LOGINShare
what Seren Asks
publish date:
2026-06-06 23:02:17
Latest chapter
UNDISCLOSED why She Takes it
She told Darian at seven that evening.Not immediately after the board meeting she needed the hours between three fifteen and seven for herself. To walk back to her office and sit at her desk and look at the West Loop and understand what had just happened without anyone else's response shaping how she felt about it first.She had learned this about herself over the years. That her first reaction to significant things belonged to her alone. That giving it away too quickly to Imara, to Rowan, to anyone meant she sometimes arrived at other people's feelings about her life before she had fully formed her own.So she sat with it.Senior Partner. Above band. Her team. Her terms. Direct board reporting.She had walked into that room as herself and walked out with everything she had asked for and the asking had been honest and the getting had been earned and nobody in that room had given her anything she had not demonstrated she was worth.That was the part she sat with longest.Not the titl
UNDISCLOSED The Board
The meeting was Thursday at two.Nia found out through Marcus's assistant at nine that morning a brief calendar invitation with no agenda attached, which was itself a communication. Agendas meant deliberation. No agenda meant the decision had already moved past deliberation and into something else.She did not know whether that was good or not.She spent the morning working through the Morrison account close-out with the focused attention of someone who understood that the best preparation for a two o'clock meeting she could not control was to be completely excellent at everything before it.At twelve thirty Imara appeared in her doorway."Eat something," she said."I ate breakfast.""That was five hours ago." She put a container on the desk. "I had my assistant get it from the good place." She sat down. "How are you feeling?""Like someone who asked for the above band and is now waiting to find out if that was confidence or delusion.""It was neither," Imara said. "It was accurate. T
UNDISCLOSED Her Terms
Marcus West's office had not changed in the five years Nia had worked at this firm.Same desk, the heavy oak one he had brought from his original Wicker Park office when the firm outgrew it. Same photograph of his wife and daughters on the credenza behind him. Same view of the West Loop that every office on this floor shared but that somehow looked different from his more settled, more earned, view of someone who had been looking at it long enough to have stopped seeing it as impressive and started seeing it as simply his.He stood when she came in which he did not always do and gestured to the chair across from his desk.She sat.He sat."You know why you are here," he said."I have a reasonable idea," she said.He almost smiled. "The senior partner restructuring. Three positions being created as part of the integration's final phase." He looked at her directly. "I want you in one of them."She held his gaze. "Tell me what the position involves."He talked for twelve minutes.She lis
UNDISCLOSED New Configuration
The calendar on Nia's refrigerator had a new system.It had taken three attempts to get right Seren had opinions about color coding that needed to be incorporated and Darian had opinions about which days he could realistically commit to that needed to be honored, and between the two of them and Nia's own working schedule they had eventually arrived at something that actually functioned.Tuesdays and Thursdays Darian picked Seren up from preschool. Every other Saturday the in-between ones, the ones that weren't park days he had her for the full afternoon while Nia worked through whatever the week had left unfinished. Wednesdays they all had dinner together, which had started as a logistical necessity and had quietly become something neither of them wanted to give up.It was not romantic in the dramatic sense. It was not declarations or grand gestures or any of the things that announced themselves loudly.It was a calendar with color coded blocks and a man who showed up consistently eno
UNDISCLOSED London
He looked at the message for a long time.I wondered how long it would take.Seven words. No punctuation at the end. No exclamation mark, no question mark, nothing that softened or inflected or indicated how she meant it. Just the words themselves sitting on his screen with the patient weight of something that had been waiting fifteen years to be said and had finally found its moment.He put the phone down.Picked it up.Put it down again.He had sent the email. He had typed it and deleted it and typed it again and then sent it before he could talk himself out of it and now she had responded in under four hours with seven words that told him nothing and everything simultaneously.I wondered how long it would take.Which meant she had been wondering.Which meant some part of her had always expected this to happen eventually.Which meant He stopped.He was getting ahead of himself. Seven words was not a conversation. Seven words was a door left slightly open by someone who had decided,
UNDISCLOSED Her Entrance
The last time Margaux Ashford came to this building she had walked in unannounced, found Jamie in the corridor, and asked him quietly where she could find Nia Calloway. Nobody had known she was coming. Nobody had arranged it. She had seen the article on a Saturday morning and had been on a flight to Chicago by Sunday evening and had walked through the service entrance at the back because the press was still circling and additional attention was the last thing the situation needed.That visit had ended with Nia accepting her first confession.Today she came through the front entrance.She did not announce herself at the desk. She simply walked in silver haired, cream coat, the kind of presence that did not require introduction in rooms that already knew who she was and crossed the lobby toward the elevator with the unhurried certainty of a woman who had made a decision and was executing it.The floor noticed.Not dramatically just in the quiet way floors noticed things. A head lifting
UNDISCLOSED Standing Ground
"You're early," Nia said from the doorway of her office.Darian was standing at the window with his back to the room, hands in his pockets, looking at the West Loop the way people looked at things when they weren't actually seeing them. He turned when she spoke."You said eight," he said."It's sev
UNDISCLOSED What Imara knows
"He took the stairs," Imara said, setting down her fork with the deliberate placement of someone making a point through cutlery. "Yesterday and today. You take the elevator. He takes the stairs. Nia, that man is avoiding the elevator because of you."Nia looked up from her salad. "How do you know he
UNDISCLOSED Professional courtesy
"The Meridian account flagged an anomaly in the Q3 allocation," Cressida said, setting a tablet on the desk in front of him without preamble. "Nothing critical. A rounding discrepancy in the rebalancing formula that their previous management team had been carrying forward for approximately eighteen
UNDISCLOSED Forty-seven seconds
"Mr. Ashford." Pearce's assistant a young woman named Delia who had the permanently brisk energy of someone managing three schedules simultaneously stepped into the hallway outside the conference room and lowered her voice. "The Calloway & West team leads are already in the Meridian Room. They've b
You may also like
Dear Ex-Wife, You Are MINE!
Cerise R. Wood652.1K viewsWild Epic Desires
F. Prince 592.1K viewsChasing My Pregnant Wife
Night Revelations921.0K viewsWatch Out, CEO Daddy!
Wine Warms The Flowers1.4M viewsRECLAIMING MY LIFE FROM THE UNTOUCHABLE CEO
Deedson 29 viewsDevali's Deception: Vivianne's Misery
axxelehara28 viewsThe Betrayed Wife’s Vengeance
Dave13 viewsSWEET SPOT
Sommy Pearl26 views
