Chapter 14
Logan
Ifill my mouth with carbonara and stare at the door, trying very hard not to look like a man watching the door, waiting for the woman he just made out with to return.
Based on the way Caleb is smirking at me, I’m failing.
“So,” Caleb says, dropping into Serena’s vacated chair. “Interesting meeting.”
“The simulation data is promising.” I keep my voice neutral. “If we can maintain stability through—”
“I’m not talking about the simulation data.” He leans back, arms crossed, wearing the expression of a man about to enjoy himself immensely. “I’m talking about you and Audrey.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Right. That’s why you were both late. Why you keep sneaking glances. Why your mouths look like—”
“Caleb.” Bennett’s voice cuts in. “Save the cross examination for after we finalize the testing schedule.”
“I’m just observing.”
“Observe quieter.”
Caleb subsides, but the smirk doesn’t leave his face. Across the table, Landon is reviewing something on his tablet, apparently oblivious to the undercurrent in the room. Or maybe just choosing to ignore it.
“The next phase of testing will require twenty-four-hour monitoring for the first seventy-two hours, two people in the lab at all times,” Landon says. “Logan, can you assemble a team to handle that?”
“Yes.” I grab onto the work question like a lifeline. “I’ll set up rotating shifts. Audrey and I will take the overnight slots—we know the system best.”
“Overnight slots,” Caleb murmurs, just loud enough for me to hear. “Convenient.”
I kick him under the table.
“Ow.” He doesn’t even have the grace to look apologetic. “That was my shin.”
“I know.”
Bennett sighs the sigh of a man who has managed these people for too long. “Can we please focus? Landon, what’s the timeline for FDA submission once we clear clinical protocols?”
The conversation shifts to regulatory requirements and documentation deadlines.
I try to follow along, but my attention keeps drifting toward the door.
How long does it take to use the bathroom?
Serena and Layla followed her in there. They’re probably extracting every detail of what happened in the lab right now.
My phone buzzes. I glance at the screen.
Dominic:
heard there’s a team dinner happening without me. rude.
also heard you and Audrey showed up late together. VERY interesting.
call me later. i want details.
actually no. text me. calling is for old people.
unless it’s REALLY good, in which case call me immediately.
I look up from my phone, eyes narrowing as I scan the room.
“Who told Dominic?” I demand.
Bennett looks up from his tablet. “Told him what?”
“That Audrey and I were late. He’s texting me about it.”
“Wasn’t me.” Bennett holds up his hands. “I’ve been running this meeting.”
Caleb shakes his head. “I’ve been in this room the whole time. Haven’t touched my phone once.”
“You don’t need to touch your phone. Devices connect to each other,” I accuse, knowing one of them—probably Caleb—has to be the culprit. “You could have texted from your laptop.”
Caleb’s mouth kicks up at the side, amused. “And told him what, exactly?”
Shit. I clamp my mouth shut before something betraying comes out.
If I say too much, I risk exposing the real reason we were late.
Knowing I chose making out with Audrey over being on time would catapult Dominic into a week-long meme spree and make every future meeting a misery. I don’t owe anyone that ammunition.
But there’s another problem. I can’t figure out how he found out so fast. Dominic is many things—genius, chaos agent, tea snob—but psychic is not one of them.
I glare at Caleb, but he meets my stare with such wide-eyed innocence it can only be fake.
“Maybe,” he says, milking the pause, “Dominic has spies everywhere.”
“Or,” Bennett adds, “it’s just very, very obvious.”
That stings for reasons I refuse to examine.
Across the table, Landon glances up, finally registering the shift in the social weather that he gives me a quick, sidelong assessment. “Is there a reason I’m being left out of an inside joke?” he asks.
“There’s no joke,” Jenna provides from the corner of the room where she’s been sitting quietly since she returned. “I’m the one responsible for notifying Dominic of your tardiness.”
“You told Dominic?” I ask, shocked. She doesn’t even like Dominic. Why the hell is she texting him?
“I did.” She doesn’t look up from her screen. “The man texts me incessantly under the guise of the Tokyo project. I merely mentioned that I was in a meeting but the team leads were running behind schedule. He drew his own conclusions.”
“His own conclusions being that something happened between me and Audrey.”
“I can’t control what conclusions Dominic draws. The man sees romantic subtext in grocery lists.” She pauses, then adds, almost reluctantly, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t tell him why you were late. Just that you were.”
My face goes hot. “How do you know why I was late?”
For the first time in all the years I’ve known her, the cool and calm facade Jenna always exhibits cracks.
It’s a momentary widening of the eyes, an oh shit flash across her face before her features settle back into her default setting, as if she’s dragged her own panic into the same cold storage she uses for everything else.
“I don’t,” she says, her tone deadpan. “That’s why I didn’t tell him—couldn’t tell him.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Caleb leans forward, suddenly very alert. “Couldn’t tell him what? What aren’t you telling us, Jenna? What did you learn when you went to the bathroom?”
“What happens in the women’s bathroom is sacred, Caleb.”
He turns back to me. “What did she learn, Logan?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Your face says otherwise.” He looks between me and Jenna. “What happened? Why would being late mean anything?”
Bennett has set down his tablet now, giving me his full attention. “Logan?”
“Can we please focus on the FDA timeline?”
“Absolutely not,” Caleb says. “Not until you tell us what’s going on.”
“There’s nothing to—”
“You’re a terrible liar. Always have been.” Caleb’s grin is spreading. “Something happened with Audrey. Before the meeting. You’ve been like a sad puppy dog ever since she left, miserable since she returned. And tonight you’re…”
Bennett leans back in his seat and steeples his fingers. “He’s glowing.”
“The f—” I stop myself. “That’s what Layla and Serena said about Audrey. Don’t use that shit on me.”
“Interesting. Both of you are glowing,” Caleb says, grinning like the cat who got the cream. “It’s almost as if you were engaging in certain activities that induce such a ‘glow’.”
My face feels hot. And even Landon chuckles. I’m being laughed at by the man whose approval I need for FDA submission. This is fine.
“I’m not going to drag my personal life across the conference table during a critical project meeting.
” I glance at Landon, who’s now watching the exchange with an amused expression.
“Especially with Landon here. He doesn’t need to be part of our dysfunction.
This is supposed to be a professional environment. ”
“I’ve seen and done worse,” Landon says mildly, chuckling lightly to himself.
“My wife and I got together after she infiltrated my company as an intern, convinced I’d cheated her father out of his fortune.
She was twenty-two. I was in my forties.
We fell in love over corporate espionage and false accusations.
” He pauses. “We’ve been married five years now. We have a daughter.”
The room goes quiet.
“I’m not suggesting your situation is the same,” Landon continues. “But I learned a long time ago that personal and professional lines blur whether you want them to or not. The question isn’t whether it happens—it’s how you handle it when it does.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Landon James—billionaire tech mogul and NeuraTech stakeholder—is apparently fine with workplace romance confessions.
“Willa would like Audrey,” he adds, almost to himself. “They’re similar in some ways. Both brilliant. Both convinced they’re ‘too much’ when really they’re just right.” He picks up his tablet again. “But that’s none of my business. You were saying something about FDA timelines?”
I stare at him for a beat too long.
Too much. That’s the phrase that’s followed me since I was eight years old. Too intense. Too focused. Too strange. Too much of everything people don’t want.
But Landon said it like it was the problem’s fault, not mine. Like being ‘too much’ was just a mismatch, not a defect.
I don’t know what to do with that.
Bennett clears his throat, but Caleb isn’t letting this go.
“So?” He’s practically bouncing in his seat. “Come on, Logan. Landon just shared his love story. Your turn.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“It’s exactly how this works. Cough it up.”
I look at Bennett, hoping for backup. He just raises an eyebrow, waiting.
“Fine.” I exhale. “We kissed. In the lab. Before the meeting. That’s why we were late.”
Caleb lets out a cheer that’s entirely too loud for a conference room. Bennett’s face breaks into a rare, genuine smile. Even Jenna looks up from her tablet, something like satisfaction flickering across her features.
“Finally,” Caleb says. “Serena and I have been together for months. Bennett and Layla are engaged. You two have been circling each other since before any of that happened.”
“We were focused on the project.”
“You were focused on pretending you weren’t staring at her.”
Pretending you weren’t staring at her. The accuracy of that stings.
I thought I was being subtle. Turns out I was just being slow—so slow that two entire couples formed around me while I was still working up the nerve to make eye contact.
And now they’ll all be watching to see if I can actually do this.