5. Celebrity #2
He's behind my chair now. He braces one hand on the back of my chair and the other on the desk beside my keyboard, caging me in without touching me.
I swallow. Choose the stress model. My fingers are steady on the mouse, because if they weren't, I would break them myself.
"Here." I rotate the 3D model. "The diagrid distributes lateral loads along these diagonal members, but the software calculates each panel as a discrete unit. It's not accounting for the compound curvature of the wall redistributing force across adjacent panels simultaneously."
He reaches past me. His forearm brushes my shoulder as he takes the mouse from my hand—not asking, just taking—and rotates the model himself.
His other hand stays planted on the desk, and the cage of his body tightens around me by two inches.
The heat of him radiates against my back through the thin cotton of my blouse.
He studies the model for thirty seconds. A full thirty seconds of silence while I sit perfectly still and try to remember how breathing works.
"Your displacement coefficient is correct. The software is wrong. Override the panel calculation and run it as a continuous shell element. The compound curvature functions as a monocoque structure—the skin itself is the load path."
My brain catches fire. He's right. He's exactly right.
The curtain wall isn't a series of individual panels; it's a unified structural skin, and the software's discrete unit calculation is artificially fragmenting the load distribution.
I've been staring at this error for four hours, and he diagnosed it in thirty seconds because he thinks about buildings the way I think about buildings—as living systems, not assembled parts.
"I should have seen that."
"You would have seen it if you weren't running on caffeine and spite at eleven o'clock at night because a man with half your talent decided to kneecap you." He pulls back from the desk. Steps away. The absence of his warmth hits me like a cold draft. "Stand up."
I turn in my chair. "What?"
"Stand up, Celebrity."
The way he says my name. Not clipped, not soft.
Full. Like every syllable carries weight he's choosing to give it.
I push out of the chair. My stockinged feet hit the cold concrete, and I'm suddenly aware of how small I am next to him without my shoes—the top of my head barely clearing his chin.
He's looking down at me with that expression I can't decode.
Not angry. Not impressed. Something in between that burns hotter than both.
"Porter Hargrove accessed a secure server and destroyed your proprietary work. You caught him, confronted him, reported it." He takes a step toward me. "And then you sat down at your desk and worked for sixteen hours straight to rebuild what he took from you."
"The deadline?—"
"I created the deadline. I can move it."
"I don't need you to move it."
"I know you don't. That's not the point.
" Another step. My back hits the drafting table.
"The point is that you walked into that man's office alone.
You handled it alone. You sat in the dark alone.
" His hand comes up. His thumb and forefinger catch my chin—firm, unyielding, tipping my face up to his. "Why."
My throat tightens. "Because I've always handled it alone."
"That's not what I asked." His grip on my chin doesn't soften. "I asked why you let the partners at this firm treat you like an amateur they can sabotage and suffer no consequences."
"He will suffer consequences. I sent the?—"
"An email. You sent an email to a managing partner who has played golf with Porter Hargrove for fifteen years. You think that email does anything? You think Craig Bellamy reads that and picks you over his buddy?"
The truth of it lands like a fist between my ribs.
Because I already know. I knew when I sent it.
I knew when I walked out of Richard's office with those printouts clutched in my hand, high on my own righteousness, that the firm would close ranks.
That the email would get a polite acknowledgment and a quiet burial.
That I would end up doing exactly what I'm doing right now—sitting alone in the dark, working twice as hard to prove what should never have been in question.
My eyes sting. I clench my jaw until the sensation passes.
"What do you want me to say, Torrance? That I'm used to it? That I've been the youngest, the only Black woman, the most qualified person in every room at this firm for four years and still get treated like a temp? You want me to stand here and perform that for you?"
His thumb shifts along my jawline. Not a caress. A claim.
"No. I want you to stop performing for people who will never see you.
" His eyes hold mine, and the weight of his gaze pins me harder than his hand does.
"You don't report to Craig Bellamy. You don't report to Porter Hargrove.
You don't report to anyone on the eighth floor, the sixth floor, or any other floor of this building. Effective now."
"You can't just?—"
"I just did. My legal team drafted the amendment two hours ago. You are contracted directly to Elkwood Development as lead architect of record. This firm provides you workspace and support staff. Nothing more."
My breath catches.
"You answer to me." He leans down. His lips hover a half inch from mine, and the proximity scrambles every coherent thought I have left. "Only me. And if you deliver what I know you're capable of—if you give me perfection, Celebrity—I will reward you in ways that make you forget your own name."