She could see it too clearly, the shape of him walking through a doorway toward her, the specific familiar cadence of his voice saying her name. Her heart thumped harder.
She covered her face with one hand.
"...Why am I this nervous."
She knew the answer. She simply did not want to say it out loud.
Because she liked him. More than she should. More than she had originally intended, back when she had been a hostile board-level executive with a low opinion of men.
Every subsequent hour spent in his company had, quietly, made the feeling harder to ignore, the trust he had extended her, the calm confidence with which he handled things that would have broken lesser men, the small persistent fact that in spite of his rise in status and reach and net worth he had never, at any point, treated her as though she were beneath him.
She smiled again, at her reflection in the tall window, and the woman in the glass smiled back.
'I'm really going to see him.'
Her eyes widened.
"...Wait."
