Mia set her fork down and met his eyes. "You know, I don't think I've ever really said this enough... thank you."
He frowned slightly. "For what?"
"For saving me," she said softly. "After Liam..." Her voice trailed off for a second, but she forced herself to keep going. "That was the lowest point of my life. I'd just started to recover from losing my dad, and my entire family left me. I didn't think I could take another hit."
Josh leaned back, his expression gentling.
"It was you," she continued, her tone steadier now. "You, Liam, and Daniel... you gave me the strength to keep going. Even after Liam broke my heart and chose Stacy... even when I thought I'd lost every reason to believe in people, you and Daniel stayed. You're the only ones who never left."
Her voice wavered, but she held his gaze. "And that summer—when you took me to your hometown after your parents died..." Her chest tightened with the memory. "You'd just lost your parents that time, but you still found a way to help me. You didn't have to."
Josh's features softened, his voice low. "You needed someone. And I... needed someone too. Guess we held each other together."
Josh looked away for a moment, clearing his throat. "You needed a friend. And I... needed someone to keep me from drowning in all that grief. Guess we saved each other."
A small smile curved her lips. "And then you made me your part-time assistant so I could keep studying."
"You were the only one I trusted," he said with a shrug. "Besides, you were too stubborn to accept money from me outright. Had to disguise it as a job."
She laughed softly, the sound easing the heaviness between them. "Still the best boss I ever had."
He smirked. "Careful, I might hire you back."
Their laughter filled the space, warm and familiar. And for a little while, the ghosts of the past—the heartbreak, the losses, the names they didn't speak—stayed where they belonged.
Josh leaned back in his chair, a playful spark in his eyes as he twirled his fork.
"I told you years ago—get yourself a boyfriend. You've had plenty of suitors. And Mr. Vale? He's single now. Divorced, even. Rich, good-looking... what's your excuse?"
Mia laughed, shaking her head as she stabbed a piece of chicken.
"My excuse is you. As long as you don't have a boyfriend yourself, I'm not going to bother. And besides, I don't have time for romance, Josh."
The corner of his smile faded. He set his fork down and looked at her for a long, searching moment.
"I'm gay, Mia. And do you really think there's someone out there who would truly love me? The real me? Not the version they imagine, not the role I play—but me." His voice was low, steady, but she could hear the truth under it. "I have Daniel. I have you. That's enough. A boyfriend? He'd probably just break my heart."
Her chest tightened at his quiet honesty. "You deserve better than that," she murmured.
But he only tilted his head, his gaze sharpening.
"And you deserve better than what you've let yourself believe." His voice softened, almost coaxing. "Are you sure this isn't about him at all?"
Her fork paused midair. "Josh—"
"You don't have to hate men just because one broke you," he pressed, leaning forward. "You deserve to be happy, Mia."
She gave a small, almost brittle laugh. "I don't hate men. And Liam has nothing to do with my decision to be single."
The flicker in her eyes gave her away.
Josh smirked knowingly. "Uh-huh. And I'm suddenly allergic to drama."
She glared at him, but the heat in her cheeks betrayed her. "It's not about him," she insisted—too quickly.
Before she could continue, a familiar voice came from behind her.
"Am I interrupting, or can I join you two?"
Mia turned to see Daniel standing there, hands tucked into his pockets, that easy smile on his face—the same one that had once made her feel safe in ways she'd never been able to explain. Josh's expression brightened immediately.
"Daniel! Perfect timing. Sit down before Mia eats everything."
Daniel pulled out the chair beside her, his presence instantly shifting the air at the table. He always carried a quiet steadiness with him, like a tide that never rushed but was impossible to ignore.
"Did I miss something?" Daniel asked.
The words landed softly, but the silence that followed was sharp enough to sting.
His smile faltered—just slightly—but enough for Josh to notice. The playful sparkle in Josh's eyes dimmed, his mouth closing mid-smirk. The air shifted, heavy and uneasy, pressing down on all three of them.
Mia's pulse skipped. An ache settled low in her chest, and she knew exactly why that tiny shift in Daniel's expression felt like a punch.
The memory of that summer was still sharp: the back porch of Josh's hometown house, the fading gold of the setting sun, and Daniel standing in front of her with his heart in his hands. He had told her then—in that quiet, steady way of his—that he'd ended things with Dina because he couldn't pretend anymore. That he was still in love with her.
She could still see him in that moment: hands shoved in his pockets, bracing himself for rejection but still hoping—always hoping—that maybe one day she would feel the same. And she remembered how, year after year, he had stayed single. How his patience had stretched into something almost unbearable in its constancy.
Now, sitting beside him, the guilt gnawed at her. Because only yesterday she had seen Liam again. And ever since, she hadn't been able to think of anything else. His face, his presence, the old wound he had ripped open—it haunted her, crowding out everything, even Daniel. Especially Daniel.
Her fingers tightened around her fork. She forced a smile, forced her tone light. "Josh was just teasing. It's just work. That's all this is."
Josh gave a hollow chuckle. "Yeah. Just work. No romance. Right."
But the table didn't recover. Beneath the surface, the air had shifted into something fragile and unspoken.
Mia felt it in every brush of Daniel's shoulder against hers when he reached for his glass, in the subtle gentleness of his voice when he asked about her week. She felt it in the way he listened—like he always had—as if she were the only person in the room.
And the guilt coiled tighter in her chest.
Because she knew the truth: Daniel was still waiting. Still holding on. Still carrying the same love he had confessed years ago.
And she? She couldn't give it back. Not fully. Not when her heart had never healed, when Liam's return had torn open scars she'd spent years stitching shut.
It hurt—God, it hurt—to sit beside a man who deserved her whole heart, knowing all she could offer him was the fractured, bleeding pieces someone else had left behind.
"Mr. Alcaraz, are you... okay?"
Anabel's voice broke the silence carefully, like she was testing the surface of thin ice. She had been standing by his desk for several minutes, shuffling papers and pretending to review her notes, but her eyes kept flicking toward him. Her boss—the man who never wasted a second, never allowed silence to linger—had been staring blankly at the city skyline for over an hour.
It unsettled her. Liam Alcaraz was not a man who sat idle. He was sharp, relentless, commanding. Meetings bled into phone calls, phone calls bled into strategies, and his mind was always two steps ahead of everyone else. She was used to his clipped orders, his precise questions, the way he ran his office like a machine that never dared slow down.
But now? Now he sat behind his desk like a statue, his chair slightly angled toward the glass windows, one hand slack against the armrest, the other motionless beside his untouched glass of scotch. The documents she had placed in front of him—urgent contracts, reports that usually consumed his attention—lay untouched.
She had never seen him like this.
Not once.
"Sir?" she pressed gently, taking a tentative step closer. "You've been... quiet since the boardroom."
Nothing. No flick of his eyes, no sharp remark to wave her off. Just silence.
Anabel shifted uncomfortably. In the years she'd worked for him, Liam's silences were weapons—deliberate, heavy, designed to make people squirm. But this wasn't that. This wasn't power. This was something else. Something that unnerved her more than his temper ever could.
It was as if his mind wasn't in the room at all.
Her chest tightened with unease as she studied him, really studied him. The man who usually carried himself with an untouchable confidence looked... haunted. His jaw was tense, his eyes unfocused, and though his body hadn't moved, she could almost feel the war raging behind his stillness.
"Mr. Alcaraz," she tried again, her voice softer this time, almost uncertain. "Are you sure you're alright?"
At last, he blinked, dragging his gaze away from the glass as if it had taken everything in him to return to the present. His eyes flicked to her—distant, unreadable—but for the briefest moment, she thought she caught something raw there. A flicker of emotion he never allowed anyone to see.
Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
He leaned back slowly in his chair, exhaling a breath that sounded heavier than it should have. "Cancel the rest of my meetings."
Anabel's brows lifted. "All of them, sir?"
"Yes." His tone was flat, clipped, but it lacked its usual steel. It sounded almost tired. "I don't want to be disturbed."
She hesitated, clutching her clipboard. In all the years she had served under Liam Alcaraz, she could not remember a single time he had willingly stepped away from work. He was the man who thrived on it, who devoured challenges like oxygen.
And yet here he was, shutting it all out.
She nodded, masking her surprise. "Of course, sir."
As she quietly slipped out of the office, she couldn't help but glance back one last time. He was still there, staring into nothing—his empire at his fingertips, his name commanding power across the city—yet he looked like a man losing a battle no one else could see.
And though Anabel would never dare say it out loud, the truth struck her with unsettling clarity.
For the first time, Liam Alcaraz didn't look untouchable.
He looked human.
The door clicked shut behind Anabel, her heels retreating down the hall until silence swallowed the office whole again.
Liam leaned forward, elbows braced against the desk, dragging a hand down his face. His skin burned hot, though the room itself felt cold—the kind of cold that seeped into bones and wouldn't let go.
He had thought he was prepared. Eight years had passed—long enough to bury her, long enough to build an empire so vast and consuming it left no room for ghosts. Mia Villaruiz was supposed to be nothing more than a scar, a shadow he could glance at without feeling.
But yesterday, the second she stepped into the boardroom, all of that collapsed.
Her presence had struck him like a blow he hadn't braced for—familiar yet foreign. No longer the girl with soft eyes and quiet resilience. Time had carved her into something sharper, stronger. Her chin had lifted in defiance when their eyes met, her voice steady, unwavering. She hadn't flinched. She hadn't shown an ounce of weakness.
And yet he had seen it.
The way her fingers tightened around her pen. The faint hitch in her breath when she said his name. That flicker in her eyes—hurt, betrayal, anger—all of it buried but not gone.
It gutted him.
For years he had told himself he'd done the right thing by letting her go. That walking away had been necessary, inevitable. He'd repeated it like gospel until it became truth. But seeing her again had ripped apart every carefully built defense.