Dominic #2
When the others leave, she remains near the conference-room door, sliding the packet into her portfolio.
I keep the length of the table between us.
“Elena.”
She turns. “Yes?”
“Do you have a concern about taking the analysis?”
“No.”
“You seemed tense during the presentation.”
Her grip tightens on the portfolio.
“The initial figures have problems,” she says.
“Problems you can fix.”
“Yes.”
I wait, giving her the chance to add something. She doesn’t.
Two weeks ago, I would’ve asked again. I would’ve stepped closer and lowered my voice until the conversation belonged only to us. I might have reminded her that I know what she looks like when a problem is financial and what she looks like when it’s personal.
I can’t ask her to respect the distance I created, then cross it whenever I’m worried.
“If anything changes your recommendation, come to me,” I say.
“Of course.”
“And if the workload becomes unreasonable, ask for more time.”
A flicker of something—annoyance, maybe even humor—crosses her face before she flattens it. “It won’t.”
“I assumed you’d say that.”
The corner of her mouth moves, then she looks down and closes the portfolio.
“I’ll send the preliminary model by Friday,” she says.
“Thank you.”
She opens the door and walks away.
I watch until she turns the corner, then make myself return to my office.
Cliff calls after ten that night.
I’m home because Evan stood in my doorway at seven and watched me pack my briefcase. I brought three files with me, which means his victory is mostly theoretical, but I’m in my apartment instead of the office.
The Thai food on my kitchen counter is still warm when my phone rings.
“What did you do?” Cliff asks as soon as I answer.
I set down the container. “Hello to you too.”
“Elena called me.”
The carton of pad thai slips in my hand. Every other thought disappears. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine.”
He repeats the word with deliberate irony. “She’s ‘fine.’ The kind of fine she says three times in a row when she wants you to stop asking.”
“What happened?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. She called to check on Rachel and the kids, which would’ve been normal if she hadn’t spent the next ten minutes assuring me that everything in Chicago is fine.”
I pull out a chair at the kitchen island but don’t sit. “What did she say?”
“Work is fine. She’s sleeping fine. You’re fine. Then she mentioned a new acquisition, got weird about it, said it was fine twice, and asked whether Theo still hates soccer.”
The meeting returns in pieces. I see Elena’s fingers tightening on the pen. The strain when I assigned her to the identity-release call.
“What do you mean by weird?”
“She said they were evaluating a consulting firm and she had financial modeling to finish. Then there was this pause, like she’d almost told me something else.”
“She was tense during the strategy meeting.”
“About the acquisition?”
“I thought it was because of me.”
Cliff goes silent, the kind of quiet that means he already suspects the answer isn’t simple. “Why would Elena be tense around you?”
There is no clean way to answer that question.
“Elena and I were involved,” I say. “It ended two weeks ago.”
“What?”
I walk into the living room and look toward the dark windows. “I’m not discussing anything private that belongs to her. I can tell you my part.”
“Your part better start making sense fast.”
“We developed a relationship. I wanted it to have a future. She was planning a future where we lived separate lives.”
“So you ended it.”
“Yes.”
“Did she want you to?”
“She couldn’t tell me what she wanted.” The memory of her standing in her condo, the spreadsheet glowing on her laptop, is still sharp enough to cut.
Cliff exhales hard. “Jesus Christ. The two of you.”
“I asked her directly where we existed in the life she was planning. She couldn’t answer me.”
“And you walked away.”
“I told her I couldn’t keep acting like we were building something together while she prepared to remove me from it.”
“That sounds like you rehearsed it.”
“I’ve had two weeks to repeat it.”
The frustration leaves his voice. “You sound like hell.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You mean you’re working.”
I sit on the edge of the sofa. He knows me too well for this conversation.
The words feel stripped bare, offered into the silence without any of the planning I rely on. “I love her,” I say.
Cliff doesn’t answer.
I press my palm against the back of my neck and wait.
“You love Elena,” he finally says.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She didn’t say it back.”
That answer has lived inside me every hour since I left her condo.
She held on to me while she cried, her voice breaking over my name as if it were the only word she had left.
Then she let me leave.
Cliff is quiet long enough that I check the screen to make sure the call hasn’t dropped.
The words land like a physical blow, something I’ve wanted to hear for so long I stopped believing it was possible. “She loves you,” he says.
“You can’t know that.”
“I’m her brother.”
“That doesn’t make you psychic.”
“No, it means I’ve spent her entire life watching what she does when she cares about someone.”
“She made a choice.”
“She got scared.”
“Fear doesn’t erase the choice.”
“I didn’t say it did.” His voice hardens, the easy friendship gone. “But don’t turn her worst defense into proof that none of it was real.” The accusation finds its intended target.
I stare at the floor.
“I watched her shut everyone out for six years,” he continues. “After her last relationship, she stopped needing anybody. At least that’s what she wanted us to believe. She built a life where no one could get close enough to take anything from her again.”
“She told me about her ex.”
“I know.”
My head lifts. “How do you know?”
“Because she told me she told you.”
The words rearrange the last two weeks. She went to her brother, the person she trusts most, and told him she’d let me see the one part of her history she keeps guarded. She told him about the risk she took on me.
“She still couldn’t choose me.” Her trust doesn’t change the fact of the ending.
“Maybe she couldn’t choose you when you asked. That isn’t the same as never letting you matter.”
I close my eyes.
“What did she say about the acquisition?” I ask.
“Only that it’s confidential, the numbers are messy, and her team is handling the initial review. Why?”
She was technically perfect today, but she was wound tight from the minute the presentation started.
“Do you know the company?”
“No. The intermediary hasn’t disclosed it.”
“Then pay attention when they do.”
“I will.”
“And don’t use this as an excuse to corner her.”
“I know how to do my job.”
“I’m talking about Elena.”
“So am I.” Because that’s the only job that matters now.
He releases a breath. “Good.”
Neither of us speaks for a few seconds.
When Cliff’s voice returns, the anger is gone.
“I know my sister,” he says. “For six years, no one got close enough to matter.”
My hand tightens around the phone.
“She let you in.”
He hangs up. I stay on the sofa, the phone still pressed to my ear, his last words echoing in the empty apartment.