it was all fake.”
The words rearranged themselves in my head. Convenient. Too convenient. Like anything would excuse the scumbag he was.
“Do you want to ignore him?” I asked, my voice steady despite the commotion in my heart.
“Honestly? Yes. I was finally feeling okay and now everything’s complicated again.” She looked at me with those hazel eyes. “What should I do?”
Tell her not to go. Jake had his chance. He’d thrown it away. These were the thoughts that assaulted my mind.
I wanted her to choose me.
“It’s your decision,” I said instead, because those were the right words. The fair words. The words someone who actually cared about her would say. “I’ll support whatever you choose.”
The words tasted bitter in my tongue, she seemed to noticed the bags in my hand. “You brought dinner?”
“I thought you might want—”
“That’s perfect.” She moved toward the door. “Let’s eat.”
“Actually, I already ate.” The lie came too easily. Right now, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stomach anything. “This is just for you.”
“You already ate?” She looked up at me, her eyes pressing for the truth.
“Business lunch ran long.”
She looked skeptical but didn’t push. “Okay. Thank you.”
Inside, I went straight to the bathroom. The door closed behind me and I gripped the sink, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
I looked the same. Still the controlled, composed man who’d built an empire on being rational. Still the boy who’d learned to hide everything that mattered.
No evidence that I was currently coming apart.
I splashed cold water on my face. Then more cold water.
Then I stripped and turned on the shower because the alternative was going back out there and telling Delia that letting Jake explain was a terrible idea, that second chances for people who’d left you at the altar were statistically doomed, that she should stay with me instead.
Except I had no right to say any of that.
I wasn’t her boyfriend. Wasn’t even sure what I was beyond her brother’s best friend and temporary roommate. We’d almost kissed once. That didn’t give me claim to her future.
The water ran colder. I stood under it until my hands went numb, until the shock of it cleared my head enough to function.
When I finally emerged, changed into dry clothes, Delia was sitting on the couch with her dinner half-eaten, staring at nothing.
“Hey,” she said when she saw me. “You okay? You were in there a while.”
“Fine. Just needed to clean up.”
We moved through the evening with careful politeness. She painted, I worked on my laptop. Neither of us mentioned Jake or coffee.
Neither of us mentioned last night either—the almost-kiss that had shattered before it landed.
The apartment felt different. Smaller. Like we were both taking up too much space and not enough at the same time.
Around eleven, Delia announced she was going to bed. I said goodnight. She disappeared to her room and I was alone with my laptop and the knowledge that tomorrow she’d have coffee with the man who’d left her.
And I’d support her decision. Because that’s what you did when you loved someone—you wanted what was best for them, even when it hollowed you out.
I worked until three AM, staring at reports I couldn’t process, and tried not to think about how close I’d come to something real before the universe reminded me that wanting what I couldn’t have was still my defining trait.