The walls of Diamonds Headquarters were steel, glass, and authority—just like the woman who ran it. Thirty-four floors above the street, the CEO's office commanded a sweeping view of the skyline, where towers pierced clouds and the city's pulse could almost be heard through the paneled windows.
Tiana Kings sat behind her obsidian desk, one ankle crossed elegantly over the other, pen tapping lightly against a manila folder. Her fingers moved, but her mind was elsewhere—drifting, annoyingly, back to Reuben. Back to the rearview mirror. The calm in his voice. The quiet comfort in his silence. The way he never asked, but always knew when she needed the music turned off.
She exhaled sharply through her nose.
That chapter was over.
"Emily," she called.
The door opened almost instantly. Emily Lane stepped in, tablet in hand, her beige blazer neat but her eyes betraying what her mouth hadn't said yet. Tiana caught the slight tremble in her voice before she even spoke.
"You called?"
"You've been crying," Tiana said flatly, not looking up.
Emily stiffened. "I'm fine."
"No. You're emotional. Still hung up on Reuben?"
Emily glanced down at the tablet. "I didn't think it would bother me this much."
"It shouldn't," Tiana said sharply. "We don't mourn chauffeurs around here."
Emily looked at her, a flare of something too fragile to be anger behind her eyes. "He wasn't just a chauffeur."
Tiana's tone cooled further. "He was exactly that. And now he's not."
"I thought you liked him."
"I liked his driving."
Emily's voice grew softer, more dangerous in its honesty. "That's not what it looked like."
Tiana's eyes snapped up. "Be careful, Emily."
There was silence for a few seconds. Emily broke it, though her voice faltered. "You don't believe in love, do you?"
Tiana smiled without warmth. "Love makes people weak. You know that."
"I don't believe that."
"Of course you don't," Tiana said, rising to her feet. "You're still young enough to think you'll find someone who will never leave you, never fail you, never cheat or lie or ask you to shrink."
"Maybe I just think it's worth the risk."
"And maybe that's why you'll never sit where I'm sitting."
Emily's voice dropped. "You're saying power and love can't coexist?"
"No," Tiana said calmly. "I'm saying love always costs more than it gives. You think it's strength, but it's a slow undoing. It makes people tolerate less than they deserve and forgive more than they should."
"But Reuben—he wasn't asking for love. He just cared."
"And that," Tiana said, "was the mistake. He got close. He crossed a line."
"He didn't mean to."
Tiana raised an eyebrow. "Intent doesn't undo consequence."
Emily hesitated. "You think caring is a flaw?"
"I think caring is a risk. One I don't take."
Emily stepped closer. "You fire people for feeling things?"
"I fire people who forget who they're working for. Who get confused about what our relationship is."
"So being human is a problem now?"
"Being professional is a requirement," Tiana replied coolly. "Reuben blurred the line. And I don't tolerate blurred lines. Not in Diamonds. Not in my life."
Emily clenched the tablet a little tighter. "Sometimes it seems like the only reason you don't let people close is because you're afraid they'll see past all this."
Tiana's gaze didn't flinch. "I don't care if people see past it. I care that they don't think they can belong in it."
Emily stared at her, quietly shaken.
Tiana turned away, walking toward the floor-to-ceiling window again. The city lay below like a game she'd already won.
"I have beauty, Emily. Money. Power. I don't need attention from men I pay to serve me."
"He wasn't trying to take anything from you."
"No. But he would've. Eventually. That's how it starts. A look. A compliment. Then it's waiting for him to show up five minutes early just to hear how my day was. Then it's asking if I'm okay. Then it's assuming we're something."
"That's not weakness," Emily said softly.
Tiana looked at her reflection in the glass. "No. It's a downgrade."
Emily's breath caught. "A downgrade?"
"Yes," Tiana said without blinking. "I worked too hard, built too much, became too much to fall into something that small. That plain."
"He wasn't plain."
"He wasn't enough," Tiana said coldly. "Not for me. Not for Diamonds. Not for the life I live."
The silence turned thick.
Tiana turned back to her desk, sitting down and straightening a stack of folders. Her voice was once again sharp, businesslike.
"How's the search for a new driver going?"
Emily blinked, the emotional whiplash nearly throwing her off. "It's… going. HR says we've had a strong batch of applications. They're sorting through them, narrowing the shortlist."
Tiana nodded once. "Good."
Emily hesitated. "There are a few internal referrals as well."
"Anyone interesting?"
"A few. HR thinks they'll have a top-three list by Thursday."
"Make sure whoever we pick understands boundaries."
"Of course."
Tiana leaned back in her chair and picked up her tablet, dismissing the conversation like flipping a switch. Emily stood for a moment, waiting for some softening, some humanity to show beneath the steel exterior.
But there was nothing.
She turned to go.
Just as she reached the door, Tiana spoke again—this time without looking up.
"Don't let your feelings compromise your future, Emily."
Emily paused.
"I won't."
"Good," Tiana said, eyes still on the screen. "Because love is the luxury of women who don't want power."
Emily opened the door.
"Or maybe it's the power women like you are too afraid to trust."
The door closed quietly behind her.
Tiana stared at her screen, but she wasn't reading. Her eyes, unblinking, hovered over the name of one applicant that had slipped through.
Reuben L. Grant.
His name had appeared again—somehow. A clerical error? A desperate move? A joke?
She stared at it for a full ten seconds, then pressed her finger against the screen and deleted it without hesitation.
She wouldn't let the past reappear in her life like a weed growing through marble.
She was above it.
She had to be.
Still, as the sun dipped below the buildings and the lights of the city flickered on, the office felt a little colder than usual.
She told herself she liked it that way.