Chapter Six #2
And yet, all morning, Adrian has moved through my house, through the garage, through my car situation, through the ride into the city, and now through my office, reducing every space I’ve built for myself into a list of vulnerabilities.
Not wrongly, which is the most infuriating part.
Just clinically.
He is by the bookshelf now.
I can see him in the reflection of my monitor glass more than I can see him directly.
Broad shoulders. Dark suit jacket pulled smoothly over his back.
Head bent slightly as he checks the line between the shelves and the wall, then the camera dome in the upper corner; the one I had honestly stopped noticing almost immediately because it had become part of the room in the same way smoke detectors become part of a ceiling.
He notices everything.
I hate that too.
“Hm,” Harold says, peering down at the slide I’m currently sharing. “And the contingency reserve there. Is that still sufficient if your projected opening costs run five percent higher?”
“Yes,” I say again, because apparently today I am answering financial questions and resisting the urge to throw a stapler at my bodyguard at the same time. “That reserve already assumes variance. Five percent doesn’t break the model. Ten starts to annoy me. Fifteen becomes a real conversation.”
That gets a laugh out of Marissa.
Normal. Professional.
I cling to that and keep going.
Adrian moves to the wall of glass on the other side of the room and pauses there, looking out over the casino’s side access lane below.
He does not touch the glass. He just studies the angle, then the blinds, then the desk placement. Then he looks at me.
I feel it before I fully register it. The awareness of being observed not as a woman, not even really as a person in the usual sense, but as a principal in a room he is assessing. My position relative to the window. Relative to the door. Relative to the line of sight from outside.
It prickles anyway.
I keep my expression neutral and say, “If you all look at the supplementary tab, you’ll see the cash-flow assumptions broken out by month instead of quarter.”
Harold starts flipping through the materials.
Behind the screen, Adrian moves again.
This time toward the framed abstract by the side wall.
For one wild second, I think he is about to take it off the wall in the middle of my Zoom call.
He does not.
He leans slightly, studies the space behind it with his eyes, then moves on.
It should not be possible for somebody to be this invasive while actually staying completely out of my way. In searching my entire office, he hasn't appeared on camera even once. The three people on the screen have no idea there's even someone else in the room.
And yet here we are.
The consultant with the forgettable face asks, “Would you be open to an outside review of vendor leakage before the next board presentation?”
“Yes,” I say, though my patience with men who repackage my own ideas and hand them back to me as suggestions is almost gone. “Provided the scope is specific, and it doesn’t turn into six weeks of expensive redundancy.”
“Of course.”
Of course.
Adrian has reached the small lounge area at the far end of my office now. A loveseat and two chairs surround the low table. Another credenza with some choice liquors. He checks under the table, then the corner near the floor plant, then looks up at the vent placement.
I drag my eyes back to the screen.
This is absurd.
I am not distracted by men. I am especially not distracted by absurdly handsome men in suits doing their jobs with maddening competence. I am not one of those women who loses her head because a man with strong, broad shoulders starts rearranging the furniture of her life.
I am not.
I am just irritated.
Deeply, persistently irritated.
And because I am irritated, I am aware of him.
That is all.
Marissa says, “Caterina?”
I realize she asked me something, and I missed the first half of it because Adrian has now crouched beside the door and appears to be examining the hinge.
Wonderful.
I recover instantly.
“Sorry,” I say. “The audio clipped for a second. Can you repeat that?”
She does.
I answer and keep going.
I do not look at him again for nearly two full minutes, which feels like a triumph until he crosses behind my desk, close enough that I catch the faint, clean scent of his soap or whatever he uses that makes him smell entirely too male for a Tuesday morning.
The smell that's now ingrained in my mind after the car ride this morning.
My spine goes straighter.
On the screen, Harold is still talking.
I nod at the appropriate time and say, “That’s why we built the reserve bands the way we did. If the first phase performs as expected, the second phase funds itself with minimal disruption.”
As I say it, Adrian stops beside my desk.
Not close enough to crowd me.
Close enough that I’m very aware of him.
I keep my eyes on the call.
From the corner of my vision, I see his hand move once, low and discreet, toward the edge of the desk.
He taps a single finger lightly against the wood.
Not enough sound for the microphone to pick up.
Just enough to get my attention.
I flick my eyes toward him for half a second.
He points once, two fingers, toward the window behind me. Then toward the other chair at the side of the desk.
Move.
That is what it means.
I stare at him.
Absolutely not.
He holds my gaze. Says nothing. Just waits.
There is no impatience in it. No apology either. Just that same infuriating calm certainty that if he is asking me to move, there is a reason.
On the screen, someone is still talking.
I force my attention back to the call and say, “Excuse me one second.”
I mute myself, then turn my chair just enough to face him without letting the screen see anything but part of my shoulder.
“What?” I hiss.
His voice is low enough not to carry. “You’re backlit.”
I blink.
He goes on before I can snap at him. “From the hallway side and from the access lane below. Anybody looking for a shot or even a visual read gets one with you sitting here.”
I stare at him.
Of course, that is what this is.
Not some power play. Not some random disruption. Just another maddeningly logical thing that only someone like him would notice.
“It is my office,” I whisper.
“That doesn't eliminate the danger,” he says.
I hate him a little in that moment.
Not because he is wrong.
Because he is right, and I know it immediately.
And because he knew I would know it immediately.
He inclines his head once toward the chair at the side of the desk again. “Move the call there.”
I look at the laptop screen. Three people waiting. My own reflection faint in the black margin beside the presentation. Then I look back at him.
“This is intrusive,” I say under my breath.
“Yes.”
No argument. No denial. Just yes.
That steals some of my momentum.
I unmute myself. “Sorry,” I say smoothly to the screen. “I’m going to shift seats for a moment. The lighting is fighting me.”
Harold chuckles like I just told a funny joke. “Of course.”
I close the laptop halfway, stand, carry it the few steps to the side table area, and sit again with the camera angled back toward the wall instead of the window. Better background. Better light. Safer, apparently.
Adrian steps back immediately once I’m repositioned, as if he has no interest in looming over the call any more than necessary.
Which, again, makes it harder to resent him.
The meeting resumes.
I finish walking them through the numbers. I answer questions. I redirect two bad suggestions and kill one idiotic idea about expanding beverage costs. By the time we wrap, my voice is steady, my face composed, and my notes are neat and thorough.
“Thank you, everyone,” I say. “I’ll send the updated reserve model by close of business.”
We disconnect.
The screen goes dark.
Silence settles over the office, broken only by the hum of the air and the faint, distant thrum of the casino beyond the walls.
I close the laptop slowly and lift my eyes to Adrian.
He is standing near the window again, hands relaxed at his sides, expression unreadable.
For a second, neither of us says anything.
Then I say, “Do you enjoy this?”
One dark brow lifts. “Enjoy what?”
“Turning every room into a problem.”
“I'm not turning anything into a problem. It's already a problem.” His gaze holds mine. “And I would rather have a plan.”
I should have a sharper answer for that.
I do not.
Which is irritating in itself.
I push back from the chair and stand. “You made me move in the middle of a meeting.”
“Yes.”
“You could have waited.”
“No.”
I stare at him.
He gives me nothing but the truth, stripped down to the bone and set in front of me like he expects me to deal with it.
I cross my arms. “You really don’t care whether this is inconvenient for me.”
His expression shifts, just slightly.
“That’s not true.”
I blink once, surprised despite myself.
He continues in the same even tone. “I care, but it ranks below your safety. I am sorry that your meeting was interrupted, but my priority was putting you where someone can’t line you up from outside.”
“It's a double-sided mirror,” I explain, trying to keep my patience. “The windows, I mean. You can't see in from outside.”
“I know,” he says calmly.
Anger spurts, but I fight to keep it down. “So, what? Making the move was for fun?”
“The window being double-sided does not erase the possibility of someone, with the right tools, while you're in front of a bright monitor, finding your silhouette,” he says. “You also have the same issue on the other side.”
He gestures to the windows that look down over the casino.
“You think someone is lining up a shot from the casino floor?” I ask sarcastically, knowing I'm being petty but not able to stop it. “You think someone would be so stupid as to attempt that knowing security will be on them in a second?”
“I think some people are willing to risk their lives depending on the motive,” he says. “And since we don't know the motive for the threat, we can't take that chance.”
He goes on in that same maddeningly level tone.
“You also have the frosted glass on your door, and that gives people a clear view of you,” he explains.
“And since we know that there's a chance that this person is on the inside, we also know there's a chance that they have access to internal cameras.
Or that they've been in your office before. Anyone who has a basic idea of your office setup knows exactly where you sit.”
That stops me.
I have no answer for that because it's the kind of risk assessment I do every day in my job, just with different numbers, different consequences. I'm always calculating the odds, weighing the risks. The only difference is that he's calculating the odds on my life, and that makes it very personal.
And he's thinking of things I never would have thought of.
“You built this office to command the room,” he continues. “I understand that. But right now it also gives away your position too easily.”
The words stick in my throat.
Not because it is sweet. It isn’t. There is nothing sweet about him.
Because it is direct.
I look at the desk. At the chair I have used since before we even opened. At the window behind it. I suddenly cannot stop seeing it the way he sees it.
At the camera in the corner that I once thought was keeping me safe but might be giving someone insight into my life that could be used to hurt me.”
Then back at him.
“I hate this,” I say.
His gaze doesn’t leave mine. “I know.”
And somehow that is worse than if he had argued.