She had promised herself she wouldn't feel anything.
She had rehearsed this — sitting across from him, steady and cold, every emotion locked behind professional armor. She had practiced it in the mirror, on flights, in the quiet of her apartment late at night when the memory of their last conversation crept back in.
He had called her forgettable. Not in those exact words. But close enough.
"You've never understood this world, Nora. You don't belong in it."
He had said it the night of his company's anniversary gala, when she had made the mistake of offering an opinion about one of his business decisions in front of his colleagues. He had pulled her aside, his voice low and cutting, his eyes cold.
She had not said a word. She had nodded, gone back to the party, smiled for two more hours, and driven home alone.
Three weeks later, the courier had arrived with the divorce papers.
Now she sat across from him and watched him command a room — watched his team glance at him before they spoke, watched the way the air in the room seemed to organize itself around him — and she felt it. Not love. Not longing. Something sharper.
Resolve.
"The NovaTech AI engine needs six months minimum for full integration," said David Park, Cross Tech's Head of Engineering. "Possibly nine."
"Three months," Nora said.
David blinked. "That's — Ms. Walsh, with respect, our systems —"
"I built the engine, David. I know exactly how long integration takes. Three months, if we run parallel teams and I supervise the migration directly." She clicked to the next slide. "I've already drafted the plan."
Silence as the team looked at the slide. It was meticulous — timelines, team assignments, risk assessments, contingency plans.
She heard someone exhale quietly in what sounded like admiration.
She did not look at Damien. She didn't need to. She could feel his gaze on her like a hand pressed flat against her back — steady, heavy, aware.
"We'll review this overnight and reconvene tomorrow morning," Damien said.
"Fine," Nora said, and closed her laptop.
As the team filed out, she gathered her things without hurrying. Professional. Unhurried. She was almost at the door when his voice caught her.
"Ms. Walsh."
She turned.
He was still at the table, jacket now off, watching her with that dark, unreadable gaze.
"You've done this before," he said. "Walked into a room and made everyone recalibrate. I can tell."
It wasn't a compliment exactly. It was something more honest than that — an observation, the kind a man made when he was trying to figure out a puzzle.
Nora held his gaze.
"I've had a lot of practice," she said.
She walked out.
In the elevator, alone, she let herself breathe.
Three months. She had three months of working alongside Damien Cross before the integration was complete and she could walk away from Cross Technologies forever — richer, more powerful, and completely done.
She could do this.
She had to.