The moment I got home after the interview, I told myself to forget it.

Forget his voice, the low cadence that curled somewhere deep in my chest even though he spoke like we were strangers. Forget how he looked at me, or didn’t, as if the memory of my body under his hands had been wiped clean along with whatever fragile thing we’d almost started that night.

Forget the way my legs still felt shaky, like I’d walked across a tightrope and only just realized there was no safety net underneath.

I dropped my keys on the chipped counter, kicked off my worn flats, and sat at the edge of my bed, staring at the peeling paint on the baseboards for fifteen minutes straight.

It wasn’t thinking, not really.

It was blankness. The kind your brain retreats into when there are too many sharp edges to navigate without bleeding.

When sitting still became unbearable, I moved.

I scrubbed the bathroom sink until my knuckles turned raw. I organized the kitchen cabinets even though I had more chipped mugs than actual dishes.
I vacuumed the hall twice, even though it didn’t need it.

The kind of cleaning you do when you need your hands to scrub at something you can’t reach inside yourself.

By the time midnight rolled around, the apartment gleamed under the dull overhead light, and my nerves still buzzed like live wires under my skin.

I didn’t expect to hear back. Not quickly. Maybe not at all.

Big companies took their time, passed resumes through layers of HR until the only thing left was a sanitized version of whoever you used to be.

I told myself it was fine.

If anything, it would be a blessing to lose the job and not have to stand across from Nicholas Wolfe every day pretending he hadn’t already seen me at my rawest. At my weakest.

But the next morning, my phone rang. The screen flashed: Private Number.

I stared at it, thumb hovering over the green button.

I almost didn’t answer.

I didn’t want to hear his voice again, not if it meant pretending nothing had happened. Not if it meant shrinking down into something polite and empty.

But something heavier than fear made me swipe to accept.

“Hello?” My voice cracked despite my best effort.

“Ms. Vargas,” came the reply, clean and even, no emotion curling its edges.

My stomach twisted hard enough to make me sit down on the couch without meaning to.

“Yes,” I said, forcing steadiness into my tone. “This is Elena.”

There was the smallest pause, a hesitation you could have missed if you weren’t straining for it.

“This is Nicholas Wolfe,” he said, his voice carrying the same cool detachment he’d worn like armor in his office.

Like I wouldn’t know. Like my skin wouldn’t have recognized him even if my brain hadn’t.

“I’d like to offer you the position,” he said, all business. “Executive assistant. Full-time. Starting Monday.”

I gripped the phone tighter, white-knuckled.

It was the right thing. The thing I needed.

Steady pay. Stability. A chance to rebuild from the ashes Daniel and his family had left me buried under.

Still, for a moment, I couldn’t find my voice.

“I… thank you,” I managed finally, the words sticking in my throat. “Yes. I’ll be there.”

Another pause, not the kind that invited warmth or camaraderie. The kind that reminded you exactly where you stood…across a line drawn carefully and deliberately.

“You’ll report to the executive floor at eight a.m. sharp,” he said. “Business formal. Check in with front reception.”

“Yes, Mr. Wolfe,” I said, my mouth moving before my heart could catch up.

There was the faintest hitch in his breathing, so slight it barely registered.

And then the line clicked dead.

I lowered the phone slowly, staring at the empty screen like it might offer an explanation he hadn’t.

He remembered me.

Of course he did.

No one looked at another human being the way he had in that hotel room without remembering every line, every breath, every broken piece carefully offered and carefully taken.

But whatever had happened between us,whatever had burned itself into my skin that night, it didn’t exist anymore.
Not in his voice. Not in the cold, clean words he used to shape my new reality.

I pressed the phone face-down against my knee, hands trembling.

It was fine. This was fine. I could handle it.

That’s what he wanted from me now.

And if my heart still stuttered every time I remembered the way his mouth had once moved against mine, the way his hands had once mapped the places no one else even knew existed well.

That was a problem for another night.

One I didn’t have the luxury to solve right now.

I had a job. I had rent due.

And starting Monday, I would see him every single day.