The word hung between us in the amber-lit restaurant, vibrating against the noise of clinking silverware and low chatter.

I needed to clear my head.

At 11:00 PM, I was still sitting in my apartment, surrounded by scattered sketches, mood boards, and half-empty coffee cups, trying to finalize the visual deck for the Apex Financial presentation.

My phone buzzed on the coffee table.

I picked it up, expecting another ridiculous text from Derek.

Instead, it was a text from an unknown number—or rather, a number I had memorized but refused to save under her actual name to avoid corporate disasters.

Look outside.

I frowned, walked over to my living room window, and pulled back the blinds.

Parked illegally right outside my apartment building in Lincoln Park was the sleek, practical sedan.

And leaning against the passenger door, holding a takeout bag from our favorite late-night Italian place, was Rebecca.

She looked up, caught me staring through the window, and gave a small wave.

Three minutes later, I had the front door of my building unlocked, and Rebecca was stepping into my cluttered, furniture-restoration-project-filled living room.

She looked exhausted. Her hair was still pinned up, but a few stray strands had come loose around her face. She wasn't wearing a blazer anymore—just a dark cashmere sweater and jeans.

“You’re trespassing on my sanity,” I said, taking the bag of pasta from her hands.

“My apartment building has security guards who ask too many questions,” Rebecca replied, dropping her keys onto my entryway table. She looked around my living room, her eyes lingering on the half-restored walnut coffee table sitting in the corner. “Is this where you commit assault against antique furniture?”

“This is my sacred workspace,” I corrected her, setting the food down on the kitchen island. “What are you doing here at midnight, Rebecca? If Sarah Jenkins sees you leaving my apartment building, my career is going to end in a blaze of glory.”

Rebecca walked over, stood behind the kitchen island, and watched me open the containers.

“Sarah Jenkins is currently at a bachelorette party in Wrigleyville getting way too drunk on tequila,” Rebecca said calmly. “I checked her Instagram story before I came over. We’re safe.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “You cyber-stalked my workplace nemesis?”

“I do intelligence gathering, Mason. It’s what creative directors do.” She reached over, stole a piece of garlic bread from the container, and popped it into her mouth.

“You said you hated garlic bread,” I pointed out.

“People lie.”

We sat down at my small kitchen table, eating pasta out of cardboard containers while the city hummed quietly outside my apartment window. For the first time all week, the crushing weight of office politics, rumors, and corporate hierarchies seemed to fade into the background.

“How’s the New York deck coming along?” she asked quietly, resting her chin on her hand.

“It’s coming together,” I said. “The financial data is solid. The emotional angle is strong. But... there’s one slide that’s bothering me.”

“Which one?”

“The transition slide. The one that connects the company’s history with its future.”

Rebecca stood up, walked over to my desk, and picked up the printed storyboard frame I had pinned to my corkboard. She stared at it for a long moment, her eyes analyzing every line, every color palette, every piece of typography.

“It’s too safe,” she said softly.

“Safe?” I protested, standing up to join her. “That slide took me three days to design!”

“It’s safe because you were thinking about what the client wanted to see, instead of what they needed to feel.” She turned her head, looking up at me. Her face was only inches from mine. The air between us suddenly felt charged, thick with an unspoken tension that had been building since the moment we collided in that Italian restaurant.

“How do I fix it?” I asked, my voice dropping an octave.

Rebecca didn't look back down at the paper. Her dark eyes held mine, filled with a sudden, fierce vulnerability.