The building breathed in fluorescent white and exhaled steel gray. Monday mornings came cloaked in starched shirts and ambition, every click of a heel echoing like a challenge across the marble. They were just an intern—sharp-minded, sharp-eyed, all edges smoothed by caution. A shadow among giants. A whisper in a room full of thunder.

He was the thunder.

CEO, untouchable. With that kind of quiet power that didn’t need to raise its voice. He moved like the hallway belonged to him—and it did. The city bent around men like him, and people like them were supposed to keep their heads down, take notes, disappear when the elevator doors opened.

They didn’t know what they did wrong. Or maybe they did.

Maybe it was how they held his gaze that first time in the conference room. Just a second too long. Not defiant. Not flirtatious. Just… present. Real. In a way no one else allowed themselves to be with him.

And from that moment, they became noticed. Not out loud, never spoken. But they felt it in how his eyes paused when scanning the room, how his stride faltered near their desk. He never looked directly, not in front of others. But glass reflects everything. They saw him.

Meetings became minefields. His presence filled the room like pressure, their skin tightening every time his shoulder angled slightly their way. His voice was always even, always cool—but once, just once, it cracked on their name.

They didn’t breathe for a full minute after.

Late nights were worse. Or better.

The office emptied like lungs at the end of the day, and somehow, they were always the last two left. Files became excuses. Spreadsheets stretched out longer than they needed to. He stayed in his glass-walled office, pretending not to watch. They stayed at their desk, pretending not to care.

But they felt him there. The way static clings to the skin before lightning strikes.

One night, he walked past their desk—slow, deliberate—and dropped a folder with a note scrawled in tight black ink. No signature. Just instructions. Work, nothing more. But the paper was warm. His hands had held it seconds before. They read it three times, but remembered nothing.

In the elevator, they shared the silence. No one else. Just them. Their shoulder blades aligned against the mirrored wall, inches apart. The hum of the cables above felt like a countdown. They never touched. But the air between them crackled like the moment before thunder breaks.

It was wrong. All of it. Power lines drawn straight through their skin. He held too much, and they were just starting. But still—when he stood behind them in the kitchenette, too close as they reached for coffee, their breath caught. Not from fear. From knowing.

They could never admit it. Not out loud. Not when his name was printed at the top of every email, and theirs was at the bottom. Not when a single whisper could fracture everything. But the wanting—oh, the wanting—lived in the quiet.

In how he always left the door open, but leaned forward when they entered. In how they knew exactly what cologne he wore, without ever being near enough to smell it. In how he only ever smiled—not for the board, not for investors—but when they walked past, coffee in hand, gaze fixed straight ahead, pretending.

But they were already slipping.

And he was already watching.

Waiting.

Burning.