Adrian noticed before he understood.
It wasn't the smell he was too controlled for that, too disciplined to register it as anything other than data. It was the change in her rhythm.
Nyra was early. Then late. Then early again.
Her coffee went untouched for the first time. Her fingers hovered near her jacket pocket when she thought no one was watching. She leaned back in her chair more often, jaw tight, gaze distant like someone fighting an urge she refused to name.
Adrian watched from glass walls and reflections, from the polished surfaces of ValeTech that turned everything into mirrors.
Interesting.
He didn't approach her right away. He never did. Control meant patience.
When he finally did, it was incidental. A hallway. A pause. Too quiet.
"You okay?" he asked, casual enough to be believable.
Nyra didn't look at him. "Perfect."
Lie.
He caught it not in her voice, but in the way she exhaled afterward. Too slow. Like she was grounding herself.
Adrian's eyes flicked just once to the faintest trace of smoke clinging to her sleeve. Not fresh. Not old. Struggling.
His jaw tightened.
"You start smoking again?" he asked, sharper than intended.
Nyra snapped her head toward him. "Excuse me?"
There it was. Fire. Defensive. Alive.
"I didn't say you did," he replied coolly, masking the slip. "I asked."
Her eyes narrowed. "You tracking my lungs now?"
Silence stretched.
Adrian adjusted his cufflinks. A useless habit when he was irritated. "I notice patterns. You're off-pattern."
"That's not your problem."
"It becomes my problem when it affects work."
That did it.
Nyra stepped closer not threatening, but intimate in a way that made his spine lock. "Funny," she said softly. "Because my work is the only thing you don't get to comment on."
Her scent hit him then. Not cigarette. Not yet.
Want.
And that was worse.
Adrian swallowed. He hated this part where logic failed him, where restraint felt like a cage instead of armor.
"You should be careful," he said, voice low. "Habits return when people lose control."
Nyra smiled. Slow. Dangerous. "Or when they're being watched too closely."
She walked past him, shoulder brushing his arm.
Electric.
Adrian stood still long after she was gone.
His phone buzzed in his hand an alert from compliance he ignored. His thoughts weren't there anymore. They were on her hands. Her breath. The way she fought herself.
She's slipping, he told himself. This is about discipline.
But the truth tasted bitter.
He didn't want her to stop because it was bad for her.
He wanted her to stop because the idea of her craving something anything he couldn't control made his chest burn.
And that realization?
That was the real smoke.