The city lights faded into the distance as I rode home to my small apartment. My mind was spinning with feelings:
Scared after facing Vanessa, upset with her sneaky questions, and deeply wounded at Alex's dismissal of my family's bakery as "not relevant."
Not applicable? The bakery was my childhood, the reason my parents were so upset, why I had to work three jobs to pay for school, and he just acted like it didn't matter. Just another little step on his path to being super rich.
And there was his summons. 7 AM. His office. Solitude. What did he want? To yell at me for having seen Vanessa? To lecture me again? Or was it regarding the Archer project?
His intense stare, dictating everything to me, seemingly out of thin air, it was all so confusing. One minute he was the distant boss, the next he was offering bizarre personal warnings and staring at me in ways I couldn't understand.
I did not sleep all. I kept replaying lunch constantly in my head, the tension between him and Vanessa, the way he looked at me, and the way he said, "Not relevant." Each word was like a falling rock on my chest.
After morning, I crawled out of bed at dawn. My eyes were puffy, and my muscles groaned in protest because I had not rested properly. I entered yet another office-fitting suit to portray the assertive graphic designer Alex Blackwood thought he had hired. I felt like wearing a costume.
I stood outside Blackwood Tower at 6:50 AM. The city was starting to wake up, with light gray filling the sky. The same driver waited, nodded, opened the door, and I got in.
The elevator ride up to the 32nd floor took longer this time. Every second was drawn out as my heart pounded against my chest.
When I opened the doors, the reception room was empty. The mean-looking assistant wasn't present yet. I used the key card Alex had given me and walked down the hallway to his office.
The door was slightly ajar. I took a breath and opened it.
Alex sat behind his desk, a dark silhouette against the break of dawn outside his huge windows. He wore a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves showing off his bulging arms. He looked up as I came in, his blue eyes piercing.
"Ms. Gray. On time again." His tone was even, showing nothing of yesterday's tension.
"Sir," I replied, walking towards the chair in front of his desk. Today his desk felt like a barrier between us.
He nodded toward the chair. "Have you narrowed down the 'Reimagined' concept?"
"Yes, sir," I replied, taking out my laptop. My fingers shook a bit as I set it up. I shared with him the new work I'd done since yesterday's discussion.
My new graphics were bold, even more contrasting between the old clock and the digital world.
I talked about my thinking, what each part stood for, and the message that I wanted to deliver.
I was bolder this time, getting carried away with the design and forgetting momentarily who I was talking to.
He sat silently, eyes on the screen, and then on my face when I talked. He didn't cut me off or glare. Just watched and listened.
When I finished, the quiet was dense and oppressive. I took a breath, waiting. Would he tear it to pieces? Or would he see what I was trying to say?
"It's better," he said finally, his tone low. "More intense. It's got the tension."
Relief washed over me. He actually liked it!
"Thank you, sir," I managed to get out.
He leaned back, still watching me. The tone shifted, his professional veneer slipping a notch.
"Vanessa Sharp is a force to be dealt with, Ms. Gray. Yesterday's visit wasn't to be buddies. It was to learn. About me. About Blackwood Industries."
"I surmised as much," I said quietly.
"Did you hear that," he continued, his voice falling to a lower, more intense pitch, "that she would use anything she could against me? Against anyone who's around me?"
He glared at me, and I felt that strange, bewildering pull again. He was trying to protect me, to shield me in his own strange, controlling manner.
"She talked about. small businesses," I stuttered out. "Like my family's bakery."
His expression tightened slightly. "That was a business deal, Ms. Gray. A very long time ago. A step along the way to growing up."
"Necessary?" The word flashed me. "My parents lost everything. Their business, their income. It destroyed them."
He waited for a moment, still regarding me. "The marketplace is volatile, Ms. Gray. Sometimes old businesses simply can't keep up. Buyouts happen. That's how civilization advances."
Progress? He treated my family's devastation as "progress." His callous view was a gut punch. No apology, no empathy, only tough business speak.
"It wasn't just a business," I told him, my voice full of tears. "It was our life. Our legacy. You can't sell that."
"Everything has a price, Ms. Gray," he said bluntly. His eyes were cold again. This was the man who built a steel and concrete empire, who saw the world in numbers and assets.
My eyes filled with tears, and his face softened. It hurt more than I'd expected, to have him say it so callously, without feeling.
"I thought. maybe you did get it," I said softly, remembering what he'd told me about being real and looking past his billions. I was stupid now.
"I know business," he told me. "And I know talent. You have that, Ms. Gray. Focus on it. Let the past be in the past."
Let the past stay where it is. Easy for him to say. His had been a history of success, of fighting to top it all off. Mine was a history of failure, of losing it all to someone like him.
I couldn't sit anymore. I closed my laptop, needing to escape. "I've made the changes, sir. Do you need anything else?"
He looked at me for what felt like an eternity, his face impassive. The air was thick with rage, heartache, and that peculiar chemistry that still existed between us despite everything.
"No, Ms. Gray," he said at last, his voice gentler but still distant. "That's it. Have the revised documents sent to Claire. We'll review them for the Archer meeting."
I remained steadfast, eager to escape. As I reached the door, he spoke again.
"Ms. Gray?"
I halted. He remained seated at his desk, looking at me.
"Be cautious," he continued, his own eyes serious. "Not so much of Vanessa. Of this world. It can be. cruel."
It felt a mysterious warning, that he was telling me how cruel his world was, the same world he was a part of.
But it removed none of the pungency of what he had uttered regarding the bakery.
I nodded stiffly. "I see, sir."
I remained in the hallway, pushing the door shut behind me. The quiet hallway felt a refuge. I leaned against the wall, panting for air and trying to make sense of our odd conversation.
He saw buying out my family's bakery as "necessary progress." He saw my family's suffering as "not relevant." But he warned me to be careful, as if he were. worried? It did not add up. The puzzle was not clicking.
I walked to the elevator, the weight of his words and my history crushing me. I had the job. I had somehow caught his attention.
But I also knew I was working with a man who was both mesmerizing and completely merciless, a man who treated people's lives as minor annotations to his monumental success tale.
And the past, my family's hard-bitter loss, was not "not relevant" to me. It was everything. And someday, he would have to know that.
The following day was the Archer interview with the client. Another test. Another move closer to this world. I had to focus.
But how could I, when the man I was attempting to impress was the same man whose company was built upon the ruins of my family's hopes?