Kai did not expect to see Rebecca Zeigarnik eating a cupcake.
The realization hit him so abruptly he stopped in the doorway.
She sat at the small round table near the window—not her desk, not her chair of authority—one leg tucked beneath the other, a porcelain plate balanced casually in her hand. On it sat a cupcake. Chocolate, by the look of it. One bite already taken.
For a moment, his mind refused to reconcile the image.
This was the same woman who dissected trauma like a surgeon.
The same woman whose gaze could strip a person down to habits and tells.
The same woman who made silence feel like interrogation.
And yet—there she was.
Enjoying it.
Not distracted. Not rushed. Genuinely enjoying it.
Kai felt something tilt inside him, followed quickly by amusement.
Well… that's new.
She hadn't noticed him yet. Her attention was entirely on the cupcake, on the way she took another small bite, eyes half-lidded—not indulgent, but precise. As if even pleasure was something she experienced deliberately.
The contradiction was almost absurd.
His gaze lingered—long dark waves of hair falling loose today, olive skin warm in the afternoon light, onyx eyes softened just slightly by distraction. Confidence still clung to her like a second skin, but this—this was unguarded in a way he hadn't seen yet.
Careful, he told himself. That's how people get misled.
Still—
Muffin, his mind supplied, uninvited.
The word startled him.
He almost laughed at himself.
Absolutely not, he thought. She could end lives.
But the nickname stuck anyway, curling quietly in the back of his mind, private and harmless. A ridiculous little secret.
Rebecca looked up then.
"You're early," she said, tone neutral.
Kai straightened immediately. "Sorry. I can wait."
"No." She set the plate aside, wiped her fingers with a napkin, and stood. Authority snapped back into place as if it had never left. "Come in."
There it was again—that seamless shift. From woman to force.
He took the chair across from her, watching as she resumed her posture, her composure, her control. If he hadn't seen it himself, he would've sworn the cupcake never existed.
But it had.
And somehow, that made her more dangerous.
"You look distracted," Rebecca said.
Kai met her gaze, expression carefully neutral.
"Just thinking," he replied.
"About?"
He considered telling her the truth.
Instead, he smiled faintly. "Cognitive dissonance."
Something flickered in her eyes—quick, sharp.
"Good," she said. "That means the experiment is progressing."
Kai nodded, even as that private nickname echoed once more in his head, quiet and treacherous.
Muffin.
He had the unsettling feeling that if she ever found out, it would cost him far more than he was prepared to lose.
...