Page 73 of Say My Name

I pick up my laptop case. “We have the revised model this afternoon.”

“Send it when you’re ready.”

Dominic looks back at his phone, letting me leave without another question.

I reach the privacy of my office before I admit that I wanted him to stop me.

Late that afternoon, I send Dominic the revised model with four notes explaining the changes.

He calls less than a minute later. “That was fast,” I say, glancing at his name on the screen.

“Your third note says the downside case is distorted by a bad input.”

“It is. The retention assumption from their operating team is too optimistic.”

“How optimistic?”

I open the supporting tab and give him the numbers. He asks two more questions, and I adjust the range while we talk. This is ordinary for us. We have picked apart hundreds of models over the phone, sometimes from opposite sides of the building and sometimes from different time zones.

Tonight, his voice is right against my ear while I watch him across the hall.

Most of the executive floor has cleared out. Maya is finishing the treasury approvals at her desk. Dominic’s office door is closed. Mine is open, giving me a direct view through the glass.

He stands at his desk with one hand in his pocket and the phone at his ear. When he turns toward my office, I drop my eyes to the spreadsheet.

“You did it again,” he says.

“Did what?”

“Looked at me and pretended you didn’t.”

“I was checking whether you had the correct file open.”

“From forty feet away?”

“You’ve made large type a condition of closing deals.”

“Elena.”

He says my name in the same low tone he used on my couch, and my thighs tighten, a clench of pure, frustrating memory.

I lean back, trying to create distance my body refuses to accept. “What?”

“Are you still angry that I gave you what you asked for?”

“I told you I’m not angry.”

“Then what are you?”

I could end the call. We finished the work question, and Maya is fifteen feet from my door. I have no reason to stay on the line while Dominic watches me through the glass.

Across the hall, I see him go perfectly still. “Frustrated,” I admit, the word tasting like a defeat.

He takes his hand from his pocket and braces it on the desk. “With me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”