The Cross Technologies executive floor had a rooftop terrace that nobody used in winter. Nora found it on her second day when she was looking for somewhere quiet to take a call.
By the third day, it was hers.
She was there Thursday evening, coat buttoned against the cold, when the door opened behind her.
She didn't have to turn around to know who it was.
"You keep unusual hours," Damien said, stopping a few feet away.
"So do you," she replied.
He came to stand beside her, hands in his pockets, looking out over the city. The skyline blazed gold and grey in the early evening light. She kept her eyes forward.
"The board approved your integration timeline this morning," he said.
"I know. James sent me the memo."
A pause.
"You don't celebrate your wins," he observed.
"I celebrate when the work is done. Not before."
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Where did you build NovaTech? Which city?"
The question was casual. Conversational. But something in her chest tightened.
"Here," she said. "Mostly. I moved around a lot."
"Here." He repeated the word thoughtfully. "You were here for five years building something this significant and nobody in this industry knew your name until eight months ago. How?"
"Because I didn't want them to," she said simply.
He turned to look at her then. She felt it but didn't return his gaze.
"Why not?"
"Because when people know your name before they know your work, they make assumptions. I wanted them to meet the work first."
A long silence stretched between them.
"That's either very wise," he said slowly, "or very lonely."
The word hit her somewhere unguarded.
Lonely. Yes. It had been lonely. Building something extraordinary in the dark, surrounded by NDAs and aliases, unable to tell anyone — not friends, not family, not the man she had shared a bed with — what she was really doing. What she was really capable of.
She had been lonely inside her own life for two years. He had just never noticed.
"Both," she said quietly.
Damien Cross looked at her for a moment longer than necessary. Then he looked back at the city.
"I was married," he said, out of nowhere. "Until recently."
Nora's heart slammed once, hard, against her ribs.
"I know," she said. Her voice came out perfectly steady. "It was in the news."
"It was a mistake," he said. "The marriage. I was — I wasn't present. I thought I was doing the right thing but I was absent in ways I didn't understand until it was over."
She said nothing.
"I mention it," he continued carefully, "because I think you're the kind of person who notices things. And I'd rather you hear it from me than read whatever the tabloids wrote."
Nora turned to look at him then. Full face, direct.
He was watching her with an expression she had never once seen on his face during their entire marriage — open. Uncertain. Almost raw.
"Why does it matter what I think?" she asked.
He held her gaze. "I'm not sure yet," he admitted. "But it does."
She looked at him for three full seconds. Then she picked up her bag.
"Good night, Mr. Cross," she said.
She walked inside before he could see what was on her face.
In the hallway, she stopped, pressed her back against the wall, and closed her eyes.
He was sorry. Not to her — he didn't know he should be sorry to her. But he was sorry. And he meant it.
She had not prepared for that.