2 #2
Instead, it felt like a door opening onto a room with no lights.
Talia looked away from Gordon’s image and toward the city beyond the glass.
Houston stretched outward in steel, traffic, heat, ambition, and noise.
Her life was there. Her apartment. Her favorite coffee shop with the rude barista who knew her order.
Her dry cleaner. Her deadlines. Her bestie who accused her of dating her job and only flirting with men when her phone battery died.
Everything she had built was here.
But the promotion she wanted sat on the other side of a man who had no reason to trust her.
“What’s the timeline?” she asked.
Martin smiled because he knew he had her.
“I’d like a draft in four weeks. Sooner if you can manage.”
“That’s not a timeline. That’s a prank.”
“You’ve done more with less.”
“Not with a subject who refuses interviews.”
“Then find another way in.”
She laughed, short and humorless. “You make that sound simple.”
“I make it sound necessary.”
Talia stood and picked up her tablet. “And if I do this?”
“If you bring me the story, not rumor, not recycled scandal, not a puff piece, but a real story, Barbara’s position is yours.”
The room went strangely quiet around that sentence.
Talia had imagined hearing those words. Not from Martin, exactly, and not with Gordon Windgate’s guarded face glowing from a computer screen between them. But she had imagined the moment. She had imagined satisfaction, triumph, maybe even relief.
What she felt was pressure.
Heavy.
Immediate.
Personal.
“I’ll look into it,” she said.
Martin’s smile widened. “That’s not a yes.”
“It’s also not a no.”
“I can live with that until tomorrow morning.”
Talia opened the office door.
“And Monroe?”
She turned.
Martin tapped the screen, right over Gordon’s photo. “Don’t underestimate him.”
She looked at the man in the picture again.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
She left before Martin could say anything else.
The newsroom swallowed her back into its noise.
Someone called her name from across the room, asking about a quote approval.
She answered automatically. Another reporter stopped her near the copy desk to ask if she had seen the mayor’s latest statement.
She had. It was weak. She said so. By the time she reached her desk, three emails had landed, two messages blinked on her phone, and one intern hovered nearby with the terrified expression of a person about to ask whether AP style allowed miracles.
Talia handled all of it.
That was what she did.
She handled things.
But Gordon Windgate’s face stayed in the back of her mind.
After an hour, the newsroom thinned. The late crew came in. The light outside shifted from gold to glassy blue. Talia sat at her desk with her heels kicked off beneath it and her tablet propped against a coffee mug that read Deadlines Are My Love Language.
She searched Gordon Windgate first.
Not much.
Old mentions. Background references. A few articles about the Windgate family. Speculation dressed up as analysis. Photos where he stood half in frame, half out of it, like he had mastered the art of almost not being seen.
She searched Stanley Ranch.
That produced more.
Luke Stanley’s name appeared often. Wealthy ranch owner.
Community support. Annual Fourth of July celebration.
Adoption. Expansion. Employment. Local respect.
There were pieces about Edye Stanley, about the ranch’s growth, about the medical support connected to the property, about the danger that had once touched the place and the way the family had closed ranks afterward.
Closed ranks.
Talia paused there.
People used that phrase when they meant loyalty.
They also used it when they meant secrecy.
She opened another search window.
Stanley Ranch jobs.
She expected nothing.
Maybe old postings. Maybe cattle work. Maybe seasonal help.
Then she saw it.
Administrative Assistant Needed Stanley Ranch, Sunset Springs, Texas
Talia sat up.
The posting was only two days old.
She clicked.
The job description was practical and almost boring, which made it more believable. Scheduling. Records. Vendor coordination. Filing. Communication support. Ordering supplies. Assisting with ranch operations, family housing logistics, educational programming, and special projects.
Educational programming?
Talia frowned.
The ranch had a school now?
She kept reading.
Applicant must be organized, discreet, comfortable working in a family-centered ranch environment, and able to maintain confidentiality regarding private ranch operations and residents.
Confidentiality.
The word blinked at her like an accusation.
She leaned back in her chair.
“No,” she said softly.
No one answered. The newsroom had moved on without her.
She read the posting again.
Then again.
It was ridiculous.
She was not an administrative assistant.
She had done admin work in college, sure.
Reception, scheduling, data entry, all the things people called simple when they had never had to manage five calendars and a printer that hated women.
But she was a journalist. An experienced journalist. A woman trying to become a senior feature writer, not sneak onto a ranch under the cover of office support.
Sneak.
She hated that her own mind chose the word.
Talia closed the tab.
Then opened it again.
She could apply and not get the job. That would be the end of it. She could tell Martin she tried to find a way in and it didn’t work. She could pursue other angles. Request an interview. Contact Luke Stanley’s office. Send an email that would be ignored. Call. Leave a message. Receive no response.
The normal ways would fail.
She already knew it.
People like Gordon Windgate did not talk to journalists because journalists asked nicely.
And Stanley Ranch, from everything she had read, protected its own.
She looked at the job posting again.
She couldn’t use her real name so she used her mother’s maiden name, Roberts.
She would not invent a dead grandmother, fake a background, or lie about skills she did not have.
She did have administrative experience. She did know records.
She did understand scheduling. She was discreet when she chose to be. She could do the work.
So was it really lying?
Talia stared at the screen.
The answer came too fast.
Yes.
She got up from her desk and walked to the break room.
The coffee in the pot looked old enough to have opinions.
She poured a cup anyway, added creamer, then stood by the counter without drinking it.
Her reflection in the microwave door looked back at her.
Round cheeks. Full lips. Sharp eyes. Coiled hair.
A woman old enough to know better and ambitious enough to consider doing it anyway.
Her phone buzzed.
A text from her friend Patrice lit the screen.
PATRICE: You coming Saturday or are you married to that job again?
Talia typed back.
TALIA: The job is emotionally unavailable but consistent.
PATRICE: Girl. That is worse.
Talia smiled despite herself.
Then the smile faded.
She carried the untouched coffee back to her desk and sat down.
The application button waited.
She clicked it.
The form was straightforward. Name. Contact information. Employment history. References. Skills. Availability. Willingness to relocate temporarily or live on-site if housing was provided.
Her fingers moved before her conscience could grab them.
Talia Roberts
Houston, Texas.
She added her administrative experience from earlier in her career. She shaped her current work carefully, emphasizing organization, document management, communications, project coordination, deadline tracking, and confidentiality. None of that was false.
Not exactly.
The application asked why she was interested in the position.
Talia placed her fingers on the keys and sat there.
Why was she interested?
Because her boss in a glass office had placed her future on the other side of Gordon Windgate’s silence.
Because she was tired of being almost promoted, almost chosen, almost given the work she deserved.
Because ambition, when starved long enough, started looking for side doors.
She typed:
I am interested in this position because I have strong organizational and communication skills and enjoy supporting growing teams with complex needs. I work well in environments where discretion, flexibility, and attention to detail are essential.
She read it twice.
It was true.
It was also not the truth.
Her thumb hovered over the submit button.
For one strange second, she imagined Gordon Windgate looking at her the way he looked in that photo. Guarded. Unsurprised. As if he had expected the world to want something from him and had already forgiven himself for refusing to give it.
She could close the window.
She could tell Martin no.
She could keep her hands clean and watch someone else take the promotion because they had been willing to do what she would not.
Talia submitted the application.
The confirmation appeared immediately.
Thank you for applying.
She sat still.
The office hummed around her. Somewhere behind her, a phone rang. Someone laughed. A breaking news alert pinged on three different devices at once.
Talia stared at the screen until the words blurred.
She told herself she had not lied.
Not exactly.
She had used her real name, sort of. Her real experience. Her real skills. If Stanley Ranch hired her, she would do the job and do it well. She would earn every dollar. She would help where help was needed.
And if Gordon Windgate happened to talk to her while she was there, if he happened to reveal the man behind the name, if she happened to write the article that finally put her where she deserved to be, then maybe that was not betrayal.
Maybe that was opportunity.
Maybe that was the job.
Talia closed her laptop.
Her reflection stared back from the dark screen.
Of course she was lying.
Part of her knew it.