“That is absolutely something Lena would care about.”
“Right?” He hesitated before continuing. “So, since Giselle will be there with her husband, and you and I are both single at the moment…” I already knew where this was going. “Would you maybe want to go together?” he asked.
The question came out casually, more friendly than awkward. I didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
Daniel blinked.
“Really?”
“Yes,” I said with a small smile. “Like you said, neither of us has a partner.”
“That’s true.”
“And it will make Lena happy,” I added.
“That’s probably the main goal.”
We both laughed softly.
It was a simple conversation, light and easy, the sort of exchange that belonged to the life I had built here in London.Yet as Daniel kept talking, the chill came again, sliding over the back of my neck with the strange certainty of being watched. My attention drifted toward the end of the corridor, and for the briefest moment, I thought I saw a tall figure standing near the corner where the hallway turned toward the administrative wing. By the time I focused properly, the space was empty. Daniel noticed the shift in my attention.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
Daniel checked the time on his watch.
“I should probably get back to my office,” he said. “I still have a mountain of papers waiting for me.”
“Same here,” I replied.
He gave me a friendly nod.
“I’ll message you later about Saturday, then. Just to figure out the details.”
“Sounds good.”
With that he disappeared down the corridor, leaving me alone in the hallway. The moment his footsteps faded, the silence returned. And with it came the unsettling awareness that I was no longer entirely sure I had imagined that shadow at the end of the corridor.
Slowly, I turned my head again. The corner of the hallway and the corridor stood empty, the polished floor stretching toward a row of closed office doors, with nothing there to prove anyone had been watching.
I exhaled slowly, pushing the thought away as I started walking toward my office. It didn’t matter. Even if Hayden had seen us talking, even if he had heard the conversation about the wedding, it changed nothing.
My life was not his concern anymore. Whatever unfinished history existed between us did not give him the right to interfere with the present I had built here.
I repeated that thought firmly as I reached my office door.
Chapter Seven
Hayden
BythetimeSaturdayarrived, I had learned something very important about working in the same building as Edwina Rhodes. Avoiding me wasimpossible. She tried. I saw it in the way she changed directions in the corridor when she noticed me at the end of it, in the careful timing of her lectures that seemed suspiciously arranged to finish before I stepped out of meetings, and in the polite, controlled distance she maintained whenever our paths crossed in public spaces. It might have worked on someone else. Not on me. Because the entire week had turned into a game of hide and seek. And while she clearly believed she was the one hiding, the truth was far more entertaining.
Each administrative email I sent, brief request for clarification that brought her into my office, and accidental encounter in the hallway had one very predictable result. She walked intothe room tense. Guarded. Trying very hard to look unaffected. Watching her fight that reaction had been… amusing. Her nervousness had its own appeal, yet what kept pulling me back was the brief flicker in her eyes every time she stood in front of me.
Recognition.
Memory.
