13. Talia #2
The meeting ends without truly ending. People leave with assignments, phones already lifting, voices lowering into calls. Tessa squeezes my arm before she goes, her eyes full of apology she has no reason to carry.
Sloane waits until the room thins before speaking to me.
“We’re going to contain this as much as possible.”
“As much as possible,” I repeat.
Her mouth tightens. “I won’t lie to you. The photo is already out there. What we can control is what people are allowed to build around it.”
I nod because I understand strategy. I understand positioning. I understand not giving rumor oxygen. I have built entire professional responses around those exact principles. Understanding does not help when the rumor has your child’s face attached to it.
Declan waits near the doorway, giving me space in a room where space has become almost impossible to find. When I finally look at him, the anger in his expression shifts into something quieter.
“I didn’t know,” he says.
“I know.”
The answer comes out before pride can interfere.
His throat moves once. “I would never use him like that.”
“I know,” I say again, and this time my voice almost holds.
For a moment, neither of us moves. There are too many people nearby for this conversation and not enough air for silence. I pick up my bag, intending to leave before emotion drags me somewhere reckless, but Declan follows me into the hall.
He doesn’t call my name. He doesn’t need to.
I stop near the turn toward the smaller conference rooms, where the hallway is quiet, and the glass doesn’t carry sound quite as easily. My reflection stares back faintly from the darkened panel beside one closed door, composed on the surface and unraveling underneath.
“This is exactly what I was afraid of,” I say.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” I turn to face him, and the words come faster now because if I slow down, I may not be able to finish.
“You know what it feels like to have something taken from you. I know what it feels like to have a child look at me and trust that I can keep the world steady. Every decision I make, every word I say, every boundary I set, it all goes through him first. And now strangers are looking at a picture of him and guessing.”
Declan’s expression tightens, but he doesn’t defend himself. That almost makes me angrier.
“Say something,” I demand.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
The honesty empties some of the fight out of me.
His voice softens. “Then I won’t make it worse by guessing.”
I look away, breathing hard. This is what undoes me about him now.
Not the charm. Not the money. Not the memory of his mouth on mine or the way my body still betrays me whenever he stands too close.
It’s this patience he didn’t have seven years ago, this quiet willingness to stay in a difficult moment without trying to win it.
“I almost asked if you leaked it,” I admit.
He’s still for long enough that I feel the cost of the confession. “Almost?”
“I didn’t.”
“No,” he says quietly. “You didn’t.”
“But I thought it.”
“I know.”
The words are not accusing, which makes them worse. I press my fingers against my temple, tired all at once. “I hate that I thought it.”
“I hate that there was enough history between us for you to have to fight the thought at all.”
The sentence is quiet, but I feel it anyway, deeper than I want to.
I finally look at him.
He’s standing close enough now that I can see the faint exhaustion beneath his eyes and the restraint in the way he holds himself. He’s angry about the photo. Furious, probably. But not with me. Not even because of me. With me.
The distinction is small enough to miss and large enough to matter.
“I don’t know how to keep doing this,” I say.
His gaze drops to my mouth before he catches himself. Mine does the same.
The air changes between us, not because anything has been solved, but because pressure has a way of turning every unguarded feeling into a match.
I should step back. I should return to Marcus’s office or call Mrs. Smith or do any number of practical things that would remind me I’m a rational adult with responsibilities.
Instead, I stay where I am as Declan’s hand lifts slowly, stopping just short of touching me, giving me every chance to move away. I don’t.
His fingers brush my wrist, barely there, and the contact is so small it shouldn’t travel through me the way it does. But it does. My pulse catches beneath his thumb, and his eyes darken with the knowledge that he feels it.
“Talia,” he says, and my name is almost enough.
A voice comes from the far end of the hallway before either of us can make a worse decision.
“Mr. Ward?”
We separate quickly, though not quickly enough to pretend nothing happened.
One of the security guards approaches with an apologetic expression and a phone in his hand. “Sorry to interrupt. Reporters are outside the lobby again. More than last time.”
Declan lowers his hand. “How many?”
“Six visible. Possibly more across the street. They’re asking about the child from the Foundation photo.”
My stomach drops.
The guard hesitates, then adds, “One of them mentioned daycare records. We don’t know if they have anything, but they’re saying someone leaked a second image.”
For a second, I stop hearing the guard altogether. Flynn's name, the reporters in the lobby, the mention of another photograph. They blur together beneath the roar of every fear I've carried for six years. Beside me, Declan curses under his breath, the sound low and vicious.
I step away from him as though distance can put the last few minutes back where they belong. Heat drains out of the moment, replaced by the cold, familiar discipline of panic.
“This is exactly what I was afraid of,” I say again, but it sounds different now.
Smaller. Worse. “It doesn’t matter that neither of us did anything wrong.
It doesn’t matter that you didn’t leak it or that I didn’t ask for this or that Flynn was just building an airplane.
To them, it already looks like a scandal. ”
Declan’s jaw tightens. “We’ll handle it.”
The words are steady enough that I almost believe them, and that may be the most dangerous part of all. “We can’t keep doing this.”
His eyes hold mine, and for one moment I see how tired he is of being punished for wanting to stay.
“Then stop wanting me,” he says quietly.
The hallway goes silent around us as I have no answer.
And that is answer enough.