Roman sat behind his desk, the city stretching wide beyond the glass walls of his office, all steel and movement and distant noise that never truly reached him. The afternoon light cut across the polished floor in long, sharp lines, but the space still felt colder than it should have. His laptop remained open in front of him, numbers and projections filling the screen, yet his focus wasn't on any of it.
His mind kept drifting back to the morning.
The moment Jay leaned in without hesitation, without second-guessing. The way everything between them had finally shifted into something real something that no longer felt like an arrangement or a controlled distance. It had been simple. Honest. Dangerous in a way Roman hadn't allowed himself to experience in a long time.
And now, that same clarity was being tested.
The intercom buzzed once, sharp enough to cut through his thoughts.
