Chapter 4 #2
Logan gathers his things slowly, as if he’s waiting for something. Waiting for me to look at him, maybe. I don’t.
“Audrey.” Bennett appears at my elbow, voice low. “Walk with me?”
Figuring I don’t really have a choice in the matter, I follow him out of the conference room, leaving Logan behind with Layla.
Bennett leads me down the hall toward the windows, away from the foot traffic. When he turns to face me, his expression is careful. Concerned.
“You OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“Audrey.”
“I’m fine, Bennett. It’s not a big deal.”
He studies me for a moment, and I hate how well he reads people. It’s what makes him a good investor. It’s what makes him an annoying friend.
“Look,” he says quietly, “I realize now I should have told you last night. Given you a heads up about Logan being on the project. I thought about it, but you’d just gotten back, and I wanted to—”
“It’s fine.”
“Will you stop saying that?” He sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“I’m trying to give you an out here. I need him on this project.
So if working closely with him is going to be a problem, I can assign someone else to the day-to-day coordination.
Reyes has been up to speed on the technical side. It wouldn’t be—”
“I don’t need an out.”
“Audrey—”
“I don’t.” I keep my voice steady, even though my heart is hammering against my ribs.
“I designed NeuraTech. I know the signal architecture better than anyone. Reyes is good, but he wasn’t there for the foundational work.
If we’re going to fix this in the timeframe, you need me on point.
Not watching from the sidelines with Reyes as a go-between. ”
Bennett is quiet for a moment. “That’s not what I’m asking. I know you’re the best person for the job. I’m asking if you can do the job while working directly with Logan. Every day. For three months.”
The question hangs between us.
I think about what it would mean to say no. To admit that seeing him walk through that door felt like a knife sliding between my ribs.
I think about what everyone would assume. Poor Audrey. She let a man derail her career.
No. Absolutely not.
“It’s not a problem,” I say. “Logan and I worked together before. We’re professionals. We’ll be professionals again.”
Bennett holds my gaze for a long moment, searching for cracks. I don’t give him any.
“All right,” he says finally. “Daily standups at eight. Weekly reports to the full team. You’re point on the technical response, Logan reports to you.”
“Got it.”
“And Audrey?” He softens slightly. “If it does become a problem—at any point—you tell me. No judgment. We’ll figure it out.”
“It won’t.”
He doesn’t look convinced. But he nods, squeezes my shoulder, and heads back toward the conference room.
I take a breath. Then another.
I can do this. I just have to keep the walls up for eighty-three days. That’s all.
I’m about to head back to my desk when I hear footsteps behind me.
“Audrey.”
Damn it.
I turn. Logan is standing a few feet away, laptop bag still over his shoulder, looking like he’s rehearsed this moment a thousand times and still doesn’t know his lines.
“What?”
“I just wanted to say—” He pushes his glasses up his nose, a nervous habit I know too well. “I didn’t know you’d be here. On the project, I mean. Bennett didn’t tell me. I only found out you were coming back by accident when—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” His voice cracks slightly, and I hate that I notice.
Hate that some pathetic part of me still catalogues every shift in his tone like it’s data to be analyzed.
“I know things are... complicated. Between us. And that it’s my fault.
But I want you to know that I’ll be completely professional. I won’t make this weird. I just—”
His voice breaks again on the last word, and I catalog it automatically—the slight roughness, the breath he takes to steady himself. I’ve always tracked his vocal patterns like data. I can’t seem to stop.
“Logan.” I make sure my face is blank. A wall he can’t climb over. My heart is doing something erratic behind my ribs, but my voice comes out steady. “There’s nothing complicated between us. We worked together. Now we’re working together again. That’s it.”
He flinches. Actually flinches, like I’ve hit him.
Good.
No. Not good. I don’t want to hurt him. I just want to survive this.
“Right.” He swallows hard. “Of course. I just thought—”
“Whatever you thought, don’t.”
The words come out harsh, and I regret them immediately. Some treacherous part of me wants to take them back. Wants to ask what he was going to say.
But that’s the old Audrey. The one who believed that if she just understood something well enough, she could fix it. The one who thought being smart and patient and good would eventually be enough.
I tuck my paperwork tighter under my arm. “I’ll review the security architecture files this morning. We can meet in the lab at two to go over the test results. Does that work?”
He stares at me for a long moment. I can see something behind his eyes—words he wants to say, explanations he wants to give. His mouth opens, closes. Opens again.
“Two o’clock,” he says finally. “I’ll be there.”
For a split second, he sounds like the old Logan. The one who used to say, ‘I’ll be there’ about late-night debugging sessions and coffee runs and reviewing my grant proposals at 2 a.m. The one who always showed up.
I don’t let myself think about that.
“Good.”
I walk away without looking back.
Layla intercepts me when I’m about halfway to my desk, falling into step beside me like she just happened to be speed walking in the same direction.
“So,” she says, voice carefully light. “That was fun.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just saying. You handled it well. Very professional. Very ‘I definitely don’t want to murder anyone.’”
“Layla.”
“I’m proud of you.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “And I’m here. Whenever you’re ready to not be fine.”
“I appreciate it.”
“We’ll have lunch, OK? I’ll call Serena.”
She leaves and I sit down at my desk. Open the security files. Start reading.
This is what I know how to do. Analyze data. Identify problems. Build solutions. This is the part of my life I can control.
I read the first file. Then the second. By the third, I’ve almost stopped hearing his voice crack on the word ‘complicated.’ Almost stopped seeing the way he flinched when I told him there was nothing between us.
Almost.
Eighty-three days.