Beneath Her Ice

The boardroom was empty now.

The silence felt like a verdict.

Eliza sat motionless in her chair long after Will left. Her fingers, usually so steady on any keyboard, hovered midair — uncertain, clenched tight. Like they still held the weight of something unspoken.

She'd done it wrong.

Again.

She didn't know why she thought it would land any differently this time. She'd offered him structure, safety, a partnership written in ink and numbers — the only language she truly trusted.

And he'd heard chains.

She couldn't blame him.

She didn't know how to do this — this thing where people said what they felt without armor. Where emotions weren't liabilities and desire wasn't dangerous.

Because she remembered what happened when she tried.

—

Years ago. A borrowed apartment. A different man.

She had been twenty-three. Hungry for more than just success — starving, really. For someone who saw her behind the headlines and the spreadsheets. And she thought she'd found him.

He said all the right things. Held her like she wasn't carved from ambition. Promised he'd stay.

Then came the breach.

A leak to the press. A betrayal wrapped in pillow talk.

The story ran within a week: Darcy's Bedroom Secrets & the Boardroom Backlash.Her first product launch tanked. The stock price dipped. She had to beg for a second chance at a table she'd already earned.

After that, Eliza learned.

She learned how to close every door. How to speak in strategies. How to never, ever need someone enough to lose her name again.

So when Will Bennett looked at her like she was a person and not a brand, she didn't know what to do with that. And when he walked away, she didn't know how to stop him.

—

That night, she didn't go home.

She stayed in her office, lights low, skyline glittering behind tinted windows. She poured herself a drink. Just one. Neat, no ice.

No mirrors, either.

She didn't need to see the expression on her own face to know what it looked like:Loss, disguised as logic. Regret, dressed as composure.

She picked up his folder again, fingers brushing over the edge. Inside: pages of planning and passion, each line infused with belief.

She had wanted to be part of it.

More than that — she had wanted to be seen. Not as a billionaire. Not as a tech mogul. Just… seen.

And she had been.

For a moment.

Then it was gone.

—

Across the river, Will stood in his kitchen staring at a cup of untouched tea.

He should have been angry. But mostly, he felt tired. And something worse: conflicted.

Because the way she looked at him in that room wasn't calculation. It was something softer. Something sad.

And he couldn't stop wondering what it might cost her — to admit she wanted anything she couldn't control.