Chapter 4
Audrey
It’s not even seven when I arrive at Carmichael Innovations.
The lobby is quiet. Just the security guard, who does a double-take when he sees me—probably doesn’t recognize me with the hair and no glasses—and the soft hum of a building that hasn’t woken up yet.
I badge through the turnstile and head for the elevators, my heels clicking against the marble in a rhythm that feels like a countdown.
On the elevator up, I catch my reflection in the mirrored doors and look away. I already know what I look like: Stockholm dress, three-inch wedge heels, makeup that took forty-five minutes, blonde hair straightened into submission.
I look like someone who has her shit together. Someone who definitely isn’t running on caffeine and spite.
That’s the goal, anyway. Fake it till everyone stops asking if I’m OK.
The hall is empty when I step off the elevator. I have at least an hour before anyone else arrives, which is exactly what I wanted. Time to review the CRL. Time to get my head in the game. Time to be Dr. Audrey Greene, biomedical engineer. The one who solves problems and figures things out.
The entire office is quiet as I settle into my old desk—someone’s been using it while I was gone, I can tell by the reorganized supplies and the unfamiliar coffee mug—and pull up my email.
Taking a breath, I click on the FDA thread and start reading.
By the time Robert Carmichael arrives at 8:15, I’ve read the Complete Response Letter three times and made six pages of notes.
The deficiencies are significant but not insurmountable.
Signal interference in high-density neural environments—fixable with recalibration of the frequency modulation.
Biocompatibility concerns—we need more long-term data, which means accelerated testing protocols.
Data security—that one’s trickier, but not impossible.
We can do this. The timeline is tight, but it’s doable.
Robert stops short when he sees me at my desk. He’s a solid man, silver-haired, with the kind of permanent frown that suggests he’s never been satisfied with anything in his life.
Including, historically, me.
“Audrey.” He blinks. “You’re... here.”
“I’m here.”
“Bennett said you might come in sooner, but I didn’t expect—” He stops, recalibrates. “You look different.”
“Sweden,” I say, as if that explains anything.
“Right.” He clears his throat. “Well. Welcome back. The team will be glad to have you.”
It’s the most positive thing Robert Carmichael has ever said to me. That’s how I know things are bad.
“The CRL,” I start, holding up my notes. “I’ve been reviewing the deficiencies. I have some initial thoughts on the signal interference issue—”
“Save it for the meeting.” He checks his watch. “Conference room B, nine o’clock. Full team briefing.”
“Full team?”
“Everyone involved,” he confirms, turning toward his office. “Nine o’clock. Don’t be late.”
I watch him go, something uneasy settling in my stomach.
Everyone involved.
Logan was involved. He’s Mercer’s tech specialist.
That means he’ll be there.
Right?
No. I’m being paranoid. Someone would have mentioned it at dinner last night, surely. They’d want me prepared. Mercer has an entire technology division. There are dozens of people who could be embedded on this project. It doesn’t have to be—
“There’s a full stakeholder meeting tomorrow morning. Landon James, Robert, the whole response team. It’s going to be intense.”
Oh shit.
Bennett’s words from last night. They did tell me—in a roundabout way. And that’s probably exactly why they were so insistent I stay home.
I shake the thought away before it can settle.
It doesn’t matter who it is. I’m here to do a job. I’m here to save my project. Everything else is irrelevant.
I spend the next forty-five minutes reviewing my notes, adding questions, preparing myself for the meeting. By 8:55, I’m ready. Walls up. Expression set to ‘competent professional who definitely doesn’t care.’
I walk into Conference Room B at exactly 8:58.
Bennett is mid-conversation with Landon James, but he stops when he sees me. His expression cycles through surprise, confusion, and something like resignation.
“Audrey.” He stands. “I wasn’t aware you were coming in today.”
Layla, seated beside him, jumps up quickly and gives his arm a subtle nudge. “We’re so glad you felt up to it, though. How’s the jet lag?”
“Yes.” Bennett recovers quickly, smoothing into a smile. “How is the jet lag?”
I take a seat across from Layla, who looks at me in an apologetic way. I offer back a slight shrug, because whatever. I’m already onto this misguided protection racket they’ve got going on.
Before I can finish pulling out my notes, Robert clears his throat.
“Let’s get started. As you all know, we received a Complete Response Letter from the FDA regarding the NeuraTech submission. The letter identifies three major deficiencies that must be addressed before approval can proceed.”
He clicks a remote, and the screen behind him lights up with a bulleted list that he reads out.
It’s everything I already know from the CRL, but hearing it laid out in Robert’s flat, clinical voice makes it feel more real. More urgent.
“Including today, we have eighty-three days to submit a complete response,” Robert continues. “If we miss that window, the application is considered withdrawn, and we start over from scratch. That’s not an option.”
“What’s the plan?” I ask.
Robert looks at Bennett. Bennett looks at Landon. Landon looks back at Robert.
No one looks at me.
“We’ve assembled a joint response team,” Bennett says finally. “Carmichael is handling the biocompatibility studies—accelerated testing protocols, additional data collection. JamesTech is providing resources for the hardware modifications needed to address the signal interference.”
“And Mercer?” I ask.
“Mercer is contributing technical expertise for the data security overhaul.” Bennett’s voice is careful. Too careful. “We need our absolute best on this. So we’re embedding a specialist who will be working directly with your team for the duration of the response period.”
Get to the point, Bennett!
“Who?” I snap, just as the conference room door opens.
I don’t have to turn around. I know who it is. I feel it—a shift in the air, a prickle at the back of my neck. That specific frequency of awareness that only one person has ever triggered.
“Sorry I’m late.” His voice. Low and careful and exactly the same as I remember. “The traffic from—”
He stops.
I turn.
Logan Whitman is standing in the doorway, a laptop bag over one shoulder, looking like he’s seen a ghost.
Because he has. I’m the ghost. The woman who fled the country to escape him.
For a moment, neither of us moves. The room is silent—the kind of silence that has weight, that presses against your eardrums.
And in that instant, I know. Three months away did nothing. The humiliation I’ve been desperately trying to hide from is still right there.
I’m definitely not over it.
Worse, part of me is cataloguing him. The tired eyes.
The rumpled shirt. The way he’s gripping his laptop bag like it’s a shield.
Part of me wants to ask if he’s OK. Wants to close the distance.
Wants to pretend that night never happened and go back to the way we used to be—finishing each other’s sentences, orbiting each other in the lab like binary stars.
I crush that part. Bury it. Lock it in a box and throw away the key.
“Audrey.” The way he says my name sounds like it was lodged in his throat. He hides it by pushing his glasses back up his nose.
He looks the same. Maybe a little thinner, but definitely just as broad and tall as I remember.
His hair is doing that thing where it sticks up at odd angles because he’s been running his hands through it.
He’s wearing a button-down that’s slightly wrinkled, like he grabbed it off the floor this morning.
He looks like Logan. My Logan.
No. Not mine. Never mine.
“Logan.” Flat. Neutral. Professional. “We were just discussing… er…” Shit. What were we discussing?
“You, actually.” Layla jumps in. “Bennett was just telling us you’re heading up the security overhaul. That you’d be back on site full-time.”
He nods. “Correct. I’ll be reporting directly to you.” He sits two seats over from mine, carefully stacking his laptop and notebook. He doesn’t look up.
I want to die. Or at least dissolve cleanly into my chair.
“Excellent.” Robert smooths things over with a brisk nod. “Audrey, you and Dr. Whitman go back, yes?”
Layla’s eyes flick toward me in horror, but what does it matter? “Yes,” I say, voice crisp as a bandage. “We’ve collaborated before.”
“Good.” Robert’s already moving on. “We’ll need that synergy.”
A flush creeps up Logan’s neck. I know this look—a million presentations, every time a question doesn’t match his mental script. He hates surprises. I can almost feel how badly he wishes he were invisible.
Join the club, buddy.
Robert continues the meeting like he hasn’t just detonated a bomb in the middle of the conference room. He walks through timelines, resource allocation, reporting structures. I take notes because it gives me something to do with my hands. Something to look at that isn’t Logan.
But I’m aware of him, anyway. The sound of his pen against his notebook. The way he shifts in his chair every few minutes. At one point, his knee bumps the table leg, and the vibration travels through the wood to where my elbow rests. I jerk my arm back like I’ve been burned.
No one notices. Except maybe him.
He’s looking at me—quick glances when he thinks I won’t notice. I notice everything. I always have, when it comes to him.
That’s the problem.
Forty minutes later, Robert wraps up with a brisk summary of action items and next steps. Handshakes all around. Landon pauses to welcome me back, his grip warm and steady. Robert is already on his phone before he’s out the door.