Orien Vell’s shoes snapped wetly on the tile, a discordant tap echoing with every step down Verity’s shadow-lit hallway. After weeks away—half sick leave, half running from ghosts—he was thinner, his charcoal turtleneck hanging softer on his narrow frame, hair a little longer, more unruly. The overhead fluorescents caught the bruised hollows under his eyes and the slow, nervous way his fingers toyed with his ID badge.

In the glass-walled boardroom, Lysa Kaelith didn’t so much sit as command, posture immaculate in a crisp dove-gray suit, dark hair neatly knotted. Her face betrayed nothing, jaw tight, gaze cool as code—until Orien entered. Her breath hitched almost imperceptibly, a muscle in her cheek twitching, eyes flicking from his mouth to the shy hands he folded around his notebook.

“Orien,” she said, voice flat, just a hint of history glimmering behind the syllables. The others—product leads, HR, a fresh-faced junior— glanced between them, catching static in the air but too afraid to interrupt. Lysa pressed on about deadlines, her words brisk, but under the table her knuckles whitened, gripping a pen until it threatened to snap.

Minutes later, the new hire was ushered in: Selene Miras, hair cropped black and sharp around her angular jaw, oversized hoodie trading professionalism for defiance. She slouched low into a chair, lips curled in a half-smirk as she eyed the org chart, not Orien or Lysa, but hunger for respect clear in the set of her shoulders. When Orien tried to make small talk, she rolled her eyes. “If you want ‘innovative,’ maybe stop shipping with ninety-nine bugs,” she deadpanned, making two engineers snort and Orien’s mouth twitch at the corner. His cheeks flushed, half embarrassment, half surprise at the flicker of interest in her gaze—something softer than her words let on.

When coffee ran low, Lysa stood. Her heels cut a soft staccato on the floor, and when Orien paused beside her at the credenza, their bodies nearly brushed. She turned to him, expression crumbling for just a breath: “You look tired,” she murmured.

His reply was a secret, raw thing. “So do you, Lys.” Neither moved away, a breath from contact, tension spooling between them. She pressed her lips together, then schooled her features—back to CEO, to ice.

The office thinned out as night crept in, blue computer light painting Orien’s wrists as he nursed a cold mug at his terminal, coding in silent agony. His hand trembled as he hovered over lines of code Lysa once helped him write, memory pricking behind his eyes. Alone in the server room, the hum cocooned him. Desire and grief tangled until he squeezed his eyes shut, remembering Lysa’s fingertips, the tremble in her voice, the way she once said his name in the dark—his name, and nobody else’s.

The door swung open, silent and sudden. Lysa slipped inside, a silhouette in the server glow. Her mascara had smeared just enough to betray tears, though her chin was high, unbreakable. She crouched next to him as he fussed with tangled wires, their arms touching as they leaned in to the same open panel, everything too close, too charged.

Orien’s breath caught. Lysa’s hand hovered over his for a split second—soft, deliberate, a question and an apology. Their skin met. Heat lanced through Orien, and he nearly shattered at the brush of her fingers.

Lysa’s lips shimmered with unsaid things. “Some ghosts never leave,” she whispered, the words a dare, a confession, an ache she could no longer swallow. Then she was gone, heel clicks fading, leaving Orien breathless and alone, knees weak, every nerve alive.

From the windowed corridor, Selene watched their silhouettes break apart in the blue-lit room. Her jaw clenched, eyes stormy—already rewriting her own rules, already marking the shape of a new secret she’d rather keep.

To be continued...