Eve was at her desk by eight.
Earlier than usual. She had been up before six and had decided that lying in bed staring at the ceiling was less productive than being at work staring at a screen.
She went through the morning schedule methodically. Rearranged two calls. Confirmed a lunch that had been pending. Printed the Henderson summary Ethan had asked for two days ago and hadn't followed up on yet.
Normal. All of it normal.
She was halfway through the afternoon calendar when the elevator opened.
She didn't look up.
His footsteps were distinct enough by now that she didn't need to.
He walked past her desk toward his office. Stopped at the door.
"Morning," he said.
"Good morning sir," she said. "You have a nine o'clock call with the Singapore office. Documents are on your desk. Your eleven o'clock has been moved to eleven thirty."
A pause.
"Okay," he said.
He went in.
The door closed.
Eve looked at her screen.
Everything was exactly the same as yesterday and the day before and every day before that.
Except it wasn't.
And they both knew it wasn't.
She picked up her coffee and kept working.
The nine o'clock ran long.
She could tell by the quality of the silence coming from behind the door. She had learned the sounds of his office by now without meaning to.
When he was reading. When he was thinking. When a call was going the way he wanted and when it wasn't.
This one wasn't.
When the door finally opened he came out with his jacket on and his expression closed in that particular way.
"Move the eleven thirty," he said. "Push it to two."
"Yes sir." She was already reaching for the phone.
He stayed.
She made the call, confirmed the change, put the phone down and looked up at him.
He was looking at her.
Not the way he looked at things he was assessing. The other way. The way she had seen in his office last night with the city behind him and the bottle on the table and his walls further down than she had ever seen them.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Yes sir," she said. "Are you?"
A pause.
"The Singapore call," he said. "There's a problem developing on that end. I may need to travel."
"When?"
"End of the week possibly. I'll know more by tomorrow."
She nodded and made a note.
"I'll prepare the travel documents," she said.
He nodded once.
Didn't move.
"Eve."
She looked up.
"Last night," he said.
"Was last night," she said quietly. "We're at the office sir."
He looked at her for a long moment.
Something moved behind his expression.
Then he nodded once and went back in.
The door closed.
Eve sat very still for exactly three seconds.
Then she turned back to her screen and kept working.
She was good at this.
She just wished it felt less like losing something every time she did it.
Speed arrived at half past ten.
He passed her desk with his usual nod, knocked and went in.
Twelve minutes later he came back out.
He stopped at her desk the way he had been doing lately. That pause that meant he was deciding something.
"He's going to Singapore," Speed said.
"He mentioned it might happen," she said.
"You'd go with him," Speed said. "As his assistant."
She looked up.
Speed was watching her with that careful expression she had come to know well.
"That's my job," she said.
"Yes," Speed said. "It is."
He held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary.
Then left.
Eve watched him go.
Singapore.
A whole different city. A whole different environment. Away from the mansion, away from Claire, away from everything that currently framed whatever was happening between her and Ethan.
She opened her laptop and started pulling together travel documents.
Her personal phone buzzed in her bag.
She didn't need to look to know who it was.
Kelvin.
She left it buzzing.
Finished the paragraph she was typing.
Then reached into her bag and turned the phone face down.
She would call him back.
Later.