Chapter 2
The door didn't close right away.
He'd said it — "Everyone out. Now." — flat and clean, no raise in his voice, and for a second nobody moved. I could hear the heating vent behind me ticking. The glass in front of me caught the tungsten light and threw it back onto the walnut in a sharp little star. My hands were on the edge of the table and I realized I'd locked my elbows without meaning to.
The two men behind me shifted. One cleared his throat. I didn't turn to look. I watched him instead, the man in the black suit, his hands still flat on the table, his eyes on me like he was waiting to see if I'd flinch first.
"Gentlemen," he said, softer this time, but it wasn't softer. It was a second strike.
That did it. Chairs scraped — not his, theirs. Footsteps on the carpet. I counted them without wanting to. One, two, past my shoulder. The first guard's cuff brushed the back of my chair. I smelled cologne and wool. The second hesitated at the door, hand on the handle, and glanced back at the table — at me, at the decanters, at the man — like he was checking if he'd heard the order right.
He had.
The door clicked shut. Not slammed. Clicked. The little brass latch catching, and then the heavier sound of the seal settling. The room tone dropped out completely. No hallway noise, no elevator ding, nothing from the city through that glass except light. Just the low hum of the air system and my own breathing, too loud in my ears.
I counted them. One in. One out. One in. One out. Four breaths before I could make my hands unlock.
He stood.
Slowly. He pushed his chair back with both hands on the armrests and rose to his full height, deliberate, unhurried. The black open-collar shirt shifted at his throat. He didn't come toward me. He went to the door. I heard him turn the lock — a small, definite snick — and then the faint buzz of a panel by the frame as he tapped it. A privacy shade started to crawl down the floor-to-ceiling windows, motor quiet, turning the snow-blurred skyline into ribbons and then nothing. Warm tungsten now had nowhere to go. The room got smaller.
It wasn't a boardroom anymore. The table was still a boardroom table, the decanters still sitting perfectly centered, but the way he stood with his back to the door, hands in his pockets, made it something else. Private territory. His.
"Miss Merson," he said. His voice was even. "You understand you just cleared my calendar."
I swallowed. My throat was dry. The whiskey glass was right there, amber intact, cut crystal sweating just enough to leave a ring if I moved it. I didn't touch it.
"I didn't mean to —" My voice came out thinner than I wanted. I stopped and tried again. "I meant what I said."
He tilted his head a fraction. "Which part?"
The heat hit my face fast. "Not after tonight."
He let the silence sit. He didn't fill it. He let me hear what I'd offered hanging in that sealed room, with the shades down and the door locked and the two guards gone because he'd told them to go. My offer had been a bluff dressed up as a dare, and he knew it, and now he'd made it real by removing every witness.
"I need the loan," I said. The words scraped on the way out. I forced myself to keep my hands still on the table, fingers spread so he could see they weren't shaking. They were. "The bridge loan. Thirty days. My dad's shop — the bank pulled the line. I came here because your office said you approve exceptions after hours. That's why I wore —" I gestured at the white shirt, the stupid careful button-up I'd ironed twice. "That's why I came."
He nodded once, like I'd confirmed a number he'd already run.
"And tonight is your collateral," he said. Not a question.
I stared at the whiskey. My reflection warped in the cut glass. "I don't have anything else you want."
"That's not true," he said. He finally stepped away from the door, one slow step toward the table, then another, but he didn't sit. He stopped at the far corner, far enough that I had to turn my head to keep him in view. "You have exactly what I asked about. And you put a price on it yourself."
My breath caught. I counted again to keep it even. "I need it in writing," I said. My voice was small but it was steady now. "If I stay — if I stay in this room tonight — the loan funds tomorrow. No interest stunt. No other conditions."
He looked at me for a long moment. The stubble along his jaw caught the light. The amusement was gone completely now, replaced by that cold, assessing stare from the video feed, the one that made my stomach drop.
"And if you walk?" he asked.
"The door's locked," I said.
He smiled then, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It locks from the inside, Miss Merson. You can leave any time. The question is what leaving costs you."
The shades were fully down. The city was gone. It was just us, the walnut table, and the glass between us neither of us had touched.
He reached out and slid the whiskey glass half an inch toward me. Crystal scraped on wood, loud in the quiet.
May you like
"So," he said quietly. "Do we have terms to discuss, or are you going to waste the privacy you just bought?"
I didn't answer yet. I couldn't. My hand was hovering over that glass, and whether I drank or pushed it back would tell him everything about whether I'd actually stay.
