The door opened.
He walked in.
Ash Calder.
No announcement. No entourage. Just a man in a tailored suit, quiet and unreadable. His presence shifted the air, like gravity had tilted. Conversations stilled. Eyes followed.
He was handsome — impossibly so. Not in the polished, magazine-cover way, but in the kind that unsettled you. Sharp jawline, dark eyes that seemed to weigh every detail, hair that caught the light but refused to be tamed. His features were carved, deliberate, as if someone had designed him to be noticed even when he didn't want to be.
Evelyn didn't move.
She didn't blink.
She just watched.
---
Ash took a seat at the far end of the table. He didn't look at Nova. He didn't look at anyone. He simply placed his hands on the table, folded neatly, and waited.
Nova cleared her throat. "Mr. Calder. Thank you for joining us."
He nodded once. No words.
The silence stretched.
---
Evelyn studied him.
Not his face. Not his suit. But the way he sat — still, deliberate, as if every movement had been considered before it happened. He wasn't performing. He wasn't pretending. He was simply there.
And somehow, that was enough.
---
Nova launched into her presentation.
Charts. Numbers. Projections.
Ash listened.
Or at least, he appeared to.
His eyes flicked across the slides, then back to Nova. He didn't interrupt. He didn't ask questions. He didn't smile.
He was unreadable.
---
Evelyn scribbled notes she didn't need.
Her pen moved, but her eyes stayed on him.
She wasn't sure why.
Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was something else. But there was something about the way he occupied space — quiet, magnetic, impossible to ignore.
---
Halfway through the meeting, Ash finally spoke.
His voice was low. Calm. Precise.
"Your numbers are clean," he said. "But numbers don't build trust."
Nova froze.
The room did too.
Ash leaned back in his chair. "Trust isn't in the projections. It's in the people."
His eyes swept the room.
For a moment, they landed on Evelyn.
Just a moment.
Then they moved on.
---
Her pulse quickened.
She looked down at her notes, suddenly aware of her own stillness. She hadn't reacted when Nova said his name. She hadn't cared. But now, with his gaze brushing past her, she felt something shift.
Not recognition.
Not fear.
Something quieter.
---
The meeting ended.
Nova smiled too brightly, shook his hand too firmly. Ash nodded once, then left the room as quietly as he had entered.
No fanfare.
No goodbye.
Just absence.
---
Evelyn lingered after the others had gone.
Her notebook lay open, blank except for one word.
Calder.
She stared at it.
She didn't know why she'd written it.
---
That evening, she sat in the break room, stirring her tea.
Tomi appeared, balancing two cups.
"You survived the Calder meeting," he said, sliding one toward her.
She raised an eyebrow. "Survived?"
He smirked. "He's… intense."
Evelyn sipped her tea. "He didn't say much."
"That's the point. He doesn't have to."
She looked at him. "And Nova?"
"Nova's desperate. She wants his signature more than anything."
Evelyn stirred her tea. "Does he know?"
Tomi leaned back. "He always knows."
---
Back at her apartment, Evelyn sat by the window.
The city blinked.
She thought of the meeting. Of Nova's voice. Of Ash Calder's silence. Of the way his eyes had brushed past her, just for a moment.
She whispered, "Trust isn't in the projections."
Milo buzzed softly. "You're listening."
She didn't answer.
She was thinking.
---
Ash Calder hadn't noticed her.
Not really.
But something about the way he looked at the room — the way he looked through it — made her wonder.
And for the first time, Evelyn wanted to be seen.
---