Chapter 2
YARA
The first thing I do this morning is pour myself a half-cup of recaf and whisper that it’s going to be okay. Then I check the ledger reports and realize I’m a liar.
Not literally. I’m pretty sure the building’s still standing. But financially? Strategically? In every way that matters to the Helios Combine and its thousand hungry competitors? We’re a gaping wound bleeding out goodwill and credits by the second.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale, staring at a spreadsheet so red it looks like it’s been wounded. Dad’s last expansion push—his big, legacy-cementing gamble—turned out to be exactly what I told him it might be: unsustainable.
And now he’s gone, and I’m stuck holding the knife and the debt.
The office is too quiet. The kind of quiet that rings in your ears after a shout. There’s a faint hum from the light panels overhead, the occasional ping of a new notification begging for my attention. I ignore most of them. I can’t keep up, and even trying makes my chest tighten.
Someone somewhere is probably calling me a wunderkind.
The new CEO of CY8. Fresh-faced. Determined. Daughter of a legend.
They don’t see the migraines. The sleepless nights. The panic spikes when I realize I just signed off on a budget reallocation without fully understanding the clawbacks.
I blink through a lens overlay, flipping through reports and vendor disputes and flagged correspondence. There’s a soft ping I nearly miss—personal message, low priority. From Molly Jaiden.
I frown.
She’s one of those names you hear if you swim long enough in elite social circles. Not just a matchmaker—the matchmaker. High-end emotional architect. Facilitator of genetically optimized power pairings. Mostly a joke to me, until she wasn’t.
The message is clean. Discreet. Polished.
Yara,
I understand your schedule is relentless. But I believe I’ve found someone who deserves your attention.
No obligations. Just one evening. Think of it as breathing room.
—MJ
I stare at the words.
The audacity of her timing is almost funny.
Breathing room?
I can’t even inhale without thinking about whether I’ve authorized procurement clearance for the next-gen prosthetics line or approved the latest R&D resourcing shift from the Centauri node.
Dating?
Romance?
It feels like something that belongs to a different person. A different lifetime.
When I was in university, I thought about love all the time.
Not just the rush of hormones and daydreams, but the shape of it.
I thought I’d fall hard and fast and whole.
I thought I'd meet someone who saw all of me and didn't flinch. Someone who wouldn’t care about the name I carried or the capital I represented.
Now?
Now I have quarterly earnings reports to analyze and hostile competitors to anticipate.
I have systems integration failures and declining vendor confidence metrics and Jonathan Tidball’s gentle voice in my ear, always calm, always ready with a solution that makes me feel like I should’ve come up with it myself.
I close the message without replying.
No.
I can’t do indulgent right now. I can’t do soft or slow or flirty.
Romance is a luxury.
And I’m drowning in responsibility.
I don’t remember inviting Jonathan back in.
But an hour after I ghost Molly’s message, he reappears in my doorway like he never left, holding a glass of that god-awful nutrient fizz he insists I drink on low-energy days.
The man’s a walking reassurance campaign.
Polished shoes, steady voice, warm smile that says you’re not drowning, you’re just acclimating to the depth.
I close the ledger tab and lean back in my chair, arms crossed.
“You look like hell,” he says conversationally.
“I aim for consistency.”
He chuckles, handing me the drink. “Did you see the message from Jaiden?”
“I saw it.”
“And?”
“I’m ignoring it.”
He tuts softly, sitting across from me again—same seat, same posture, like this whole thing’s a rerun I didn’t realize I’d scheduled.
“She’s the best in the system,” he says.
“She’s a luxury consultant,” I counter. “I’m running a company that’s five wrong steps from being auctioned off to the lowest vulture.”
He doesn’t flinch. “You’re allowed to breathe.”
“I’m allowed to lose my job if I keep putting personal needs before corporate ones.”
“Yara.”
The way he says my name—calm, fatherly, full of the same tone he used to use when I scraped my knee as a kid and thought the world was ending.
“You’re burning out,” he says.
“I’m adapting.”
He leans forward. “You’re flinching from shadows. You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”
“I got four hours.”
He raises a skeptical brow.
“Okay, three.”
“I’m not saying you need to take a vacation,” he says. “I’m saying… take a night.”
“A date?” I scoff. “With a stranger? Do you know how many data leaks happen during social events like that? Do you know how many of our competitors have people on Jaiden’s payroll?”
He gives me a patient look. “Then we vet them.”
“There’s a negotiation with IHC’s board tomorrow,” I snap. “If I’m not fully prepped for Foster, we could lose a contract worth more than our last two quarters combined.”
He nods. “Reschedule it.”
“What?”
“Push it twenty-four hours. You’ve already got the leverage—Foster needs your cybertech more than you need his bid. You postpone, you signal confidence.”
I shake my head. “That’s not how—”
“It’s a subtle flex,” he interrupts. “He’ll read it that way. Trust me.”
I stare at him, trying to read the subtext.
But Jonathan’s good. Too good.
Every time I think I’ve caught him manipulating something, he shows me the puppet strings were my own.
“I don’t know…”
“One night,” he says, gentler now. “A nice restaurant. A little wine. Someone new to talk to who isn’t trying to get a piece of your company or sell you a new R&D platform. No expectations.”
I breathe through my nose.
The screen behind him dims automatically, casting soft shadows across his face.
I think about how I’ve spent every waking hour this week triple-checking code permissions and arguing with finance leads over decimal points.
I think about the way I’ve stopped listening to music. The way I’ve stopped dreaming.
“One night,” he repeats.
It’s not a command. It’s not even a plea.
It’s a kindness—strategic, perhaps, but still sincere in its shape.
And I am tired.
God, I’m so tired.
“…Fine.”
Jonathan’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “I’ll notify Jaiden.”
“Wait—what? You already responded to her?”
He stands, straightens his suit coat. “Only to let her know I’d nudge you.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
“Tell me you didn’t already pick the guy.”
“Of course not.” He pauses. “Molly did.”
He’s gone before I can throw something.
Two hours later, I’m standing in front of my closet, half-dressed, completely panicking.
I don’t even remember what I used to wear on dates.
Do people still wear silk? Is that desperate? Is it trying too hard?
I run my hands down a sleek charcoal-gray dress that hugs more than it hides and try to remind myself that I’m not applying for a merger. It’s just dinner. With a stranger. Who may or may not have access to a security-clearance vetting agency.
I tug the zipper up, smooth the fabric.
The dress fits too well.
I sit on the edge of the bed, heels forgotten on the floor, pulse thrumming in my wrists. I’m nervous. Not because I expect anything magical. I’m not that na?ve.
But because part of me—some stupid soft spark I thought I’d outgrown—hopes for something.
Not forever.
Just a moment.
Just one evening where I’m not a CEO or a grieving daughter or a brand name stitched into someone else’s empire. Just Yara. Just a woman in a dress, on a date, trying to feel… anything.