C7 The Things We Don’t Say

The next morning, I didn’t rush.

I woke up to sunlight warming my room and the scent of coffee drifting in from the kitchen. Lauren had stayed another night, refusing to let me be alone after the talk with Bishop. She didn’t say much just handed me a blanket, made us both tea, and sat beside me through three full episodes of a crime series neither of us were paying attention to.

That’s what I loved most about her. She didn’t force words out of me. She just stayed.

I finally got up around 8:30, took a longer-than-usual shower, and let myself pick out an outfit that felt soft rather than sharp. A pale blue blouse, black wide leg pants, and a simple silver chain around my neck. No heels today. No makeup war paint.

Just me.

When I stepped into the office, it was quieter than usual. Mondays were always a slow churn before the storm. A few early birds were already at their desks, eyes glued to screens and fingers flying over keyboards. I offered a small smile to anyone who looked up and surprisingly, a few smiled back.

It felt different.

Maybe because I felt different.

I passed by Damien’s desk, but he wasn’t there. Odd. He was always in early, typing away with a mechanical intensity that made him seem more like a spy than an analyst. I made a mental note to ask Lauren if she’d heard from him.

Bishop’s door was slightly open this time.

“Knock, knock,” I said gently, peeking in.

He looked up immediately, nodding once. “Morning.”

“Morning.” I stepped inside and hovered by the chair across from him, unsure if I should sit.

He gestured. “Please.”

I sat, smoothing my pants and avoiding his eyes for a moment.

He looked tired not in the unkempt or unshaven way, but in the deeper, quieter way. His eyes had shadows that hadn’t been there last week. Or maybe I hadn’t noticed them before.

“Feeling better?” he asked, tone softer than yesterday.

“I think so,” I replied, carefully. “The quiet helped.”

He nodded, folding his hands on the desk. “I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday. About needing space.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Okay…”

“I understand more than you think,” he added.

That surprised me.

Bishop King never offered pieces of himself. He was the vault. The fireproof safe. Nothing escaped him that he didn’t plan.

But today, something had shifted.

He looked down at his hands for a second, then back at me. “It’s hard for me… to trust people. To let go. And when someone I rely on disappears, even for a day, I”

He didn’t finish the sentence. But I didn’t need him to. I saw it in the tightening of his jaw. The flicker in his eyes. The unspoken fear of abandonment. It was a language I knew all too well.

“I wasn’t trying to disappear,” I said gently. “I was trying not to break.”

His expression softened barely. But I saw it.

The silence between us wasn’t heavy this time. It was fragile, like glass set on the edge of a table, waiting for someone to move too quickly and knock it over.

I decided not to.

We talked for a while. About work. About projects. About some investor meeting next week that I was supposed to prep for. It felt oddly normal, the rhythm of our conversation. Less boss and assistant, more… two people learning how to speak again.

Just as I was about to leave, he stopped me.

“Rose.”

I turned back.

His eyes met mine, steady. “Next time, just tell me. Whatever it is you need.”

I swallowed. “Alright.”

But deep down, we both knew it wasn’t that simple.

Because the truth was, I didn’t even know what I needed half the time.

As I stepped back into the hallway, I let out a slow breath. My hands were trembling, just slightly. I pressed them against my sides, grounding myself.

I wasn’t used to that version of Bishop. The quiet one. The one who didn’t use power like a weapon. It made me wonder who he was before all this—before the boardrooms and the billion-dollar deals and the unspoken walls.

And then I remembered something Lauren had said once.

“Men like Bishop… they don’t show you their ghosts. They hand them to you silently and hope you don’t run.”

Maybe she was right.

And maybe for once I wasn’t running.

I returned to my desk, slid into my chair, and stared blankly at the glowing screen for a full minute before even touching my keyboard. The cursor blinked, waiting patiently, like it knew I needed a moment.

Truth be told, I did.

The conversation with Bishop hadn’t gone the way I expected. No sharp tones. No clipped commands. Just… honesty, quiet and a little raw around the edges. That was rare. And something about it made me feel oddly off-balance, like I had stepped into someone else’s story.

Lauren arrived a few minutes later, coffee in one hand, her oversized tote swinging from her shoulder like a parachute. She flopped into the seat across from me and raised an eyebrow.

“You good?” she asked, voice low and knowing.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think so.”

“You sure? You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The look that says, ‘I just had a confusing conversation with a man who might be both the source of my stress and my strangely growing fascination.’”

I laughed under my breath. “You’re ridiculous.”

“But not wrong.”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I sipped from the cup she slid toward me and let the silence settle. She didn’t press. She knew when to pull back.

“So,” she said after a moment, changing gears, “I did some digging last night.”

I looked up. “Digging?”

“Damien,” she whispered. “Still no sign of him today either.”

That sent a ripple through me. Damien had been unusually quiet since Bishop confronted me about the vacation request. It wasn’t like him to just go dark. He had always been… present. Watchful. Almost too watchful.

“You think he’s avoiding us?”

“Maybe,” Lauren replied. “Or maybe someone told him to.”

I stiffened. “You think Bishop—”

“I think Bishop has a lot more control than he likes to admit,” she said carefully. “And Damien’s loyalty? It’s not exactly built on friendship.”

I swallowed. The idea that someone could be planted so close to me under the guise of protection or worse, observation left an unpleasant chill crawling up my spine.

“I’m just saying,” Lauren added, softer now, “don’t trust everyone with your full story.”

“I haven’t,” I whispered.

Not even her. Not fully.

The truth was, there were pieces of my past tiny, splintered things that I still held close to my chest. Pieces about why I really needed that vacation. Why certain dates on the calendar made my chest tighten. Why the sound of raised voices sometimes made my throat close up.

Bishop didn’t know. Damien didn’t know. Lauren knew just enough to keep me steady, and for now, that had to be enough.

As the day wore on, I returned to routine emails, scheduling, research. But beneath it all, something was shifting. Not just in me, but in Bishop too.

I caught glimpses of it in the way his door stayed ajar longer than usual, in how his eyes lingered a moment too long when I walked past. There was a softness trying to push through his edges.

And if I wasn’t careful, I might start leaning toward it.

And that… terrified me more than anything else.