In the recording, Viven's voice was flat and business-like, negotiating terms with someone whose replies had been redacted, discussing falsified transfer records, discussing how to route suspicion toward a contractor whose access made him a convenient target, discussing a payment schedule tied directly to Roland Mercer's acquisition timeline. Celeste listened to the entire file twice before she could bring herself to speak. Malcolm had known for weeks. He had watched Viven's name surface in the financial trails, had cross- refferenced login timestamps against physical badge access, had built a case methodical enough to survive scrutiny, and had said nothing until he had enough certainty to be sure he was not simply repeating an accusation born of his own resentment at being suspected first. "I was wrong about you," Celeste said, and the words felt smaller in her mouth than she had expected them to feel.
I know, Malcolm answered without cruelty, but without softening it either. Are you angry with me? She asked. No, he said. Then why do you seem so far away right now?
She pressed. And Malcolm was quiet for a moment before he answered her honestly. Because I know what it feels like to have someone you trusted look at you like a stranger, he said. And hearing it from you, even for a few hours, brought that feeling back closer than I wanted it to be. Celeste had no answer for that.
She had spent her career building walls precise enough that nothing could touch her. And in the space of one accusation, she had managed to hurt the one person who had never once tried to take anything from her. She crossed the office and stood close enough that she could see the tension in his shoulders begin to ease, though not entirely. There was no dramatic gesture, no scene lifted from the kind of romance neither of them would have believed in a week earlier. just two people standing near enough to hear each other breathe, the noise of the city pressing faintly against the glass behind them. "I do not want to lose you," she said quietly.
And Malcolm looked at her for a long moment before he answered. "Do not say that unless you already know why you want to keep me," he told her, his voice low, not unkind, but unwilling to accept comfort built on uncertainty. Celeste held his gaze without flinching, the way she had once held the gazes of men across boardroom tables who thought they could outlast her. "I know," she said, and this time there was no laughter in the room to soften it, and no doubt in her voice to undercut it. Later that week, in a quieter conversation than either of them had allowed themselves before, Celeste admitted something she had never said aloud to anyone.