I always knew she was different. The way she walked into a room, sharp and deliberate, her tailored suits fitting like armor. Her deep voice carried weight, and every word she said seemed to command attention. She had this quiet intensity that both scared me and pulled me in like a moth to a flame.

Tonight, she looked as polished as ever—crisp black suit, her white shirt undone just enough to expose the faint line of a tattoo on her collarbone. She sat across from me at the dining table, her posture relaxed but controlled, one hand wrapped around a whiskey glass, the other drumming lightly against the armrest.

“What?” she asked, her lips curling into a small smirk when she caught me staring.

“Nothing,” I lied, looking down at my untouched plate.

But it wasn’t nothing. It was the weight of her presence, the way she seemed so far away even when she was right in front of me. Sometimes I wondered what was going on in that mind of hers—what she was keeping from me.

I’d tried asking before, gently probing about her late-night meetings, her vague mentions of “work.” She’d always deflect, tilting my chin up with her calloused hand, murmuring some sweet lie that made me forget the questions on my tongue.

Tonight, though, something felt different. Her phone buzzed on the table, and she didn’t even glance at it, but I saw her jaw tighten, the way her knuckles whitened as she gripped her glass.

“Everything okay?” I asked softly, my voice sounding small in the heavy silence.

“Of course,” she replied, but her tone was clipped, and her eyes didn’t meet mine.

She stood suddenly, adjusting her tie before grabbing her jacket. “I have to take care of something. Don’t wait up.”

And just like that, she was gone, leaving only the faint smell of her cologne and the lingering feeling that I was falling for someone I didn’t really know.