Thursday arrived faster than I expected the way an uninvited deadline creeps up on you when you've spent days convincing yourself it doesn't matter.
I told myself it was just another ordinary day. A morning choked with international calls, a midday meeting with the marketing department, a solitary lunch at my desk. Nothing out of the ordinary, save for the fact that at 6:30 PM, I was supposed to meet Skillar.
Technically, I could have canceled. I should have canceled. But a part of me, the part I kept locked away behind conference calls and quarterly reports, wanted to see exactly what he had planned.
By five o'clock, my office was a tomb of glass and steel. The rest of the team had gone home, leaving only the low hum of the air conditioning and the distant, fading echo of heels on marble somewhere down the hall. I shut down my computer, gathered my bag, and told myself one last time: This is not personal. You are just curious.
The rain had returned, soft this time a light mist brushing against my wool coat as I walked toward the small cafe we'd agreed on. I spotted him immediately, leaning against the brick wall beneath the awning. He wasn't staring at his phone like most people do when they're trapped in the awkward vacuum of waiting. He was simply watching the street, hands shoved deep into his pockets, a faint smile playing on his lips as if he knew some beautiful secret about the world.
"Right on time," he said as I approached.
"I don't like to waste time," I replied, my voice clipped. The armor was firmly back on.
He pushed open the heavy door for me, and I stepped inside, the warm, rich scent of roasted coffee and cinnamon wrapping around me like a blanket. It was quieter than I expected, the few occupied tables filled with people speaking in low, confidential tones.
We ordered: black coffee for me, and something with far too much foam and sugar for him. He led me to a small table by the window.
"I wanted to show you something," he said once we sat. "Not here, though. Finish your coffee first."
"And what exactly am I agreeing to, Mr. Lennox?" I asked, arching a single, perfect brow.
"You'll see." His grin was infuriatingly charming.
We drank in a comfortable silence, the rain streaking the glass beside us. My analytical mind was already running through possibilities, trying to find a logical explanation for why I was sitting here with a man I'd only truly met twice.
When we stepped back out into the damp evening, he led me a few blocks down to an old brick building, the kind of weathered architecture that looked forgotten by the modern city. Inside, the space opened into a wide, dimly lit studio. Photographs lined the walls: raw, black-and-white street shots, candid moments of strangers frozen in time.
"These are yours?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
He nodded, a rare trace of vulnerability in his posture. "I've been taking them for years. People, places, moments most would walk right past. I don't usually show them to anyone."
I moved slowly from frame to frame, the images pulling me in. A child laughing in the middle of a downpour, an elderly couple sharing a bench, a street musician lost in his own symphony. They were ordinary, yet... heartbreakingly beautiful.
"Why show them to me?" I asked quietly, looking at a print.
"Because you look like someone who sees everything... but lets very little in," he said, stepping closer until his voice was the only thing I could hear. "And I think you deserve to see the world differently for a moment."
Something in my chest tightened, a sharp, sudden ache. I wanted to tell him he was wrong. I wanted to snap back that I saw plenty, that I let people in whenever I chose. But the lie died in my throat. The truth was written too clearly in the empty spaces I had spent years guarding.
I almost stepped back. I almost told him I had to leave, that I didn't have time for sentimentality.
But instead, I stood there, letting the silence stretch between us. My eyes fixed on a photograph of a woman alone on a desolate rooftop, staring at the horizon as if waiting for something she wasn't entirely sure would ever come.
Maybe I was waiting, too.
"Come on," he said softly, breaking my trance. "There's a rooftop here, too. It's not in the photos... yet."
We climbed a narrow, creaking staircase to the top, the air growing cooler and sharper with every step. When we finally broke out into the open, the city stretched around us like a blanket of diamonds, lights flickering through the mist. The rain had slowed to a faint drizzle, as if the sky were reluctant to let go completely.
He leaned against the low concrete wall, watching the streets below. "When I was a kid, I thought rooftops were secret worlds. Places where no one could touch you, where the rules didn't apply. It still feels that way sometimes."
I joined him at the edge, my gaze following the slow, hypnotic crawl of traffic, the way neon signs bled into the wet pavement below. It was quiet up here, almost impossibly quiet for a city of millions.
For the first time in memory, I forgot about my deadlines, my meetings, the constant, exhausting uphill climb of defending my empire. For a single, breathless moment, I let the quiet in.
"Thank you," I heard myself say, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
"For what?"
"For... this," I said, gesturing vaguely to the skyline, the stillness, and ultimately, him.
He smiled, but he didn't push for a confession or demand more than I was ready to give. And I realized then that this was exactly why I hadn't walked away: he didn't try to tear my walls down. He just stood where the door was already cracked open, and he waited.
When I finally left that night, walking alone back to my car, I carried an unfamiliar warmth in my coat pocket. I had to admit the truth to myself: I desperately wanted to see him again. And that realization scared me more than any corporate threat ever could.
I thought about him all night. It had been an eternity since I had allowed myself to feel this way. I tried to deny it, but meeting Skillar had introduced a chaotic variable into my perfectly calculated life. I still despised change, and admitting my own vulnerability felt like a defeat but it was undeniable. He was becoming the light in my monochrome world. After every encounter, I could feel the ice around my heart thawing, changing me in ways I couldn't control.
The following week began with its usual corporate violence: too many emails, too little patience. I buried myself in work, trying to convince myself that the rooftop night had been nothing more than a pleasant detour.
Still... detours have a way of lingering in your mind.
On Monday, I caught myself checking my phone far more than a CEO should. Not because I was waiting for a text from him at least, that was the lie I told Anna. But because the possibility sat there, quietly tapping on the glass of my mind.
By Wednesday, I had manufactured an excuse. A perfectly logical, entirely innocent reason to be near the gallery district. I told myself there was a supplier I "needed" to check on in person, though the order could have been finalized over email in less than two minutes.
I walked past his building on my way back to the office. Just once. Just slow enough to steal a glance through the window. The studio was dark, the black-and-white frames still lining the walls like silent witnesses to the secrets we'd shared. I didn't go in. Not that day.
But on Thursday evening, as I sat at my desk watching the sunset, my phone vibrated against the mahogany.
"Are you free tomorrow?"