3. Declan #2
That should be enough. It’s professional, reasonable, and probably more gracious than I deserve, considering how often I’ve made a career out of finding the exact weak place in someone else’s argument and pressing there until it opens.
But apparently, reason has taken a short leave of absence.
“No,” I say. “You shouldn’t have.”
Her gaze holds mine, steady despite the apology. There is still resistance in her. Still that bright, infuriating refusal to make anything easy. I both admire and resent it, but I remember liking it so much I forgot to protect myself from what came after.
A small silence stretches between us, then Talia looks at me more carefully. “You do that when something bothers you.”
“Do what?”
“The smile.”
I go still. Not completely, but enough.
Her voice remains quiet. “You put it back before anyone can decide what they saw.”
I should laugh. I should tell her she’s giving herself too much credit, or me too much mystery, or both. I should use charm the way I always use it, turn the moment around until it becomes harmless, and then move us both safely back toward section eight.
Instead, I remember a hotel room and room service dinner going cold between us while Talia watched me over the rim of a wine glass. You’re quieter when you’re happy, she had said. I had laughed because it was easier than admitting no one had ever noticed that before.
Apparently, she still notices too much.
“You’re very confident for a woman who just apologized,” I say.
Her mouth curves slightly. “I didn’t apologize for being right.”
There she is.
The smile comes back then, not the polished one, but something closer to real. “Terrifying woman.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Across the table, her expression softens for half a second before she catches herself, and there it is again. Not the memories I’ve spent seven years carefully refusing to revisit, or even the hotel room and moonlight and tangled sheets.
It’s the warmth I recognize.
The woman who laughs despite herself. The tenderness that appears and disappears before most people realize it’s there. It’s the brief flashes of something gentler beneath all that competence and control.
That’s what I remember most.
Talia glances down at the contract again, though I suspect neither of us has read a word in the last thirty seconds. “My father used to say negotiations reveal character.”
I smile faintly. “Sounds exhausting.”
“He was,” she says, but there’s affection beneath it. “He believed people showed you who they were when money got involved.”
“Smart man.”
“He also believed family mattered more than business.”
The words are casual, offhand, and not aimed at me. I know that. But something inside me stills anyway.
Because family meant something very different in my house.
It meant expectations and obligations dressed up to look like love.
It meant appearances. Keeping score. Sitting at dinner tables where everyone knew which subjects not to touch, and learning early that affection could be offered warmly one moment and withdrawn with interest the next.
It meant staying because you were supposed to, and it meant leaving when pretending finally cost too much.
I look down at the contract because paper is safer than her face.
“Did he?” I ask.
Talia’s attention sharpens. “Yes.”
I nod once. “Must’ve been nice.”
The words leave before I can dress them up with humor or smooth them into something easier. They're not bitter or angry, which is unfortunate because both would be simpler to explain.
They're just honest. And honesty has always been far more dangerous than anger.
Something changes in her expression immediately. “Declan…”
“I’m fine.”
The lie is automatic and not nearly convincing enough.
She studies me for a long moment, and I can tell she wants to ask something. I can also tell she decides not to, which should make me grateful. Instead, it leaves a strange pressure in my chest, because Talia not pushing feels more intimate than Talia pushing ever did.
Finally, she looks toward the display screen mounted at the front of the room. “Section twelve still bothers me.”
Relief arrives with such force I almost laugh.
“Thank God,” I say, rising from my chair. “A problem I can solve.”
Her mouth curves as she stands. “That’s a bold assumption.”
“Most of my best work begins with one.”
She gathers the contract and joins me near the screen, and that turns out to be a mistake.
Talia has always leaned closer when she’s making a point. She does it now without thinking, one hand resting against the edge of the table while she gestures toward the revised language displayed in front of us.
“If this clause triggers here, then the midpoint review becomes meaningless unless the escalation language is tied to objective thresholds.”
Her shoulder brushes mine, and my pulse reacts before my brain catches up.
Wonderful.
Apparently, my nervous system has maintained better records than the rest of me.
She keeps talking, entirely focused on the document, which only makes the whole thing worse.
If she were trying, I could defend against it.
If she were flirting, I could turn it into a game.
But Talia is simply standing too close, wearing that navy blazer, explaining risk thresholds with absolute concentration while the faint scent of her perfume reaches me and drags seven years of careful distance straight into the present.
Something clean and soft. Something I remember with too much clarity.
“Declan?”
I blink. “Hm?”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re not listening.”
“I resent that accusation.”
“You should. It’s accurate.”
“Harsh.”
“Professional.”
“There you go with the safe answers again.”
Something flickers across her face, a tiny crack in the composure she has rebuilt with such impressive speed. Then she leans closer, lowering her voice as if the empty conference room still has too many witnesses.
“Somebody has to be responsible.”
Her breath ghosts lightly across my jaw, and suddenly I’m not in the Crossridge conference room anymore.
I am twenty floors above another city, standing on a hotel balcony while Talia argues with me about whether the clouds look more like ships or mashed potatoes.
She’s laughing into the night air, her shoulder pressed against mine, and I am thinking, with the kind of foolish certainty people only have before consequences arrive, that some strangers do not feel like strangers at all.
I lower my head slightly, close enough that my breath stirs the loose strands of hair near her ear.
“Careful, Talia.”
She goes still. Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone to notice, if anyone else were here. But I notice.
My voice drops. “You’re starting to sound like you remember.”
For one suspended second, neither of us moves. Then her eyes lift to mine, and whatever she sees there makes her breath catch.
The door opens behind us.
Marcus stops on the threshold, one hand still on the handle, his gaze moving from Talia to me with an expression so carefully blank it becomes damning.
Talia steps back first.
I straighten, slower than I should, and Marcus’s eyes narrow by a fraction.
“Break’s over,” he says.
Talia turns toward the table and reaches for her folder with hands that are almost steady. I look back at the contract on the screen, but the words blur for a second before they sharpen again.
Because Talia remembers. And now I’m starting to wonder what else she’s been trying to forget.