Elena's POV
My whole body went still, my breath catching once again because I hadn't heard that voice for a long time and some part of me had spent every single day praying I would never again.
I pushed the door open before my legs could talk me out of it.
The room buzzed with quiet noise. Papers shuffling, low voices, someone muffling something I didn't seem to hear.
A long table stretched out ahead of me, filled with people wearing sharp suits that barely looked up as I walked in.
For one second the room simply held me the way any new face gets held, polite and brief.
Then my eyes found the head of the table, and every other sound in the room drifted away.
It was him.
Adrian Kane.
He sat there like he owned the place, his dark hair was shorter than I remembered, jaw sharper, shoulders wider under a suit that seemed sow just for him.
It seemed like softness had been stripped out of his face and left something colder behind.
My whole body went numb in a second, and immediately I forgot how to move my own legs.
“I'm sorry for the late arrival.” I finally said. “My name is Elena Hart and I'm the representative of Voss Global for this meeting.”
Everyone in the room nodded and finally my legs obeyed my bidding.
I don't remember crossing the room. I just knew I was already sitting on a chair, and someone slid a folder to me while my hands were folding themselves on the table like they don't belong to me anymore.
I kept my eyes down and my face still, on anything that wasn't the man at the end of the table.
“Breathe. You've got this,” I thought to myself.
"Let's get started," someone said, jolting me back to the present and the meeting commenced as though nothing had just changed at all.
As the meeting went on, I nodded whenever it was necessary and gave a response when questions were thrown at me.
But inside, my chest was tight and every few seconds my eyes dragged themselves back up the table, pulled by something stronger than sense.
And every single time I looked at him, he was already looking at me.
Earlier when I walked in, his face went blank with confusion, like a half-remembered song.
But the second time our eyes met, the recognition landed like a slap on his face and his jaw became tight, his gaze flat and cold.
The kind of look that dropped the temperature of the whole room.
Seeing this, I quickly looked back at the folder and didn't look up again.
I have sat through hot meetings before. I have voiced my opinion even when men twice my age underestimated me on sight.
But none of that prepared me for forty-five minutes meeting with him. So I couldn't pretend that my heart wasn't trying to climb out of my chest.
Finally the meeting ended, chairs scraped back and voices rose into chatter. I stood up quickly, the folder clutched to my chest, already looking for the fastest way to the door.
"Elena." Adrian's called out from behind. Low and flat, pitched just for me to hear under the noise of everyone leaving.
I stopped two steps from the door and turned slowly to where his voice came from.
Running would have made it strange as it felt. So I didn't even allow myself to think of it.
After turning to face him, I realized he was still seated, watching the room empty with a patience that made my skin crawl.
Finally the last person left and the door clicked shut behind me. Now it was just the two of us with a very long table between us with tension sitting heavy in the air.
"Adrian."
His name came out of my mouth more carefully than I meant it, like it was something breakable.
He stood up, buttoned his jacket, every movement controlled in a way more dangerous than shouting would have been.
"So you work for Voss Global now. What a small world."
"Well, yes I do and I didn't expect you to be here."
"Would it have mattered?"
I didn't answer, because I honestly didn't know, and because answering felt like handling him something I wasn't ready to give.
He walked around the table slowly, closing the distance one step at a time, and I made myself stay still, meeting his eyes anyway.
Up close, he looked like someone carved out of something darker and cold.
"I heard that you are married," he said, turning the word over like he was testing it. "So you disappeared because you wanted to settle yourself down."
"I don't owe you an explanation."
"No. You don't." His voice stayed calm, but something underneath it had gone jagged. "You left without saying goodbye and built a whole life somewhere and I don't even worth a phone call."
The words hit harder than I expected with a strange, twisted echo of a truth he didn't understand at all.
My face became hot, anger and grief tangling together until I couldn't tell which one was driving my next words.
"Why should I? How does that even concern you?"
“Because—" He stopped halfway, his jaw tightening like some old argument was dying behind his teeth.
"You know what? Never mind.."
"Good.” I replied immediately, my voice shook, just slightly, and I hated that he could probably notice it.
Something flickered across his face, fast and unreadable, it was gone before I could name it.
For one second he looked like he wanted to argue, but then his face closed over like a door shutting, the cold, controlled CEO settling back into place like armor.
"Well, this is a business relationship now," he said. "Let's make this work."
"Sure. Because that's exactly what I want."
"Good. We understand each other."
I turned toward the door without answering any further, relief flooding through me so fast that it nearly buckled my knees.
Before I even reached the door, my hand was already reaching for the handle.
Three more steps and I would be in the hallway, out of this room, out of the reach of those gray eyes. I had almost made it.
"One more thing.” Adrian said from behind.
I stopped with my hand on the handle, my spine straight but I didn't turn around.
He didn't move from where he was, but his voice dropped lower in a way that put every nerve in my body on alert.
"Why are you back here Elena?" he asked.
The floor tilted slightly as the question landed, and for a moment I hoped it would open and swallow me whole.
I turned back to him slowly, my hand still frozen on the handle, mouth already open to give an excuse I didn't have yet.
Behind me, he was looking at me with an expression I couldn't read, not accusation exactly, not yet.
"Tell me, why on earth did you join Voss Global?" he asked, his voice raising a little now.
