Chapter 4 Mark

Mark

By his second week, Mark had developed a private theory: Amy Moretti did not actually dislike him. She simply hadn't decided yet what to do with the fact that she didn't.

He tested the theory carefully, the way he tested everything—small inputs, careful observation, no sudden movements. He brought problems to her office instead of emailing them, because email got a two-line reply and his presence got her full, unhurried attention, even when she pretended otherwise. He asked questions he already knew the answers to, because he'd noticed she softened, almost imperceptibly, when someone actually wanted to understand her reasoning instead of simply obeying it.

He told himself it was strategic. Relationship-building. Good for the ARES project.

He was lying to himself, and he knew it.

It was nearly nine p.m. on a Thursday when he noticed her office light still burning at the end of the empty floor. Everyone else had gone home hours ago. He stood at the elevator for a full minute, debating, before he walked instead toward the small kitchen down the hall.

He found her exactly where he expected—hunched slightly over her desk, blazer discarded on the back of her chair, sleeves rolled to the elbow, three empty coffee cups forming an accusing little row beside her keyboard.

He set a fresh cup down without a word.

She looked up, startled out of whatever calculation had occupied her. "I didn't order that."

"I know. It's not from the machine on this floor—that one's been broken since Tuesday. I went down to the twelfth."

"You went to another floor to make me coffee."

"I went to another floor to make myself coffee. You happened to be on the way."

Her eyes narrowed, not with suspicion exactly, but with the particular scrutiny she reserved for things that didn't fit her models. "That's not remotely true. The twelfth floor kitchen isn't on the way to anything."

"You caught me." He leaned against the doorframe, unbothered. "I was worried you'd forgotten food is a thing humans require. Figured caffeine was a reasonable compromise. Also the twelfth floor machine actually grinds the beans instead of using the pre-ground stuff, which matters more than people think, and—sorry, that's not the point. Sorry. I'll stop explaining coffee to you."

"I don't need anyone worrying about me."

"Noted. I'll worry quietly, off the record." He nodded at the papers scattered across her desk. "Ares projections?"

"The insurance underwriting model. If we win the contract, our liability exposure changes completely, and none of my actuaries agree on the math."

"Show me."

"It's not your department."

"Neither was the timing anomaly, and that turned out fine." He pulled the visitor chair closer without waiting for permission—a habit he was fairly sure would get him fired by someone less patient than Amy Moretti, and fairly sure it wouldn't, with her. "Two sets of eyes. Ten minutes. Then I'll leave you alone, I promise."

She studied him for a long beat, the coffee steam curling between them, and something in her shoulders loosened—not surrender, exactly, but a decision that resisting him cost more energy than it was worth.

"Ten minutes," she said, sliding the folder toward him. "Don't make me regret this."

He picked up her spare pen, careful to hide how much it meant that she'd let him stay, and got to work.

Outside, the city had gone fully dark, and neither of them noticed the ten minutes stretch quietly into two hours.