Chapter 28 Owen
OWEN
The office is loud for a Saturday.
That’s the first thing you notice about Mosaic when the dev team is in crunch mode. It’s a cacophony of mechanical keyboards, aggressive techno music leaking from headphones, and the hum of servers working overtime to patch the cracks in our security.
But to me, it’s dead silent because she isn’t here.
I stare at the empty desk in the center of the pit. The monitors are dark, and the space feels like a gap in a smile. I know what’s there: a pristine desk, a cold cup of coffee from three days ago, and a ghost.
“Owen,” Ethan says, walking past my desk with a stack of compliance papers. He looks like hell—dark circles and stubble that’s pushing past scruffy into homeless chic. “Sterling’s auditors are asking for the updated user privacy logs. Did Asher finish the patch?”
“Asher’s in the cave,” I say, gesturing toward the server room. “He hasn’t slept since the breach started. He’s rewriting the entire encryption protocol because he’s paranoid Greg left another backdoor.”
“Good,” Ethan says, his voice tight. “We need to be paranoid.”
He ignores her empty chair, refusing to even glance through the glass of his own office at the floor. That’s Ethan’s coping mechanism—if he can’t fix a problem immediately, he compartmentalizes it until it ceases to exist.
But I’m not Ethan. I can’t just put Tessa in a box and file her away under To Deal With Later.
“She isn’t answering my texts,” I say.
Ethan stops. He stiffens, his back to me. “She’s sick, Owen. Asher said she needs rest. Let her rest.”
“It’s been three days, E,” I say, standing up. The chair scrapes loudly against the concrete floor. “She isn’t just sick. I know her. She’s spiraling. And we’re leaving her alone in that apartment to rot.”
“We’re saving the company,” Ethan snaps, turning around. His eyes are hard, but I see the crack in the armor. He’s terrified, too. “If we don’t fix this breach, there is no company for her to come back to. We do the work. That’s how we protect her.”
“That’s how you protect her,” I correct him. “By building walls and securing assets. That’s not what she needs right now.”
“And what does she need, Owen?” Ethan challenges, stepping closer. “Your jokes? A vanilla latte?”
“She needs us,” I say, grabbing my keys off the desk. “She needs to know she isn’t alone.”
“Where are you going?” Ethan demands.
“To check on her.”
“We have a meeting with the legal team in twenty minutes.”
“Handle it,” I say, walking past him. “Tell them I’m doing brand damage control. Because if Tessa quits, the brand is dead anyway.”
I need to get out of there. The air in the office is suffocating.
Every time I look at her empty chair, a physical ache hits my chest. We were supposed to be a team.
We made a pact. But the second things got hard, the second the real world threatened to crash our little fantasy, we retreated into our corners.
Ethan to his leadership, Asher to his code, and Tessa…
Tessa ran.
I hit the elevator button and watch the doors slide shut on Ethan’s frustrated face.
I peel out of the parking garage, driving way too fast onto the highway. The Austin sun is blinding, but inside the car, the air feels unnaturally cold.
Asher said she was experiencing a “physiological anomaly,” which is his robotic way of saying something is wrong with her biology. He suspects burnout or a virus.
But my gut tells me it’s something else.
I’ve seen her expression lately. It isn’t just stress; it’s guilt. Heavy, crushing guilt. She walks around like someone holding a grenade, waiting for it to go off, terrified of who will get caught in the blast.
I arrive at her apartment complex ten minutes later. I bypass the intercom and use my key. We all have one. We practically lived here before the Morality Clause forced us to sneak around.
I take the stairs two at a time. When I reach her door, I pause, met with dead silence. I knock softly. “Tess?”
No answer.
I knock again, harder. “Tessa, open up. I know you’re in there. I can hear the AC running, and I know you didn’t leave the apartment.”
Still nothing.
“I’m coming in,” I warn.
Sliding the key into the lock, I turn it until the mechanism clicks, then push the door open.
The apartment is completely dark, the blackout curtains drawn tight against the afternoon sun, trapping the stale air that smells faintly of bleach and old soup.
“Tessa?”
I walk into the living room. It’s a mess. There are tissues scattered across the coffee table, an untouched bowl of soup, and a blanket fort constructed on the sofa.
But the sofa is empty.
I hear a sound from the bathroom. A flush. Then the tap running.
I walk down the hallway. The bathroom door is cracked open, and Tessa is standing at the sink, splashing water on her face.
She looks broken.
She’s wearing a faded tank top and a pair of gray sweatpants. Her hair is pulled back in a messy knot, strands escaping and sticking to her damp forehead. Her face is paler than it was in the server room, her cheekbones too sharp, her eyes rimmed with red shadows.
Her gaze meets mine in the mirror.
She doesn’t jump or scream. She just slumps, her shoulders dropping as if the strings holding her up have been completely cut.
“I told you not to come,” she whispers to my reflection.
“You’re supposed to be at Asher’s,” I say, pushing the door open gently. “He thinks you’re safe in his penthouse.”
“I escaped,” she says, her voice brittle. “He left to go back to the server room, and I called a cab. I couldn’t stay there, Owen. It’s too quiet. Too sterile. I needed to be home.”
“Well, you didn’t answer me at all,” I say. “Which is why I’m here.”
I lean against the doorframe, crossing my arms. I want to rush to her, to wrap her up and hold her until she stops shaking, but I sense that if I touch her right now, she might shatter.
“You look like hell, Tess,” I say softly.
A dry, humorless laugh escapes her lips. She turns off the tap and grabs a towel, patting her face. “Thanks, Owen. You always know exactly what to say to a girl.”
“I’m serious. Asher is losing his mind trying to debug a virus that doesn’t exist. Ethan is terrified. And I…” I take a step closer. “I’m scared, Tessa. What’s going on?”
“I’m just sick,” she says, turning around to face me. She leans back against the counter, gripping the edge of the porcelain. “It’s a stomach bug. Or food poisoning. It’s relentless.”
“Bullshit,” I say.
She flinches. “Excuse me?”
“You’re a terrible liar, Tessa. Always have been. When you lie, you touch your neck.”
Her hand instantly drops from her throat, frustration flashing in her eyes.
“Why are you here, Owen?” she asks, her voice trembling. “Shouldn’t you be saving the company? Shouldn’t you be helping Asher patch the breach so Sterling doesn’t sue us into oblivion?”
“Fuck the company,” I say.
Her eyes widen.
“I don’t care about Mosaic right now,” I say, closing the distance between us. “I don’t care about the money. I care about you. You’re isolating. You’re ghosting us. You’re hiding in the dark.”
I stop right in front of her. I can smell the mint of her toothpaste and the sharp tang of nervous sweat.
“We promised,” I whisper, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. My fingers graze her skin, and she leans into the touch instinctively before pulling back. “No secrets. We’re a team, remember? You, me, Ethan, Asher. We handle things together.”
“Not this,” she whispers, shaking her head. Hot tears immediately spill over her lashes. “You can’t handle this together. This isn’t a server crash. This isn’t a PR crisis.”
“Try me,” I say. “Tell me what it is. Did Markus threaten you? Is it because you never showed up for your first day at Nebula? Or is this about the hack?”
“No,” she sobs, a harsh, broken sound. “It’s worse. It’s so much worse.”
“What could possibly be worse than losing the company?” I ask gently.
She stares up at me, her eyes swimming with devastation. She takes a shuddering breath, her hands going to her stomach. She clutches the fabric of her shirt, twisting it tight.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispers.
The words hang in the humid air of the bathroom.
I’m pregnant.
A heavy, deafening silence immediately rushes in to fill the small space.
I stare at her. I stare at her hands, resting protectively over her flat stomach.
Suddenly, the pieces slam into place. The nausea. The dizziness. The refusal of alcohol. The exhaustion. The way she’s been pulling away, terrified of the Morality Clause that explicitly forbids scandalous behavior.
A baby.
Our baby.
Or… my baby? Ethan’s? Asher’s?
It doesn’t matter. The thought barely forms before it’s wiped away by a wave of pure, unadulterated awe.
“Pregnant,” I repeat, the word tasting strange and wonderful on my tongue.
Tessa squeezes her eyes shut, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Owen. I ruined it. The clause. The investors. If they find out… if they know I’m pregnant and I don’t know who the father is… it’s a scandal. It destroys the brand. It destroys you.”
She’s spiraling. I can see it in her eyes—she’s already writing the tragedy in her head, casting herself as the villain who brought down the Phantom Trio.
“Hey,” I say, my voice rough.
I reach out and grab her waist, lifting her effortlessly onto the counter.
“Owen, don’t,” she cries, trying to push me away. “You don’t get it. It’s over. We have to…”
“Shut up,” I murmur, stepping between her legs.
I frame her face with my hands, forcing her to look at me. My thumbs wipe away the tears tracking through the dust of her exhaustion.
“Look at me, Tessa.”
She opens her wet eyes, sniffing.
“You think this ruins us?” I ask, searching her gaze. “You think a baby destroys us?”
“Doesn’t it?” she whispers. “We signed a contract. No scandals. This is… this is the definition of a scandal.”
I laugh. It’s a breathless, incredulous sound.