The boardroom did not empty with noise. It emptied with restraint.
Jay remained seated.
He hadn't moved since Roman concluded the meeting. His posture was unchanged, his expression still composed, his gaze resting somewhere ahead as if nothing in the past hour had required effort. To anyone watching, he looked exactly the same as he had at the start calm, controlled, unreadable.
But the stillness wasn't the same anymore.
There was a delay now. A fraction of a second too long when his eyes shifted. A subtle tension in his fingers where they rested against the polished surface of the table. Small, almost invisible signs that something underneath that control was beginning to strain.
Roman didn't look at him directly, His awareness of Jay had never depended on obvious attention. While the last of the directors spoke in careful, measured tones wrapping up reports that no longer held the same weight Roman's focus split effortlessly between the room and the man sitting beside him.
