One Keystroke Away. - Ch.11.

-Lucien.

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What we did the other day was, without question, a direct violation of everything I've been told not to do.

We weren't supposed to engage. We weren't supposed to entertain inquiries. And we most certainly weren't supposed to pitch. We're a front. A name. A placeholder in a system that thrives on being unremarkable. We exist in silence. In absence. In the suggestion of legitimacy—not in its execution.

But when that woman—Carla—walked in with her structured questions and her tailored certainty, there was a pause, a window. And through it, Reed jumped.

And I followed.

Because turning her away would've looked wrong. Off. Like the frame was crooked. We invited her in—through Reed's recklessness, yes, but still—she was standing in our space, holding onto expectations we hadn't earned. And if we had shut her out, if we had fumbled and waved her off, that too would have raised questions. The kind of questions that travel. That collect eyes.

It would've said, something's not right here.

So we did what we do best.

We lied.

Only, this time, we lied with eye contact and structure and a custom-built intake document we'd stitched together like a makeshift parachute, praying it would open before the ground arrived.

We raw dogged that proposal—there's no other phrase that fits. No prep. No plan. Just language and rhythm and enough overlapping confidence to sound like strategy. And when it landed—when she nodded, impressed, like we were exactly who we pretended to be—it felt… not like victory, but like possession.

Like we had conjured something real through sheer conviction.

And that terrified me.

Because I know better.

I know the weight of visibility.

I know what happens to people who grow too bright under someone else's shadow.

And yet, sitting there beside him—watching Reed pull terms out of memory like he'd been waiting his whole life for someone to ask what he knew—I felt something I wasn't supposed to feel anymore.

I felt free.

Not free like danger didn't exist. Free like I'd stopped caring how close I stood to it.

Because around Reed, the rules stretch. The noise fades. I forget how deep I'm in. And I start thinking I'm allowed to want things. Not wealth. Not control. Just… something mine. Something we built, not inherited.

But I'm not free. I never have been.

I'm a well-dressed ant in a vast, ruthless colony—just one link in a chain that strangles quietly. There are limits to how far we can let this run before the colony notices. We can't boom. We can't rise. We can't attract headlines or public praise. Not without collapsing the entire scaffolding beneath us.

This business—if it becomes one—must remain invisible. Modest. Quiet. Useful. Nothing more.

Which means we'll have to be smarter than we were today.

We'll have to make this look like nothing.

And if we don't—if we let ourselves start thinking we're actually building something worth being seen—then the people above me, the ones I've never met but owe everything to, will remind me that freedom isn't real.

Not for people like us.

The next morning, the office smelled like overused carpet and new delusion.

I arrived before Reed did—unsurprisingly—and stood by the window, watching the street below with a coffee in hand I hadn't touched. I'd barely slept. I'd reviewed the intake doc three times and redrafted a communication policy in case Carla actually moved forward.

And I knew I had to get ahead of him. Of this. Before he thought we were bulletproof.

He came in ten minutes late, hoodie halfway zipped, a coffee in one hand and a bag of croissants like we were a brunch startup now.

"Morning," he said, casual, too casual.

"Sit down."

He blinked. "Wow, okay. No 'good morning, sunshine'? Harsh."

"Reed." My tone cut through the air like glass. "We need to talk."

That got his attention. He dropped into the chair across from me, croissant bag crinkling loudly in the silence.

I leaned forward, elbows on the table. "What we did the other day? That was a one-time exception. Controlled improvisation. Damage control."

He raised an eyebrow. "That was damage control? Because I think it looked a lot like a proposal."

"Don't get cocky," I snapped. "We were cornered. If we'd turned her away, it would've looked suspicious. But this isn't scalable. We can't keep accepting clients like we're running an actual consultancy."

"But we are now, aren't we?" he said, mouth full of pastry. "Kind of?"

I stared at him.

He stared back, chewing slower. "Lucien, she bought it. All of it. She wants us to help. And we can. We made an actual document. We built a structure. If we keep it lean, take on the right clients, stay under the radar—"

"You don't understand how this works," I said, voice low. "We're not a startup. We are a functioning piece in a much larger machine. One that does not like being seen. This company is a smokescreen. A name on paper. A shelf with expensive mugs no one drinks out of. That's what it's meant to be."

"And yet here we are," he said, crossing his arms. "With a real client. A real service. A real document you helped design, by the way. I didn't force you into this."

"No," I said, softer now. "You didn't. But you make it easy to forget what's at stake."

He tilted his head, studying me. "What is at stake, Lucien?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because if I told him the truth—the scale of the operation we were tethered to, the kind of people who'd notice if we started gaining traction—we'd both fold under it.

Instead, I said, "If we grow too fast, we attract attention. If we attract attention, we compromise the entire structure. And people don't get second warnings when that happens. They disappear."

Reed was quiet for a moment. Then, finally, "So we don't grow fast. We grow smart."

I gave him a look. "There is no smart growth. There is no growth. There is only safe. And invisible. And untraceable."

He leaned back, arms behind his head. "I think you're scared."

I flinched. "I think you're naïve."

"I think," he said, smirking now, "we could actually make this work if we stopped pretending we're just placeholders. If you weren't so terrified of breaking the rules, you'd see this could be more than just laundering and luxury espresso."

My chest tightened. I hated how easily he spoke hope into things. How quickly he made me question rules I'd memorized like scripture.

"You're playing with fire," I said.

He smiled. "Yeah. But so are you."

And maybe that was the problem.

"I'm not laundering money," I said flatly.

Reed scoffed from across the table, lips twitching with the beginnings of a bitter laugh. "You're unbelievable."

"I'm serious." My tone sharpened. "That's not what this is."

"No?" he said, standing slowly, deliberately. "Then tell me what this is. What is this perfect fake-ass office, the polished lies, the endless tea budget, the guy who works in a tech room with no plugged-in equipment?"

I looked at him. Steady. Unmoving. "It's a scheme. Yes. But not that kind. I built this to protect my money. Money that would've been swallowed by people who think they own me."

"Oh please—"

"My family," I cut in, voice low, "is old. Powerful. Manipulative. I was born into a name I don't use anymore, into obligations I never agreed to. The only way to keep what's mine, was to make it invisible. So I built this. A dead-end front, just for me. Not for laundering. For surviving."

Reed crossed his arms, jaw clenched. "Stop treating me like I'm an idiot."

"I'm not," I said, standing now, matching his energy. "I'm being frank with you. Isn't that what you always accuse me of not doing?"

He took a step forward. I didn't move.

Another step.

Until we were face to face—too close for this conversation, too close for anything reasonable.

His voice dropped, quiet and burning. "Then make me meet the royal family."

I blinked. "I told you. They outcast me."

"No," he said, eyes locked on mine, words tight between his teeth. "You told me a story. You wore it like perfume. It smelled like a lie from the second you opened your mouth. So shut the fuck up and stop lying to me."

There was a beat.

A pause so thick you could pour silence from it.

And then I said, calmly, carefully, "If you want to meet the extended family… I can make that work."

He didn't pull back.

He just stared at me, chest rising and falling like he was still weighing the price of that sentence. I could feel his breath, faintly warm. Could see the slight twitch of his jaw, the fight still flickering in his gaze.

We were past pretending now.

And somewhere between his fury and my defenses, something electric and dangerous hovered—unspoken but very much present.

Do I kiss him now?

The thought came before I could stop it—clear, sharp, and wholly inappropriate.

But he was right there.

Too close. Too angry. Too alive.

And God, he looked good when he was furious—eyes bright, jaw set, that reckless courage crackling off him like electricity looking for metal. I could see every freckle on his nose. Every shallow breath. I could hear his heartbeat, maybe mine, maybe both. I didn't know anymore.

Do I pretend I'm into him?

Would it work? Could I tilt my head, soften my mouth, let my voice go low and broken and say something just vulnerable enough to blur the edges?

Reed liked stories. He lived on questions. Would he follow a love story if I handed him one?

Would he stop digging if I kissed him?

Would he fall for me hard enough to stop noticing the cracks?

It wouldn't be hard. I've done it before—pulled people in with intimacy, tangled them in just enough need and heat and false tenderness to buy their silence. People want to be chosen more than they want to be right.

Should I?

Would it protect him?

Would it protect me?

Just lean forward, I thought. Just once. Give him something beautiful to chase so he stops trying to outrun the truth.

But I didn't move.

Because the truth—the real truth—was that if I kissed him right now, I wouldn't be pretending.

And that scared me more than anything.

I stepped back.

Not far. Just enough.

A hair's breadth of distance to break the spell, to pull the thread taut again without letting it snap.

His eyes stayed on mine, searching for something—confirmation, maybe, or confrontation. But I'd already sealed the vault. The look in my eyes was empty now. Just polite frost.

"We should get back to work," I said, adjusting the cuff of my sleeve with deliberate calm. "If you're done trying to wrestle me into truth or treason."

Reed blinked once. His jaw clenched, and I could see the frustration pulsing there—tight and twitching, like a nerve too close to the surface. The air still buzzed between us, too loud for silence, but neither of us said anything.

I moved first.

Back to my desk. Back to the safe rhythm of keystrokes and fake client files and calendars that told us what to pretend next.

He didn't follow immediately. He stood there for a beat longer, like he hadn't decided whether to yell or leave. But eventually I heard his steps trailing behind me. He dropped into his seat with an exhale that was half-sigh, half something heavier.

And just like that, we slipped the moment back into its box. Buried it under routine.

But it didn't disappear.

It just waited. Buried. Quiet. Sharp.

Like everything else between us.

The inquiry came in at 02:43 p.m. with a subject line so innocuous it might have gone unnoticed if I hadn't been watching the inbox like it might detonate. Consulting Inquiry – Small Team Growth Structure. Clean. Direct. The kind of request that a real agency would celebrate.

Reed saw it too. Of course he did. He leaned in, the corner of his mouth already lifting like he was preparing a joke he thought I'd find irritating. He was probably right.

"Someone referred us," he said, scrolling. "They mentioned Carla."

I resisted the urge to sigh. It would've felt too much like admitting fault.

"Well," I murmured, masking the tightening in my chest, "I suppose we're in business."

What I didn't say: We shouldn't be.

What I couldn't say: This is already bigger than it was meant to be.

We spent the next hour seated side by side again, our screens angled toward each other, our focus split between intake fields and proposal language. The proximity was… manageable. Familiar, even. Not comfortable, but known. He was close enough to warm the space between us, but not close enough to break it.

Our knees brushed once under the table.

I didn't move.

The contact was minor. Insignificant. I told myself it meant nothing. That it was just space being used, that he hadn't even noticed.

I adjusted the draft formatting. Reworded a sentence he'd typed too quickly. He glanced up, his eyes catching mine, and for a brief, quiet second I thought he might say something. But he didn't.

"Your formatting is inconsistent," I offered instead, calm and precise.

He blinked. "Seriously?"

I nodded toward the screen. "You need a line break between sections. The spacing is uneven."

He huffed. "Right. From the man who uses em-dashes like they're decoration."

"I work in aesthetics, not margins."

He turned to me, arms crossed. "You barely work."

I gave him a measured look. "And yet somehow, I'm still your boss."

"Not for long," he muttered, almost smiling.

That silenced me, though I kept my face still.

The cursor on his screen blinked. So did mine.

I cleared my throat. "We'll schedule the call for tomorrow. Keep it brief. Tactical. We don't engage too much. We don't overshare."

"Clean," he said, his voice softer now. "We're so good at that."

He didn't look at me when he said it.

And I didn't respond. Because if I opened my mouth, I wasn't entirely sure what I would let out.

So we returned to our keyboards. Each keystroke loud in the quiet. Each word another brick in the structure we'd started to build—not knowing if it was shelter, or a cage.