Chapter 27
The launch was tomorrow.
Everything was ready. Every timeline had been met, every press angle covered, every contingency planned for. The Garcia name would appear alongside another brand for the first time ever.
It had to be perfect.
It would be perfect.
For once, I had a moment to myself—a rare, quiet pocket in the middle of all the chaos. And naturally, my mind drifted to Cassian.
I needed to thank him.
For the paintball.
It had been exactly what I needed, even if I hadn’t known I needed it. A release valve. A chance to laugh, to compete, to feel something other than the constant pressure sitting on my shoulders.
And before that… the sickness.
He’d stayed.
All night.
He’d held me while I burned with fever, changed the cool cloths on my forehead, forced medicine down my throat, and made that awful drink.
He hadn’t had to do any of it.
We were divorced. Legally, formally, completely severed. There was no obligation anymore.
He’d said he wanted to.
That somehow made even less sense.
Why would he want to?
And then there was the soup. That still lodged in my chest like a splinter I couldn’t stop touching. He’d really learned how to make it. For me. So I wouldn’t have to go out the morning after.
The more I learned about him, the more the ground seemed to shift beneath my feet. Every new piece of information was another small earthquake, cracking the foundation of the story I’d spent so long telling myself.
The elevator doors slid open, and I stepped onto his floor.
Rohan looked up from his desk, a flicker of surprise crossing his face before he composed himself.
“He’s free,” he said, nodding toward the closed door.
I nodded and approached.
I pushed the door open.
Cassian was at his desk, hunched over his computer, the blue light from the screen casting shadows across his focused face.
“Just give me two minutes,” he said without looking up, his fingers still flying across the keyboard. “I’m almost done with this.”
I let the door close behind me.
“How did you know I was coming here?”
His head snapped up.
Surprise flooded his features.
“Alessia.”
He was on his feet in an instant—too fast. His knee connected sharply with the edge of his desk.
He winced, grabbed at it, then straightened as though he could somehow pretend the last five seconds hadn’t happened.
“What are you—what are you doing here?” he asked, rubbing his knee absently.
I watched him hobble, a smile threatening to break through.
“I’m treating you to lunch.”
I paused, letting the words settle.
“To thank you. For taking care of me when I was sick. And for the paintball. It helped. More than I expected.”
His face softened, surprise melting into something warmer.
“Alessia, I told you. You don’t need to thank me for any of that. I wanted to—”
“Oh.” I turned toward the door, reaching for the handle. “So should I take the lunch offer back, then?”
“No.”
The word came out so fast it was almost desperate.
He was already moving, rounding his desk and heading toward me.
“Absolutely not. Let’s go. Right now. I’m ready.”
I hid my smile, keeping my back to him.
“Didn’t you just say you needed two minutes to finish something?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t need it. It can wait. Let’s go.”
He took two more steps toward the door. Then stopped. Spun around.
“Actually, I do need to shut down the computer. One minute. Just one.”
I looked to the side, biting the inside of my cheek as I fought the laugh clawing its way up my throat.
The door burst open.
“Cassie baby!”
Liam’s voice filled the room, sing-song and unbearably cheerful.
“Ready for our lunch date?”
The temperature plummeted.
Cassian froze, still hunched over his computer. His expression shifted from focused to horrified in less than a second. His eyes went wide.
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Liam’s eyes landed on me.
His own face went through a rapid transformation—cheerful to confused to panicked in the span of a heartbeat. His gaze darted between me and Cassian.
I lost the battle.
My face broke into a grin, wide and helpless and utterly delighted.
I turned to Cassian, savoring every syllable.
“Don’t keep him waiting, Cassie baby. He asked you a question.”
Cassian straightened so fast I heard his spine crack.
His voice was strangled.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?”
Liam whisper-yelled from the doorway, still frozen in place.
“I didn’t know she was going to be here!”
Cassian’s expression suggested he was mentally composing a eulogy for his best friend.
“You shouldn’t be calling me that anyway.”
I couldn’t stop it.
A full, genuine laugh erupted from me—loud, unrestrained, the kind that bent me forward and left me gasping. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.
Both men whipped toward me, twin expressions of alarm.
I straightened, wiping at my eyes, still grinning.
“Should I give you two some privacy?”
“No!”
The word came from both of them simultaneously, equally horrified.
I laughed harder.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I pressed the heel of my hand to my eye, trying to compose myself. And then I noticed the room had gone quiet.
I looked up.
Cassian was staring at me.
His eyes were soft, almost awed, drinking in every detail of my face—the lingering smile, the tear tracks, the flush of laughter still warming my cheeks.
His expression was open, unguarded, full of something I couldn’t name but could definitely feel.
I blinked.
The last traces of humor faded, replaced by a sudden, acute awareness of being seen.
Liam cleared his throat loudly, seizing the opportunity to break the sudden, heavy silence.
“So, Alessia. What brings you to our humble corporate fortress?”
“We’re going to lunch,” Cassian answered, his eyes still holding mine.
Liam’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline.
A slow, delighted smile spread across his face.
“Oh.”
Cassian didn’t respond. He didn’t even glance at him. He just kept looking at me as though Liam had ceased to exist.
I broke first.
I tore my gaze away and let it wander around the office, searching for something—anything—else to focus on. It landed on his desk chair.
Then I did a double take.
“What… is that?”
The chair was sleek. Modern. It also looked aggressively uncomfortable—all sharp angles and minimal padding, the kind of thing designed to look good in a magazine and destroy your spine in real life. Cassian followed my gaze, and his face lit up with pride.
“Hartley sat in my chair last time he was here. In my seat. So I replaced it.”
He gestured toward the ergonomic nightmare.
“This one is specifically bad for your back. Just in case he decides to visit again.”
I nodded slowly, processing the logic.
“Right. Or… you could’ve just told security not to let him into the building.”
Cassian blinked. He looked down at the chair. Then at me.
Then back at the chair.
His brow furrowed in genuine contemplation, as though I’d just introduced him to a revolutionary concept.
“I… didn’t think of that,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Huh.”
Then he straightened, nodding decisively.
“I’ll tell Rohan to get rid of the chair. And talk to security.”
He turned to Liam.
“You want to get rid of yours, too?”
Liam, who had been slowly inching toward the door, froze. He looked at the wall. Then the ceiling. Then back at Cassian with an expression of exaggerated confusion.
“Are you… talking to me?”
He gave a nervous chuckle.
“What are you saying? I don’t have a chair like that in my office. In fact, I very clearly remember telling you not to buy that chair. Multiple times. With strong words.”
He was through the door before either of us could respond, his voice drifting back.
“I’m going to find Rohan. Ask him about lunch. He’s probably felt very left out this entire time.”
The door clicked shut. Cassian turned to me, a small smile tugging at his lips.
“So… lunch.” I started toward the door.
“Let’s go.”
“You didn’t expect me to take you somewhere fancy, did you?” I asked, lowering myself onto the bench.
The hot dog cart sat directly across from his building. I’d spotted it the moment I arrived and immediately known where we were going. The smell alone had been irresistible.
“I only take Naija to fancy places.”
I arranged three hot dogs on the paper tray between us and bit into the one in my hand.
Cassian sat beside me, unwrapping his own.
“Let me guess. Felicity complains it’s too expensive?”
I groaned around my mouthful.
“Yes!”
I swallowed and shook my head.
“That woman cannot accept a nice thing without interrogating me about the price. I’ve started scratching off every tag before I give her anything. Otherwise, I get a full lecture about how I’m ‘wasting my hard-earned money’ on her.”
Fond exasperation warmed my voice.
“It’s a forty-minute presentation. Complete with visual aids.”
Cassian chuckled, the sound easy and warm in the afternoon air. He took a bite of his hot dog and chewed thoughtfully.
“How’s Liam with gifts?” I asked. “Does he give you a hard time?”
Cassian shook his head.
“He likes whatever I give him. Last year, I got him a mug.”
I blinked.
“A mug?”
“Plain white. No design. Just… a mug.”
I stared at him, my hot dog paused halfway to my mouth.
“Sounds like an amazing gift.”
He smiled, almost shyly, and looked down at his hot dog.
“Yeah. I’m not great at gifts. It’s just…”
He paused, gathering his thoughts.
“He had this mug. He bought it on a trip to Japan when we were in university. It was just a simple ceramic thing, but he loved it. Used it every single day for years. It was his coffee mug, his tea mug, his ‘I’m stressed and need something warm’ mug.”
A faint smile touched his lips.
“Then it broke. Dropped it in the sink, shattered into a dozen pieces. He went back to find the place, tried for weeks, but the shop had shut down. He pretended it was fine, but it really wasn’t.”
I watched his face as he spoke, the way his expression softened with the memory of his friend’s quiet grief.