Page 68 of The Secretary Volume II

There’s a knock on the glass—softer this time, like whoever’s behind it wants to remind me I’m still visible.

I don’t turn.I just close the journal, slide it into the drawer, and lock it.

It won’t keep them out.But it slows them down.

39

Lena

Ellis didn’t look at me once.

Not during the first meeting or the final one.Not on the tarmac.Not even when Stewy cracked some wildly inappropriate joke about “closing hard.”

He was perfectly polite.Perfectly efficient.He thanked the client, shook hands, nodded at me when I handed him the notes he didn’t ask for.

And that was it.

No acknowledgment.No smirk.No shift in tone.

He went right back to being the man who signs things and doesn’t look back.The one who can sit across from you for two hours, make a decision that will destroy your life, and finish his steak in the same breath.

So maybe this is just how he is.

Maybe I was stupid to expect any different.

The email hit before the plane’s wheels even fully touched down.

Effective tomorrow, please report back to Shergar HQ.Your home access credentials will be disabled at midnight.

It wasn’t from Ellis.It was from HR.Polite.Vague.Surgical.

I didn’t respond.

I didn’t need to.

Now I’m here.Back in the building with its recycled air and ceiling tiles designed to swallow time.My heels click too loudly on the polished floor, like the sound is trying to remind people I still work here.

No one says good morning.

Andra passes me by without a glance.

The desk I had before I left has been reassigned.My new office is smaller.Tucked into a row near the back of the floor, away from the glass conference rooms, away from everyone.

There’s a fresh badge waiting.A new access code.A schedule with no context.I sit.I log in.I answer emails.I pretend this is just another Thursday.

But I feel it.In the way no one asks how the trip went.In the way my inbox is already sorted, like I was never gone.

This isn’t punishment.It’s replacement.

And I let it happen.

I think about what I said.What I let slip.

Kevin.

It wasn’t breathy.It wasn’t romantic.It was just a name.My ex-husband’s.A memory.An accident.

Ellis never said a word about it.But now I’m back in the bullpen like I never left.Like I imagined the whole thing.And maybe I did.Maybe I wanted to believe I could handle him—handle this—without getting pulled under.