The sound of paper shuffling echoed through Faith's earbuds. Emerson's breathing was steady, picked up with devastating clarity by his high-end microphone.

"The fatal flaw is on page three," Emerson's deep voice vibrated in her ears. "Your word choice here is too frivolous. AURA's target demographic is old money holding onto capital, not some hotshot kid on Wall Street who just got his first bonus."

Faith chewed on the end of her pen. "But the brief explicitly said to capture the attention of the younger generation."

Emerson let out a low, breathy chuckle.

The sound slid straight down Faith's spine like a sudden jolt of electricity, leaving a tingling sensation buzzing at her fingertips.

"The younger generation wants the privilege of old money," Emerson explained smoothly. "They don't want to turn old money into a streetwear brand. Change the word."

Faith surrendered to his logic. She typed the correction.

Two hours of intense, high-pressure editing left Faith's throat completely parched. She unconsciously licked her dry lips and swallowed.

The faint, wet sound of her swallow was magnified by the microphone.

On the other end of the line, Emerson stopped mid-sentence. His eyes darkened. He tapped his knuckles against the mahogany desk.

He forced his focus back. "Take five minutes. Go get some water."

Faith pulled out her earbuds, sprinted to the kitchen, chugged a glass of ice water, and ran back. She shoved the earbuds back in, panting slightly.

"Why are you running?" Emerson asked, a hint of genuine amusement bleeding into his voice.

"I'm afraid you're billing me by the second," Faith joked, her voice still soft and breathless. "I can't afford it."

Emerson leaned back in his leather chair. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Her soft, slightly nasal voice was doing strange things to his chest.

Then, a thought struck him. Since the landmine about her degree, he hadn't verified a single detail about her life.

"Leo said you're a writer with potential," Emerson asked casually. "How long have you been doing this?"

Faith stiffened. Her fingers gripped the edge of her laptop. "A while," she answered vaguely.

Emerson listened to her evasive, deer-in-the-headlights tone. His analytical brain rapidly pieced the data together.

She dropped out of school. She had zero corporate defense mechanisms. Her voice sounded incredibly young. She was terrified of a standard contract penalty.

The conclusion hit him like a bucket of ice water.

There was a raw, unpolished genius in her writing, mixed with a reckless, desperate impulse that reminded him of the brilliant but fragile Ivy League freshmen he occasionally guest-lectured. He painted a picture in his mind: a girl fresh out of school, incredibly talented but completely defenseless. She was probably nineteen. Maybe twenty. Barely out of high school.

Emerson was thirty. He was a ruthless, seasoned corporate shark.

A heavy, suffocating wave of moral guilt crashed down on him. The physical attraction he had felt toward her voice just moments ago suddenly felt deeply inappropriate. Sickening, almost.

The atmosphere on the call plummeted below freezing. Faith felt the shift instantly.

"Let's keep moving. Work only," Emerson said. His voice was completely stripped of warmth. It was pure ice.

Faith's chest ached. She didn't understand what she had done wrong, but she swallowed the hurt and nodded, even though he couldn't see her.

For the next hour, Emerson was a machine. He was efficient, brutal, and entirely cold.

At 4:00 AM, the copy was perfect. Faith stared at the final draft, letting out a long sigh of relief.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Beard," she said, using the most formal, respectful tone she could muster.

Emerson heard the word Mr. It cemented his theory. He let out a silent, self-mocking sigh.

"Send the invoice to AURA," he replied flatly. "If you have work questions in the future, use email."

He cut the connection before she could say goodbye.

Faith listened to the dead silence in her earbuds. She stared at the black screen of the app. A hollow, painful ache settled in her chest, as if someone had just snatched a precious gift right out of her hands.

Three days later, AURA approved the draft. Ms. B gave a rare nod of approval, but immediately demanded a supplementary copy tailored for the European market.

Faith's stomach churned. She had no choice. She opened the encrypted app and called Emerson.

It rang for a long time before he finally picked up.

Background noise-clinking glasses and faint chatter-filtered through the line.

"Ms. Cole," Emerson's voice was exhausted and distant. "I'm in Geneva on business."

Faith flinched at the cold formality of Ms. Cole. "I'm sorry to bother you," she said quickly. "Ms. B added a new requirement."

Emerson sighed. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window of his hotel suite, looking out at the dark waters of Lake Geneva. "Read it to me."

Faith read the brief. They fell back into their work rhythm, but the invisible wall between them was thicker and colder than before. Emerson's critiques were sharp, but he actively dodged any conversational openings.

Just as they were debating a specific marketing verb, a sharp, distinct knock echoed through Faith's earbuds.

Faith stopped talking. The silence on the line amplified the sound of the knocking.

Emerson frowned. "Give me a second," he said to the phone, setting it down face-up on the desk.

Faith heard his footsteps walk away. She heard the click of the heavy hotel door opening.

Then, a woman's voice drifted clearly into the microphone. It was a sultry, honeyed voice with a thick French accent.

"Emerson, you are still awake?"

Faith's brain exploded. The pen in her hand jerked, slashing a thick black line across her notepad.

The woman continued. "I brought your favorite Bordeaux. Can I come in for a drink?"

A violent wave of nausea hit Faith's stomach. A sour, burning jealousy clawed its way up her throat, choking her.

She glanced at the clock on her laptop. 2:00 PM in New York. That meant it was 8:00 PM in Geneva.

Eight at night. A woman with wine knocking on a man's hotel room door. It didn't take a genius to figure out what that meant.

Suddenly, Emerson's coldness over the past three days made perfect, humiliating sense.

He had a girlfriend. They lived together, or traveled together. And Faith was just the pathetic, annoying workaholic calling him in the middle of his evening.

She heard Emerson's low rumble in the background. He was saying something, probably turning the woman away, but his voice was too muffled to understand.

Faith's pride shattered. She refused to be the background noise to someone else's intimacy.

She leaned close to her laptop microphone.

"Sorry to interrupt your evening!" she yelled, her voice loud, fast, and dripping with defensive panic. "I'll figure the rest out myself!"

She slammed her finger onto the red end-call button.

In the Geneva hotel room, Emerson stood in the doorway, physically blocking his colleague, Livia, from entering.

He heard Faith's sharp, panicked yell from the phone on the desk. He turned his head, stepping back toward the desk, but the screen already showed the call ended.

He stared at the phone, his jaw clenching. He had absolutely no idea why the girl had just lost her mind.

"Emerson," Livia pressed, leaning against the doorframe. "It's just one glass of wine. Don't be so boring."

Emerson's eyes turned to ice. He looked at Livia.

"Livia," his voice was a lethal, quiet threat. "If you want to remain on this team, you will turn around and go back to your room. Now."

He didn't wait for her response. He slammed the heavy door shut, the loud bang echoing in the suite.

He picked up his phone and hit redial on the encrypted app.

User is offline.

The next afternoon, Emerson finished his negotiations in Geneva. He walked alone down the cobblestone streets of the Old Town.

As he passed an antique stationery shop, a glint of black and gold caught his eye.

He pushed the door open. He asked the shopkeeper to take out the 1920s vintage fountain pen from the display case.

The cold, heavy metal against his fingers instantly brought back the memory of Faith chewing on her plastic pen during their late-night calls.

He pictured the stubborn, degree-less girl who could write circles around seasoned professionals.

"I'll take it. Wrap it, please," Emerson said, handing over his black card.

Walking back out into the crisp European air, he pulled out his phone. He looked at the call log, still ending with Faith's abrupt hang-up.

He still believed she was a temperamental teenager. But an irritating, persistent urge to fix the disconnect pushed his thumb to the screen.

He snapped a photo of Lake Geneva and sent it to her.

How is the European copy progressing? he typed.

In Brooklyn, Faith was staring at her laptop with dark circles under her eyes.

Her phone buzzed. She saw the photo of the lake. Her chest tightened painfully.

She zoomed in on the picture. She scrutinized the reflections in the glass windows of the boats, desperately looking for the silhouette of the French woman. She found nothing.

The sour taste of jealousy flooded her mouth again. He was on a romantic getaway with his partner, and he was texting her about work? It was cruel.

She built a wall of ice around her heart.

Everything is fine, she typed, her fingers hitting the screen hard. I won't interrupt you and your partner's vacation anymore.

On the street in Geneva, Emerson stopped dead in his tracks.

He stared at the word partner. His dark eyebrows slammed together.

Suddenly, the pieces clicked. The abrupt yelling. The hanging up.

She thought the woman at the door last night was his girlfriend.

A bizarre, completely inappropriate surge of pleasure hit Emerson's chest. She was jealous.

But the image of a nineteen-year-old girl immediately doused the fire. He rubbed his temples, a headache building behind his eyes.

He stood on the sidewalk and typed rapidly with one hand.

You misunderstood. I don't have a partner. That was a colleague last night.

He stared at the text. It wasn't definitive enough.

I am currently single, he added. And I have zero interest in office romances.

In her Brooklyn apartment, Faith read the two messages popping up on her screen.

She froze. Her entire body turned to stone.

No partner. Single. Colleague.

The words exploded in her brain. The heavy, suffocating jealousy vanished, instantly replaced by a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated mortification.

She had acted like a jealous, bitter ex-girlfriend to a professional consultant who was just trying to help her.

Heat rushed to her face, burning her cheeks, her neck, her ears. She wanted the floorboards of her apartment to open up and swallow her whole.

She covered her burning face with both hands and let out a pathetic groan.

She had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

Ten minutes passed. Emerson watched the empty chat screen. He let out a long, slow breath, sliding the boxed vintage pen into his coat pocket.

He locked his phone. He would deal with the little menace when he got back to New York. He turned and walked toward the waiting car to take him to the airport.