Chapter 5: Off Limits (Story 1)

The power dies at 8:17 PM.

Not flickers. Not a brownout. Dies.

One second I’m arguing with Chicago’s CMO over Slack about font weights — because apparently billion-dollar deals hinge on whether “Meridian” is bold or semibold — and the next, the entire 47th floor goes black.

The emergency lights kick in half a second later, bathing everything in that sickly, apocalypse-green glow. My monitor goes dark. The city outside the windows doesn’t. Manhattan keeps glittering like nothing happened, which feels personal.

“Goddammit,” I mutter. My laptop battery is at 6%. My phone is at 9%. I’ve been here since 7 AM because the “We’ll keep the lights on” update launches at midnight and I don’t trust anyone else not to break it.

“Generator should be online,” Marcus’s voice says from the hallway. He sounds pissed. Marcus always sounds pissed, but now it’s pissed with a purpose. “Stay at your desks. IT’s checking the—”

The emergency lights die too.

Now it’s just me, the city, and the sound of rain starting to hammer the glass.

Great.

I fumble for my phone, turn on the flashlight. The beam catches dust motes and the edge of Dominic’s coat — still on the back of my chair. I haven’t given it back. He hasn’t asked for it. We’re in a cold war of wool and plausible deniability.

“Marcus?” I call.

No answer.

Then I hear it. Footsteps. Not Marcus. Too measured. Too deliberate.

Dominic appears in the glow of my phone like he was built from the dark. No flashlight. He doesn’t need one. He just knows where things are.

“The generator failed,” he says. No preamble. No “are you okay.” Just facts. “Backup to the backup is cycling. Could be five minutes. Could be five hours.”

“Fantastic,” I say. “I have a launch at midnight.”

“I know.”

Of course he knows. He knows everything.

He steps closer. The light from my phone catches the rain on the windows behind him, turns him into a silhouette with a city for a halo. He’s still in his shirt from this morning, sleeves rolled up, tie gone. He looks like he’s been fighting the building itself and losing.

“You should go home,” he says.

“My laptop’s dead. My work’s here. My job’s here.”

“It can wait.”

“It can’t.” I set my phone down, the light pointing up, turning us into a caravaggio painting — all shadows and sharp lines. “You told me results matter. So I’m getting results.”

He’s quiet. Then: “The servers are down, Alina. There are no results to get.”

Alina. Not Ms. Reyes.

The rain gets louder. It’s not rain anymore. It’s a goddamn monsoon, lashing the windows like it wants inside. Thunder cracks close enough that the glass vibrates.

I wrap my arms around myself. The AC died with the power. It’s getting cold fast.

“You’re shaking,” he says.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

It slips out. Too honest. Too sharp. His eyes narrow.

“Don’t,” he says.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t turn yourself into a weapon and then act surprised when you bleed.”

The thunder rolls again, longer this time. The building groans.

I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You don’t know me.”

“I know you haven’t slept more than four hours a night since you started. I know you re-did the entire onboarding flow because one user in the beta said it felt ‘cold.’ I know you drink oat milk lattes when you’re stressed and black coffee when you’re angry, and you’ve been drinking black coffee for three days.”

He steps closer. “I know you tell yourself you’re here for work, but you stayed late on your birthday to fix a bug in the analytics dashboard that no one else even noticed. So no, I don’t know you. But I’m paying attention.”

The air is too thin. Or too thick. I can’t tell.

“You shouldn’t be,” I say. My voice is barely a whisper.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not—” Good. Safe. Who you think I am. I don’t finish.

He does it for me. “Not what? Not temporary?”

The word hits like the thunder. Temporary. Ethan’s word. The word that started this.

I take a step back. My legs hit my chair. His coat is there. I can smell cedar.

“You don’t get to do that,” I say. “You don’t get to see me and then act like it doesn’t mean anything.”

“I never said it didn’t mean anything.”

“Then what does it mean, Dominic?”

First name. Out loud. In the dark. It changes the air.

He goes still. Completely still. Like I’ve pulled a trigger.

“Careful, Alina.”

“Of what?” I’m angry now. Not at him. At me. At the plan. At the fact that I’m standing in the dark with Ethan’s father and I don’t want to be anywhere else. “What should I be careful of? Men who say things like ‘I’m paying attention’ and then—”

He moves.

He doesn’t walk. He closes the distance in one step, like the storm outside is inside him too.

His hand is at my jaw before I can breathe. Not grabbing. Not forcing. Just… there. Thumb under my chin, tilting my face up. His palm is warm. Calloused. Real.

“You should be careful,” he says, voice low, rough, “of men who are used to getting what they want.”

“And what do you want?” I hate that my voice shakes. I hate that I’m not pushing him away.

He doesn’t answer.

He kisses me.

It’s not soft. It’s not asking. It’s a mistake we both make at the exact same time.

His mouth is hot, angry, desperate — like he’s been holding his breath since the first day I walked in. Like all that control is a dam and I just said the wrong word.

I gasp against him. My hands fist in his shirt. I meant to push. I pull instead.

He makes a sound, low in his throat, and his other hand goes to my waist, yanking me against him. The chair hits the back of my knees. My phone light glares up at us, turning everything stark and white and too much.

He tastes like coffee and rain and bad decisions.

I kiss him back like I’m trying to win something. Like if I do this right, I can rewrite the last month. Rewrite the rooftop. Rewrite Ethan.

His teeth catch my lower lip. Not gentle. A warning. Or a promise.

My fingers find his tie — no, it’s gone. Just his collar. I grip it anyway, pulling him closer, standing on my toes to meet him. He’s taller, broader, everything Ethan pretended to be. His body is solid, unyielding, and when he presses me back against the desk, I feel the edge bite into my hips.

The thunder cracks again. The windows rattle. Or maybe that’s me.

His hand slides from my jaw into my hair, fingers tightening. Not enough to hurt. Enough to tell me I’m here. I’m real. Stop running.

I don’t. I can’t. I kiss him harder, deeper, until I’m not thinking about plans or revenge or names. Just the heat of him. The way he smells like cedar and storm. The way he says my name against my mouth like it’s a confession.

“Alina.”

It’s not a question. It’s a goddamn prayer.

And then —

The lights slam back on.

The whole floor floods with white, fluorescent, merciless light. The AC kicks in. The servers beep. The world comes back.

We break apart like we’ve been burned.

I’m breathing too hard. My lips are swollen. His shirt is wrinkled where I grabbed it. His eyes are black, blown wide, and for one second he looks wrecked. Like I did something to him.

He steps back. Once. Twice.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t look at me.

He just turns and walks away.

The elevator dings. The doors open. He gets in.

He doesn’t look back.

I stand there, in the brutal light, with Dominic Cole’s coat on my chair and the taste of him in my mouth.

My laptop chimes. Power’s back. The launch is in three hours.

My hands are shaking.

I touch my lips. They’re still warm.

“Shit,” I whisper to the empty floor. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

The plan wasn’t supposed to go like this.

The plan wasn’t supposed to have him kissing me like he’s been waiting his whole life.

The plan wasn’t supposed to have me kissing him back like I was.

I grab my laptop. I open the Meridian deck. We’ll keep the lights on.

The lights are on.

And I’m the one in the dark.