By nine in the morning, the line already snakes to the door and the espresso machine sounds like it’s about to file for workers’ comp.
I steady the milk pitcher with one hand and nudge my battered notebook farther from the danger zone with the other. Foam, swirl, finish the heart. Slide the cup across the counter with my best I-swear-I-slept expression.
“Hazelnut latte for Jenna,” I call.
The bell over the café door jingles again. More footsteps, more murmurs, the familiar low hum of The Stacks at rush hour. Above us, somewhere past the ceiling and ten or twenty floors of glass and steel, the Hale Global tower looms—sleek, terrifying, full of people in suits who never misplace anything important.
Unlike me.
“Order up, Mia,” Ben says, sliding a fresh stack of cups toward me. He’s the owner, fifty-something with a permanent coffee stain on his apron and the patience of a saint.
“I see it,” I answer, nudging my glasses up. My notebook edges closer to the register as I turn. “Four-shot espresso, extra—”
The line shuffles. Someone’s briefcase bumps the counter. My pen rolls, I reach—
—and the notebook goes over the edge.
“No, no, no,” I mutter.
It lands with a soft smack on the floor, pages fanning open like it’s exposing every unchecked box and anxious doodle to the entire café.
“Got it,” a low voice says.
A hand appears in my peripheral vision, long fingers closing around the worn cardboard cover before I can vault the counter like an uncoordinated gymnast. The man straightens slowly, the black of his wool coat absorbing the morning light that filters in through the windows.
For a second, everything else blurs.
He’s tall—ridiculously tall, at least a head above everyone else in line. Dark hair, trimmed close at the sides, more unruly on top, like he pushes a hand through it when he’s thinking. Clean-shaven, sharp cheekbones, the kind of jaw that would look at home on a Roman statue or a magazine cover. He’s not wearing a tie, just a charcoal shirt under the coat, open at the throat.
But it’s his eyes that snag me. Gray, cool, not bored exactly…aware. Like he’s taking in every detail, including the ink smudge on my wrist and the fact that my hands are definitely not steady anymore.
He turns my notebook in his hand, thumb brushing over the corner where the cardboard’s peeling.
“Mia Collins,” he says, reading my scrawl on the first page. His voice is rich, smooth, and somehow quiet and cutting through the café noise at the same time.
Heat climbs up my neck. “That’s—that’s me. Sorry, it keeps trying to escape.”
One side of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but it shifts his whole face from carved-from-marble to almost approachable.
“It doesn’t look like the problem is the notebook,” he says.
If anyone else said that, I’d probably wither. From him, it lands somewhere between teasing and observation.
“Occupational hazard,” I manage. “My brain needs training wheels.”
His gaze flicks past me to the menu board, then back. “You’re the one who writes in the margins.”
My fingers tighten around the milk pitcher. “Sorry?”
He nods toward the book wall behind him, where secondhand novels line the shelves, all of them dotted with neon flags and pencil marks.
“I’ve seen your notes. The copy of ‘Jane Eyre’ with ‘you deserve better, babe’ on page three hundred and twelve.” His eyes meet mine again, and there’s a glint there now, like this is amusing him more than he lets show. “Accurate, by the way.”
This is how I die, I think. Not from stress, not from caffeine. From sheer, suffocating mortification.
“I, um. I like talking back to fictional people,” I say. “They can’t interrupt.”
That half-smile sharpens for a fractional second. “Not a bad strategy.”
Someone clears their throat impatiently down the line. The spell cracks.
“Oh—sorry.” I reach across the counter for my notebook, but he doesn’t let go.
“You left this yesterday,” he says quietly. “By the sink.”
My breath stalls. Yesterday had been a blur: double shift, three spilled drinks, a toddler meltdown in the corner, and me, staying late to restock, then trudging home sure I’d forgotten something.
“I—” I swallow. “I thought I’d lost it.”
He looks at me for another beat, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. “You looked like you might.”
Then, finally, he releases the notebook into my hands.
The leather feels unusually warm against my palms.
“Thank you,” I say, and this time my voice comes out soft, sincere. “Really. I’d be…lost without it.”
“Seems that way.” His gaze drops to the tip jar, then back to me. “Americano. Black.”
My fingers know the motions even if my head is still stuck on the fact that this stranger noticed the exact copy of “Jane Eyre” I’d vandalized and where I’d left my notebook.
I move through the steps on muscle memory: grind, tamp, pour. Steam curls up, fragrant and grounding. I risk a glance at him as the shots pull. His posture is relaxed, but there’s tension in the line of his shoulders, like he’s balancing on an invisible edge.
“Long morning?” I ask, because customer service scripts are my safety net.
“Long year,” he says.
Unexpected. It pulls a low laugh out of me before I can stop it. “Aren’t we only three weeks in?”
“Exactly.” His tone is dry, but something eases in his face at my laugh, the muscles around his mouth relaxing a fraction.
I slide the cup toward him. “Americano. Black.”
He doesn’t reach for it right away. Instead, his attention drops to my notebook again, now tucked safely beside the register.
“You might consider a duplicate,” he says. “Insurance.”
“I’ve tried,” I admit. “It never works. It’s like all my motivation is stuck in that one. Nothing gets done if it’s not written there.”
The peak line of my day arrives on his mouth, soft and unexpected.
“Then don’t lose it,” he says. “Some things you only get one of.”
My heart stutters in an entirely unreasonable way for someone who’s been awake since five a.m.
He lifts the coffee, nods once in something like a farewell, and turns away. The black of his coat moves through the crowd like a shadow, cutting clean lines in the soft, bookish chaos of The Stacks, and then he’s gone, swallowed by the light beyond the glass door.
The bell jingles after him.
“Mia,” Ben says mildly, “you wanna come back from whatever galaxy that was and ring people up?”
I blink, realizing the woman two down from where he’d stood is watching me with raised brows.
“Sorry!” I fumble with the register buttons, cheeks burning. “That’ll be—”
It’s only when the rush finally dies down an hour later that I open my notebook to a fresh page to cross off a box. The top of the list from yesterday stares up at me in barely legible looped letters:
– Submit Hale Global internship application
A chill runs down my spine, cold and ridiculous.
“You alright?” Jenna asks, leaning on the counter. She’s a regular, a grad student who lives on cold brew and obscure poetry.
“Yeah. Just…realizing my week may have been a bad joke.”
“Tell me about it.” She makes a face. “I’m going back upstairs. Pray for my thesis.”
“Only if you pray for my résumé,” I say.
She laughs and heads toward the door, flashing her employee badge at me as she passes—Hale Global’s silver logo catching the light.
My stomach flips.
Submit Hale Global internship application.
I did, of course. Late night, impulsive click, followed by immediate regret and three hours of spacing out while imagining all the ways I could humiliate myself in an office full of people who never have to count tips before paying rent.
It’s fine, I tell myself, scribbling a shaky check mark next to the line. They probably have a rule against hiring people who spill more drinks than they serve.
Two weeks later, my phone buzzes while I’m fitting a stack of newly donated paperbacks onto the shelf.
Unknown number.
I wipe my hands on my apron and answer. “Hello?”
“Is this Miss Mia Collins?” The voice is precise, feminine, and crisp enough to belong to a pressed suit.
“Yes?”
“This is Human Resources at Hale Global. We’re calling regarding your application for the spring internship program.”
My fingers go numb. A book slides from the stack and hits the floor with a satisfying thud.
“Oh. I—yes. That’s me.”
“We’d like to invite you for an interview this Friday at ten a.m., if you’re available.”
I press the phone harder to my ear, as if I might have misheard. “An interview? Are you…certain?”
There’s a tiny pause. “We don’t usually extend invitations by accident, Miss Collins.”
“Right. Sorry. Yes. Yes, I’m available.”
“Excellent. You’ll receive an email with details shortly. Please arrive fifteen minutes early and bring a printed copy of your résumé.”
The call ends. I stand in the aisle between contemporary fiction and literary classics, my pulse loud in my ears.
An interview. At Hale Global.
Up there.
“Everything okay?” Ben’s voice drifts over.
I bend to pick up the fallen book. The cover is scuffed, the spine creased to oblivion, but the title still shines in gold: “Great Expectations.”
I huff out something too close to a hysterical laugh. “I have an interview,” I say slowly. “With Hale Global.”
Ben peers at me over his glasses, then up at the ceiling, as if he can see through the rafters to the tower above. “Seriously?”
I nod.
A slow grin spreads across his face. “About time someone up there realized who’s been running their unofficial library.”
“I make hearts in foam, Ben.”
“You make half this neighborhood feel like they’re not alone for ten minutes a day,” he counters. “Same skill set, different packaging.”
I clutch the book and my notebook to my chest. “What if I’m not…their kind of packaging?”
He walks over, adjusting his own stained apron. “Then they’re idiots. Go knock ‘em dead. Just don’t forget about us peasants when you’re famous.”
“I’m an introvert who once cried in a bathroom because someone called me ‘ma’am,’” I remind him. “I don’t think fame is in my skill set.”
He just chuckles and pats my shoulder. “You’ll see.”
On Friday morning, my mother tries to iron my blouse while I’m still wearing it.
“Ma, I can do it,” I protest, twisting away.
Helen clicks her tongue, small and fierce in our narrow kitchen. “You’ll burn yourself. Hold still.”
Steam curls up between us. Our apartment smells like cheap coffee and the lemon cleaner she uses religiously on the same worn countertops.
“This company,” she says, emphasizing the word like it’s a villain’s name, “is it safe? You know how men with too much money are.”
I roll my eyes toward the ceiling. “It’s an internship, not a marriage proposal.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” she murmurs, almost to herself. Her mouth tightens, and I pretend I didn’t hear the crack in her voice.
She smooths the collar, fingers lingering at my throat, then steps back to look me over. “You look like you,” she decides. “That’s good. Don’t let them make you feel small.”
I swallow past the lump rising in my chest. “Thanks, Ma.”
Her eyes shine, but she forces a brisk nod. “Text me when you get there. And don’t lose your notebook.”
“I won’t,” I lie.
Ten minutes later, standing at the base of the Hale Global tower, I am ninety percent sure I’ve lost my mind.
The building rises into the gray winter sky, all glass and steel and ruthless angles. People in coats far more expensive than my entire outfit scan their badges and sweep through the revolving doors like this is just Friday.
I check my reflection in the glass: dark slacks, white blouse, the blue cardigan that makes my eyes less boring, hair twisted into a low bun I’ll probably pick apart by noon. I look like a very nervous librarian who accidentally wandered into a movie set.
My notebook is clutched tightly under my arm.
I square my shoulders and step inside.
The lobby smells like polished stone and designer perfume. Light streams down from a row of skylights high above, catching on a huge metallic sculpture that looks like someone bent a beam into a ribbon. A receptionist greets me with a practiced smile, directs me to an elevator bank, and by the time I’m standing in a mirrored box shooting upward, my palms are damp.
The numbers tick higher. Six. Nine. Twelve.
I glance at my reflection—pale, eyes too wide. “Don’t faint,” I whisper. “Do not faint in front of corporate people. They probably have a policy against it.”
The doors slide open on twenty.
A woman in a sleek navy dress waits with a tablet, her hair in a perfect twist that probably has its own zip code.
“Mia Collins?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m Alina, from HR. The others are already in the conference room.” She gives me a once-over that is not unkind, just…efficient. “Right this way.”
We walk down a hallway lined with glass offices. People move inside them, all brisk and focused, typing and talking into headsets. I catch flashes of city through the windows beyond—tiny cars, tiny people. My heart drums harder.
We stop at a set of glass doors. Inside, a long table. Six other twenty-somethings in varying degrees of expensive, all of them looking much more like they belong.
And one empty seat.
Alina opens the door. “Our final candidate,” she says. “Please take a seat, Miss Collins.”
They all look up. I want to vanish into the carpet.
I slide into the empty chair, my notebook on my lap like a shield. A man in a navy suit at the head of the table introduces himself as someone from HR management, starts talking about the program, the expectations, the competitive nature of the selection process.
My mind catches on one phrase: The CEO takes a personal interest in this program.
The CEO.
Liam Hale. The man whose name is on the tower. The man whose face has been in every business article my mother’s ever tutted at. Rumor has it he’s ruthless. Uncompromising. Dangerous, in that way only someone who could buy your entire life with pocket change can be.
Dangerous—and drinking a black Americano in my café two weeks ago.
No. That’s ridiculous. It’s not like every man in a black coat is—
The conference room door opens.
Air seems to leave the space all at once.
He steps inside like the room belongs to him. Today it’s a charcoal suit, perfectly cut, white shirt, black tie. No coat. Same hair. Same unreadable gray eyes.
My lungs forget their job.
Conversations die mid-sentence. Chairs scrape as everyone straightens.
“Mr. Hale,” the HR manager says, sounding suddenly nervous.
“Good morning,” Liam Hale says, his voice exactly as I remember it—rich, smooth, controlled. His gaze sweeps the table, sharp and assessing.
It passes over Ethan, the smug-looking guy to my right in a designer watch. Over the girl with the leather portfolio. Over all of us like we’re files on a desk.
Then it hits me.
For a fleeting second, his expression doesn’t change. But something in his eyes does—a minute jolt, like surprise wrapped in recognition.
The man who returned my notebook is the man who owns the building.
He’s the CEO.
He knew my name before I walked into this room.
My fingers clamp around the cover of my notebook so hard my knuckles ache.
“Welcome to Hale Global,” he says. “Let’s see what you’re capable of.”
His gaze lingers on me for one beat longer than everyone else.
I don’t know if anyone else notices.
But I do.
I feel it like a hand closing, gently, around the spine of my life, ready to turn a page I didn’t even realize was coming.
