Page 27 of Mine to Fear
My phone buzzed with a text from Marcus Webb, following up on our interrupted dinner conversation, and I stared at the message for a long time before responding. Business I could handle. Meetings and mergers and the kind of strategic thinking that built Cross Security into what it was today—that was familiar territory.
But lying there in the dark, knowing Willa was close enough to touch but might as well have been on another planet, that was the kind of problem I had no idea how to solve.
Especially when the solution I wanted most was the one thing I couldn’t allow myself to have.
11WILLA
Three weeksinto my new reality, with my sling finally off, I discovered that Kieran ran Cross Security like a precision instrument, and I was slowly beginning to understand the scope of what he had built. What started as simple filing and data entry evolved into something more complex as I proved I could handle basic tasks without breaking down or needing constant supervision. Each new responsibility felt like a quiet test, one I was determined not to fail.
The company specialized in high-end personal protection and corporate security, but the more I learned, the more I realized how sophisticated its operation really was. They weren’t just bodyguards in expensive suits—they were intelligence analysts, threat-assessment specialists, and technology experts who could erase a client’s digital footprint or even create an entirely new identity if the situation required it. The work carried a weight I hadn’t expected, a sense that mistakes here could ripple far beyond an office desk.
I was organizing client files when I first noticed the pattern. Fortune 500 CEOs, federal judges, A-list celebrities, and politicians whose names I recognized from news headlines filled the folders in my hands. Cross Security didn’t just protectpeople; they protected power itself. That realization lingered with me longer than it should have.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” David Martinez said, appearing at my desk with two cups of coffee and that easy smile that had become one of the few bright spots in my days at the office. “When I first started here, I had no idea how connected we really were.”
“It’s overwhelming,” I admitted, accepting the coffee gratefully. “I keep seeing names I recognize from magazines and news shows.”
“That’s nothing. Wait until you see the government contracts.”
“Government contracts?”
David glanced around to make sure we weren’t being overheard, then leaned closer. “Kieran’s been positioning us for federal work. Diplomatic protection, witness security—the kind of contracts that could set us up for decades. But the competition is fierce. Most of those deals go to firms with established government relationships.”
I found myself thinking about what he said long after he returned to his own work. The perception problem I’d identified in my rejected proposal was even bigger than I’d realized. Cross Security could compete with the largest firms in the industry, but it lacked the institutional credibility that came with federal endorsements. Reputation, I was learning, mattered just as much as capability.
It was a marketing challenge, pure and simple. How did you position a relatively young company as the equal of established players? How did you communicate sophistication and reliability when your competitors had decades of government contracts to point to?
I was mulling over these questions when the sophisticated women started arriving.
The first was Elena Vasquez, a stunning brunette in her early thirties who glided through the office like she owned it. She wore a designer suit that probably cost more than my monthly salary at my old marketing job, and she spoke to Rebecca in the kind of polished, confident tones that suggested she was used to getting whatever she wanted.
“Is Kieran available?” she asked, not even glancing in my direction as she waited in the reception area.
“He’s in a client meeting, but I’ll let him know you’re here,” Rebecca replied.
“Tell him Elena’s here. He’ll want to see me.”
I tried to focus on my work, but my attention kept drifting as the minutes passed. When Kieran emerged from his office twenty minutes later, his face lit up in a way I rarely saw now that I was staying with him.
“Elena,” he said, crossing to her with an easy familiarity that spoke of history. “This is a surprise.”
“A good one, I hope.” She kissed his cheek, her hand lingering on his arm in a gesture that was casual but unmistakably intimate. “I was in the neighborhood and thought we might catch up over lunch.”
“I would love to, but?—”
“Oh, come on. When’s the last time you took a real break? You work too hard, Kieran. You always have.”
He glanced in my direction, and I quickly looked down at the file I was pretending to organize. Still, I felt his eyes on me, sensed some quiet calculation happening behind that composed exterior—one I wasn’t meant to see.
“All right,” he said finally. “But just lunch. I have a meeting at three.”
“Perfect. I know just the place.”
They left together, Elena’s hand resting comfortably on his arm as they walked toward the elevators. I spent the next twohours trying not to think about whatcatching upmight involve for two people who were clearly more than friends.
Elena was followed by Natalie Palmer, a paralegal who specialized in corporate law and arrived bearing coffee from a boutique shop I had never heard of. Then came Monica Carter, who chatted easily with Kieran about vacation plans and mutual friends while I tried to make myself invisible at my desk.
All beautiful. All accomplished. Everything I wasn’t.
