Rain drummed relentlessly against the floor-to-ceiling windows, the steady rhythm filling every quiet corner of the office. Gray clouds hung low over the city, swallowing the skyline until buildings dissolved into little more than blurred silhouettes. It had been raining since morning, without pause, without mercy.
Lesley watched another trail of water race down the glass.
She understood the rain.
If she allowed herself the luxury, she could spend an entire day doing nothing but crying. Maybe then the ache lodged deep inside her chest would dull enough for her to breathe without feeling it.
Instead, she reached for another folder.
Paperwork.
Meetings.
Negotiations.
Reports that stretched late into the evening.
Even on weekends, she stayed in her home office, filling every quiet hour with work to keep her thoughts away.
That had become her routine ever since she and Denisse had fallen apart.
Whenever the urge to call crept in, she buried herself beneath another contract. Whenever memories surfaced, she scheduled another meeting. Every hour she filled was another hour she didn't have to wonder what Denisse was doing, whether she was eating properly, whether she was sleeping, whether she still thought about her.
It worked.
Until the office grew quiet.
Until the rain came.
Her hand stopped halfway through signing a document.
Because no matter how much she filled her days, there were always moments that found their way through. A familiar song drifting from a passing car. A restaurant they'd once visited. A name she still couldn't stop herself from looking for in every crowd.
And suddenly, all she wanted was to see Denisse again. To ask if there was still a place for her beside her.
But how could she?
She was the one who had let Denisse leave that day.
She had tried to stop her. She had asked her to stay. But the hurt became too much, and when Denisse pushed her away despite everything they had shared, Lesley finally stopped fighting to keep her there.
She had given Denisse what she thought she wanted when that resignation letter landed between them.
In that moment, letting her walk away had felt easier than holding on to someone who no longer believed in her.
She had been hurting too.
The memory still lingered with painful clarity. The disbelief in Denisse's eyes. The hesitation before every question. The way trust between them had unraveled in a matter of moments.
It hurt knowing Denisse had believed someone else's words before believing hers.
But the more Lesley thought about it, the more she understood.
How could she ask Denisse to trust a heart she had never fully allowed her to see?
Lesley lowered her gaze to the papers spread across her desk, though the words had long since blurred together.
She had spent so long trying to convince herself that she could keep Denisse at a distance. That she could care for her without letting herself fully fall.
But she had been wrong.
Somewhere along the way, Denisse had become the exception to every rule Lesley had made for herself. She had fallen in love before she was ready to admit it, before she was ready to say it, before she was ready to stop running from it.
And while Lesley was still trying to convince herself that she could keep her heart guarded, she failed to see how her hesitation was slowly hurting the person she had already fallen for.
By the time she finally chose to stop hiding and make everything real...
It was already too late.
Movement beyond the glass wall pulled her from her thoughts.
Someone was crouched behind the secretary desk, only the top of their head visible above the cabinet doors.
Her heart lurched.
Denisse?
The name surfaced before she could stop it.
For the briefest moment, she almost expected Denisse to stand up with that familiar smile, a folder tucked against her chest, eyes meeting hers through the glass like she had done countless mornings before.
The figure rose.
Spencer.
Her new assistant.
The hope disappeared as quietly as it had come.
He straightened with a stack of files in his arms, completely unaware of the storm that had just passed through her.
Lesley lowered her gaze.
Spencer settled into the role quickly. He learned her routines, adapted to her expectations, and rarely needed to be reminded twice. Lesley appreciated that. She trusted his work, trusted his judgment.
She had no complaints.
Yet every time he organized her schedule, Denisse crept into her thoughts. Every neatly labeled folder reminded her of the color-coded tabs Denisse insisted on using. Every reminder Spencer gave was measured against the way Denisse somehow always anticipated what she needed before she asked.
It wasn't fair.
Not to Spencer.
He had never tried to replace anyone.
The comparison existed only inside her own mind, born from a habit she couldn't seem to break.
Or perhaps it wasn't a habit at all.
Perhaps she simply missed Denisse enough that every ordinary moment carried the quiet hope of seeing her again.
Just once.
Just long enough for her to look up from her desk and find Denisse smiling back at her through the glass.
A knock pulled Lesley from her thoughts.
She looked up just as Spencer stepped into the office, a tablet tucked against his chest.
"Yes, Spencer?"
"Your three o'clock meeting with the marketing team starts in five minutes, Ms. Ashford."
Lesley glanced at the clock before closing the file in front of her.
"Right. Thank you."
Spencer nodded, but he didn't leave immediately.
His eyes moved briefly to her hand, still resting against her temple.
"Miss, I noticed you've been holding your head for a while. Do you want me to get you something for it?"
Lesley frowned slightly. "I'm fine."
"You sure?" he asked. "I can get you acetaminophen."
Her expression changed.
"How do you know I can take that?"
Spencer looked momentarily confused by the question.
"Because you're allergic to ibuprofen, right?"
The words made her pause.
"What?"
Spencer shifted the tablet in his hands.
"I saw a medicine kit in the cabinet at my station. There were small notes attached to it. I assumed they were left by your previous assistant, since they had instructions about what you could and couldn't take. I just remembered."
Lesley's gaze drifted past him.
The cabinet.
The medicine kit.
The tiny notes.
Something so ordinary she had never thought twice about it.
Denisse.
Of course she would do something like this.
Denisse had always known how to take care of her. In the smallest ways. In the quiet moments Lesley never thought to look for.
How had she let someone like Denisse walk away from her life?
How did they end up here?
How did something that felt so certain become something neither of them knew how to save?