6. Talia #2
Every part of this feels like a door I am not ready to open.
Then I think about the Foundation expansion again.
I think of child development programs in three additional regions.
Early learning. Family support. Resource access.
All the things that sound neat in meeting rooms and become lifelines in real houses with overdue bills and tired parents and children who deserve more than what circumstance offers them.
Flynn has me but not everyone has someone who can rearrange a morning, negotiate with an impossible client, and still pack lunch before eight. Not everyone has Mrs. Smith next door or a backup sitter or a job flexible enough to bring a child to an office café in an emergency.
I know better than most what stability costs. And what it gives. So when I lift my head, the yes is already waiting behind my teeth.
“I’ll do it.”
Declan goes still, and Rebecca turns toward me, surprise flashing across her face before she smooths it away.
Graham studies me with a quiet intensity. “You’re sure?”
No.
“Yes.”
Declan laughs under his breath. “Of course.”
I turn to him. “Do you have something to say?”
His eyes meet mine, and the air between us tightens with the kind of electricity that has nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with unfinished pain. Several people in the room become suddenly fascinated by the documents in front of them.
How generous of them.
Declan leans forward slightly. “I have several things to say. I’m exercising restraint.”
“That must be uncomfortable for you.”
His mouth curves, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You have no idea.”
The words should not feel like a touch, but they do, and I hate that.
I hate the awareness that moves through me, the memory of him standing too close in the café, the rough edge in his voice when he said my name.
I hate that my body remembers what my judgment would prefer to file under irrelevant.
I hate that even now, with a room full of witnesses and a professional disaster forming around us, some reckless part of me still registers Declan Ward as warmth, danger, and history wrapped in a suit.
Adrian clears his throat.
“Funny thing about life,” he says mildly.
Everyone turns toward him.
He looks entirely unbothered by the fact that he has interrupted whatever terrible thing Declan and I were about to turn into.
“The plans that irritate us the most are usually the ones we remember.”
Declan stares at him. “That is not helpful.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“Then what was it meant to be?”
“Accurate.”
Marcus's mouth twitches, and Sloane looks down, though not quickly enough to hide her smile.
Against my will, some of the tension in my chest eases. Not much, just enough to remind me that I am still capable of breathing normally. Declan notices that too, because apparently the universe has decided he should notice everything I would rather keep to myself.
His eyes flick back to mine, and for a brief second something almost familiar passes across his face. Not forgiveness, but something far more dangerous. Memory. I look away first.
Graham takes advantage of the moment because he’s a smart man and apparently has no intention of letting his executives emotionally combust before noon.
“Good,” he says. “Then this is the structure. Talia and Declan co-lead the integration task force. Marcus will oversee operational risk. Adrian will handle financial exposure. Sloane will monitor external pressure and communications vulnerabilities tied to Apex.”
“Julian,” Sloane says.
Graham nods once. “Julian.”
Declan waves a hand. “Julian likes noise. That’s all.”
Marcus’s expression hardens. “He also likes leverage.”
“He lost.”
“That doesn’t mean he stopped playing.”
Declan leans back. “You’re giving him too much credit.”
Sloane’s gaze sharpens. “That’s what he wants people to think.”
The room quiets, and for the first time, Declan’s dismissiveness bothers me. Not because I know Julian. I don’t. Because I know what it looks like when a man underestimates a threat simply because he’s tired of respecting it.
“Is Apex capable of affecting the merger?” I ask.
Marcus answers without hesitation. “Yes.”
Declan looks at me. “Not in any way that matters.”
“That sounds like something people say right before something matters.”
His eyes narrow slightly while Rebecca makes a soft sound beside me that might be approval.
Sloane’s expression remains serious. “Julian has been circling the Foundation angle specifically. If the merger makes Crossridge look stronger publicly and expands the Foundation’s reach, he’ll use whatever he can to undermine confidence before the deal closes.”
My stomach tightens.
“Why the Foundation?”
Graham’s voice is steady. “Because it's harder to attack something when people can see who benefits from it.”
I understand that immediately. A company with quarterly reports can be attacked with spreadsheets. A company tied to children and families and community programs is harder to wound cleanly without looking cruel.
So someone like this Julian would not attack the mission outright. He would attack competence, timing, and trust. He would make people question whether Crossridge could deliver what it promised.
The idea makes something cold move through me.
“What does he have?” I ask.
Sloane studies me for a moment, and I get the distinct impression she’s deciding how much truth to hand a woman she barely knows.
“Right now? Probably not enough.”
“Which means?”
Marcus answers. “Which means he’ll look for more.”
The sentence hits too close to places I am not ready to examine. All I can think about are secrets, pressure points, and the ways people exploit both when they need an advantage badly enough.
A six-year-old boy with Declan’s eyes who sat in Crossridge’s café this morning coloring airplanes. No one in this room knows what that could become if the wrong person learned it at the wrong time.
Except Declan.
His gaze finds mine across the table, and for once there’s no anger there. Only understanding, brief and sharp and utterly terrible. He knows too. Whatever else is broken between us, he knows what happens if Flynn becomes a tool in someone else’s game.
I look down at the proposal again. Co-leads. Joint review. Daily working sessions. Shared access. Every line points toward the same unavoidable conclusion: forced proximity disguised as operational necessity.
There is no clean way out of this. Maybe there never was.
Graham slides a slim folder toward me. “These are the revised parameters. If you agree, we begin today.”
Today. Why let dread age properly when it can be served fresh? I take the folder as Declan reaches for his copy, and our hands nearly touch. The space between our fingers hums anyway, and I’m the one who pulls back first. His eyes drop to the movement, then lift to mine.
There’s heat there, yes, but it’s tangled with hurt and accusation and something that looks dangerously like longing. I don’t know what to do with longing. Longing is what happens when you let yourself imagine a version of your life that reality has no obligation to provide.
I stopped doing that a long time ago; for Flynn and myself. For the version of us I never gave permission to exist.
Graham stands. “We’ll reconvene this afternoon with the first task force session.”
Declan’s head turns sharply. “This afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“I was under the impression we were being punished gradually.”
“You were mistaken.”
Adrian rises with his coffee. “I recommend accepting inevitability. It saves time.”
“I’ve never cared for inevitability.”
“No one does at first.”
Graham glances around the table. “Take twenty.”
Sloane gathers her notes and gives Marcus a look I can’t decipher. He nods once, and they move toward the door together. Rebecca touches my arm briefly.
“You okay?”
No. “I’m fine.”
Her expression says she doesn’t believe me, but is too professional to challenge the lie in a room full of Crossridge executives. Soon only Declan and I remain standing on opposite sides of the table.
Not alone exactly.
The door is open. Voices drift from the hallway. Somewhere outside, people are still doing normal things, moving through normal days, having no idea that my life has somehow turned into a series of conversations I’m not prepared to have.
Declan looks at the folder in my hand. “For Flynn’s future?”
I go still as he says it, his voice low—not an accusation, not quite.
I meet his eyes. “Yes.”
Something flickers across his face. Pain, maybe, respect. Or both.
“You could have said no.”
“So could you.”
“I tried.”
“Not very successfully.”
A real smile almost appears, then the weight returns. I extend my hand before I can think better of it. Professional. Controlled. A boundary disguised as cooperation.
His gaze drops to it. For a moment, he doesn’t move. Then his hand closes around mine. It’s warm and firm. Too familiar for something that should mean nothing.
The contact is brief, but not brief enough. My body remembers before my mind can stop it, and the flash of memory is immediate. His hand at my waist. His fingers threading through mine on a hotel balcony. His thumb brushing over my knuckles in the dark like he had all the time in the world.
I hold his gaze because looking away would feel like losing.
“Let’s get this over with,” I say.
Declan’s smile comes slowly.
Dangerously.
“You always say that before things get interesting.”