With the little burst of strength the dinner had given her, Avery returned to the building. Her back was still tense, her arms still exhausted, but her legs at least had quit shaking. Picking up the mop, she quietly strolled down the corridor she had cleaned only moments before and slipped back into her routine. Her motions were robotic now: dip the mop, sweep it over the tiled floor, squeeze out the water, repeat. The rhythmic repetition calmed her and provided her with something to concentrate on apart from the weight pushing on her from all directions.
The corridor was quiet. Only the gentle, wet mop strokes reverberated down the vacant hall.
First she was concentrating too on the pattern of her work to pick up the change in the air. It arrived slowly—first the faint sound of the front door opening, then several voices rising together, then firm, confident, authoritative footsteps not rushed or casual.
Avery's brows came together. The environment grew sharper, more alert. Staff members rose as though pulled by imaginary strings. Some rushed ahead with polite and respectful greetings.
Turning her head, she did not expect anything out of the ordinary.
Then she froze.
Landon, tall, composed, and wearing a suit perfectly pressed, stood at the opening of the corridor.
Her heart ground to stop.
She tightened her hand after the mop moved gently in her palm. Everything within her curled inward; her chest tightened as if someone had grabbed her lungs and twisted. She did not breathe. She could not.
Landon appeared nothing like the man she last saw—the man overcome, shaken, and conflicted. He was icy steel and control in this one. He trimmed his jawline. His shoulders flattened. His vision clear. He acted like a celebrity, someone accustomed to being immediately heard. Somebody honored.
A potent individual.
And everyone surrounding her reacted specifically that way.
Avery desired to disappear. She lowered her eyes right away, hoping—pleading silently—that he would pass her and leave her respect unaffected. Standing there with a mop in a baggy dark-blue uniform, she felt tiny, terribly little; Landon looked like everything she wasn't.
She sensed it, though—the exact instant his gaze fell upon her.
His face was instantly, sharply, and unmistakably confused. He looked at her stance, her uniform, the fatigue apparent across her skin. His face tightened into something she did not comprehend—shock, alarm, perhaps a sensation of guilt.
The hallway stopped dead. Even the fluorescent lights seemed to hum quieter.
Landon advanced.
Then still another.
Avery's stomach went. Her head drooped more; her fingers gripped the mop handle excruciatingly. She desired to disappear. Sink through the floor. Become air. Landon got to her nevertheless.
He halted just in front of her, close enough she could see the tenderness in his eyes—a softness she didn't want to see.
He said, his voice quiet and constant, much too soft for the setting they were standing in, "Avery, I need to talk to you."
She stiffened. She didn't answer. Could not.
Behind him, the crew observed the action with uncomfortable quiet. Landon paid them not at all.
He paused a moment before moving on, his voice soft but definite.
"I want to know the truth. Who is the father?" His voice did not tremor. His jaw did not waver. "I am ready to accept you and the child. Even if the baby is not mine."
Like a knife, the words cut her.
He pronounced them as though he were presenting her something. This was charity. Like he was acting nobly. All she heard, though, was sympathy—hollow, empty compassion that cut deeper than any judgment might.
He probably thought it sounded honorable.
To her, it sounded like he was shouting out loud her guilt.
That she need to be rescued.
That she was someone he would gladly welcome back despite her "errors."
That he still believed she had been seeing someone else.
She felt like her chest would explode with the enormous pain she experienced.
Her body moved before her mind did.
Crack.
The hallway rang with the slap.
Landon's head jerked somewhat from the force. For the first time since he entered the structure, the surprise in his eyes was instant—naked and unguarded. Though her hand shook wildly, Avery fixed her gaze on him, her eyes brimming with a pain that had no words.
She uttered nothing.
She was speechless.
The storm within her would spill out uncontrollably if she opened her mouth.
Thus she backed off, gripping the mop like it was her last anchor.
The hallway came to a standstill. Nobody shifted their position. Nobody exhaled.
Landon straightened sluggishly. He said nothing. He did not request a clarification. He didn't even mount a defense. Instead, something incomprehensible flashed across his features—confusion, sorrow, damaged pride—all interwoven.
He then turned around calm, weighing anger.
He did not glance back toward her.
Until he vanished around the corner, his steps were slow but deliberate. Avery's ears pressed on the stillness he left behind until she felt dizzy.
Her chest thumped irregularly. She could still feel the burn of the slap across her palm. She felt the shame coil deep in her gut; she was unsure whether she had acted courageously or stupidly.
Meanwhile, Landon's expression stayed opaque as he approached his office at the end of the corridor. His personnel trailed him uncertainly, offering anxious greetings he barely heard. Softly closing the office door, not slamming it, not letting any breach in his composure, he did.
He but gasped when the latch snapped.
He felt a throb on his cheek where she hit him.
His arrogance cut more deeply.
Once, twice, he walked, trying to sort out the barrage of feelings that had struck him all at once: shock, shame, anger, and perplexity. Though he had gone there intent to work through matters with her, he had instead been smacked in front of half the personnel.
The embarrassment tore at him.
He reached for his phone.
Come here at my desk. He remarked now into the handset, his voice clipped, calm, and deliberate.
Sweat glistened on the manager's temples as he showed up in minutes. "Y-Yes, sir? How can I help you?"
Landon sat not. He did not mellow.
"Remove Avery from the cleaning team," he declared, his tone leaving little space for inquiries. "Effective immediately."
The manager blinked. "Sir… she just began today."
"That's not your business," Landon replied quickly. He stopped, then said, "She begins today as my personal assistant."
The manager's eyes grew large. "Your—sir, should I tell her why?"
Landon replied, his voice falling to something hazardous, something strictly controlled. "You don't mention a thing. Just make the change. I will manage everything else."
He rejected the manager with a brief nod.
Landon ran his thumb over his cheek as the door closed, feeling the warmth left by her slap. He told himself he was doing this to teach her a lesson—for striking him, for humiliating him, for not replying him. He told himself it was all about repercussions. On order.
However, there was still another truth underlying all of it—quiet and unspoken.
He didn't want her anywhere else in the building save next to him.
So near she couldn't pass him again.
Near enough at last for him to obtain the responses he had been pushed to hunt in circles.
Near enough that he could see her—not suspiciously, but with something he wasn't yet ready to describe.
Avery was unaware that her life was already changing as she stood in the hallway quivering with fury and shame.
The manager already headed her way.
Her already fragile and uncertain life was about to take a turn she could never envision.
.