The office was quiet except for the soft hum of the city filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Manhattan glittered below, a sprawl of lights and ambition, but up here—seventy floors above the noise—there was only the scent of her perfume and the weight of her attention.

You’d spent the last two hours waiting for her to look up. To notice you were still there, still waiting, still hoping for something she never seemed willing to give. And when she finally did, it wasn’t with an apology. It was with a single, unreadable glance that said she already knew you were about to leave.

She didn’t raise her voice. She never had to. The words were a silk cord, pulled taut and impossible to break.

She closed the file in front of her with deliberate calm. Her fingers laced together on the polished mahogany desk, and her eyes never left Y/n’s face.

A pause. The city hummed beneath them, oblivious.

She waited. Unhurried. Expectant. The kind of stillness that made the air feel thick and heavy, like the moment before a storm.