Alex arrived at Valeris Tech at exactly 8:57 AM.
The elevator ride up felt longer than yesterday. His shoulder still ached from last night. He'd wrapped it as best he could, but every movement reminded him of the chase, the crash, the fight.
The boxes from the presidential van were hidden in his hotel room. He still hadn't opened them. Didn't know what was inside. That was a problem for later.
Right now, he had work to do.
The elevator doors opened on the 47th floor.
Sienna was standing in the reception area.
Not sitting at her desk. Not working on a display. Just standing there, waiting, with a glass of wine in her hand.
At nine in the morning.
"You're early again," she said. But her voice was different. Lighter. Almost excited.
Alex blinked. "Are you drinking?"
"Celebrating." She held up the glass. Red wine, catching the morning light from the windows. "We have investors."
"Investors?"
"Three calls this morning. Two more last night." She smiled, and it wasn't her usual sharp, controlled smile. This one was genuine. Wide. Happy. "Word got out about the quantum exception fix. People want to see the full integration system working. They want to invest."
Alex had never seen her like this. The ice-cold professional he'd met two days ago was gone. This Sienna was almost... vulnerable. Open.
It was strange. Disarming.
"That's good," Alex said.
"Good? It's incredible." She walked back into her office, gesturing for him to follow. "Do you know how long I've been trying to get funding for this project? Eight months. Eight months of pitches and rejections and being told my approach was too experimental, too risky." She set the wine glass down on her desk. "And you show up, fix one problem, and suddenly everyone wants in."
"To be fair, it was a pretty significant problem."
"It was." She looked at him, really looked at him, and something in her expression softened. "Thank you. Seriously. You don't know what this means."
Alex shifted, uncomfortable with the gratitude. "I just did what you paid me to do."
"You did more than that."
She reached for a second wine glass on her desk, already poured, and held it out to him.
"It's nine in the morning," Alex said.
"And we're celebrating. Take it."
He took the glass. The wine was good. Expensive. Probably cost more than most people's monthly rent.
Sienna lifted her glass. "To solving impossible problems."
"To getting paid for it," Alex added.
She laughed. Actually laughed. "Fair enough."
They drank.
As Sienna lowered her glass, she reached up and unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. Then the second. Casual. Unconscious. Like she didn't even realize she was doing it.
The fabric shifted, revealing the curve of her breasts. White lace underneath. The edge of a bra that probably cost as much as the wine.
Alex's eyes dropped. Just for a second.
'Fuck, she's hot.'
He looked away quickly, focusing on his wine glass.
But Sienna had noticed. That small knowing smile appeared on her lips. She didn't button back up.
"So," she said, setting her glass down and moving to her desk. "Ready to keep working?"
"Yeah. Let's do it."
They worked through the morning. The integration system was coming together. Slowly. Alex identified bottlenecks, rewrote error handlers, optimized data flows. Sienna tested each change, her fingers moving quickly across holographic displays.
By noon they'd made real progress. The system was stable. Functional. Not perfect, but close.
They broke for lunch. Sandwiches delivered to the office. Ate while reviewing code.
Around one PM, Sienna pulled up a news feed on one of her displays. Background noise while they worked.
The anchor's voice filled the office. "...developing story out of the Industrial District. Yesterday evening, a presidential delivery convoy was attacked and robbed. Three vehicles were involved in a collision on Marchant Street. Six security personnel were injured. Three secured containers were stolen."
Alex kept his eyes on the code in front of him. Didn't react.
The anchor continued. "Police are calling this a coordinated attack. The suspect used advanced technology, including what witnesses described as teleportation and holographic illusions. Authorities are reviewing footage and expect to make an arrest soon."
Sienna glanced at the screen, then back at her work. "Who's the idiot that steals from a presidential convoy? That's not just stupid, that's suicidal. You're not robbing some random delivery. You're robbing the President. The entire security apparatus of Neo-Brasília is going to come down on whoever did that."
Alex nodded slowly. "Yeah. Pretty stupid."
"They'll find them in a day, maybe two. Then it's life in a detention facility. Probably one of the offshore ones." She shook her head. "Not worth it. Whatever was in those containers isn't worth that."
"Probably not," Alex agreed.
He went back to the code.
A thought occurred to him. "Hey, how'd you get my account information? I said I'd send it to you, but I never did."
Sienna didn't look up from her screen. "You sent it shortly after you left. Around 6:20, 6:30 maybe."
Alex frowned. "I didn't send anything."
"Well someone using your device did. I have the message."
Sienna glanced up. "Yes you did. About half an hour after you left yesterday."
"I didn't—" Alex paused. "June?"
[I transmitted your account credentials at 6:25 PM to ensure payment processing would not be delayed. The timing was optimal.]
Alex processed that. The payment had come through right when he'd been out of money at the roadblock. Perfect timing.
If June had waited for him to send it manually, the payment would've been delayed. Maybe by hours. He'd have been fucked.
"Smart," he said quietly.
[You're absolute welcome.]
Sienna was looking at him now. "Are you okay? You keep talking to yourself."
"Yeah. Just tired."
She gave him a look but didn't press.
They worked through the afternoon. The sun moved across the sky. Shadows lengthened in the office.
By six PM, they hit another problem. A big one. Data synchronization across multiple assembly nodes was failing. Not crashing. Just failing. Silently. Producing incorrect outputs that wouldn't be caught until much later in the process.
"This is bad," Sienna said. "If this goes to production like this, it'll corrupt every assembly sequence. Millions of credits in damages. Lawsuits. The company's done."
"So we fix it," Alex said.
"How? I've been staring at this for an hour. I can't even figure out where the failure is originating."
Alex pulled the code closer, studying it. His eyes moved fast, tracking data flows, following logic branches.
There. Line 347. A timing issue. Nodes were communicating out of sync by microseconds. Just enough to corrupt data without triggering any alarms.
"It's a race condition," Alex said. "Your nodes are trying to synchronize, but they're not accounting for network latency variance. The timing assumptions are wrong."
"Can you fix it?"
"Yeah. Give me twenty minutes."
He dove in. Rewrote the synchronization protocol. Added latency compensation. Built in verification checks.
Sienna watched, leaning over his shoulder. Close enough that he could smell her perfume. Something subtle. Expensive.
Twenty-three minutes later, he pushed back from the display. "Try it now."
Sienna ran the test sequence.
Green across the board. All nodes synchronized. Data flowing cleanly.
She stared at the results. "It works."
"Yeah."
"It actually works."
"That's generally the goal."
Sienna turned to him, and her expression was something Alex had never seen before. Pure joy. Amazement. Relief.
She threw her arms around him.
The hug caught Alex completely off guard. Sienna pressed against him, her face buried in his shoulder, her arms tight around his back.
"Thank you," she said, her voice muffled. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Alex stood there awkwardly, arms at his sides, not sure what to do.
After a moment, Sienna pulled back slightly. But she didn't let go completely. Her hands stayed on his shoulders.
"You feel tense," she said.
"Long couple of days."
Her hand moved. Slid from his shoulder down to his chest. Resting there. Feeling the muscle underneath his shirt.
"Very tense," she said quietly.
Alex looked at her. Really looked. Her face was inches from his. Those sharp eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. Red lips slightly parted.
"Maybe you need to relax," he said. His voice was lower now. Steady.
"Maybe."
"I know a good way to relax."
Sienna's eyes narrowed slightly. Amused. "Do you."
"Yeah. It's very effective. Scientifically proven."
"Is that so." She wasn't moving away. If anything, she'd leaned closer. "And what's this scientifically proven method?"
Alex's hand came up. Slowly. Giving her time to pull back if she wanted. His fingers brushed her jawline. Gentle. Testing.
She didn't pull back.
"I could show you," he said. "But I'd need your permission first."
Sienna's lips curved into a small smile. "Permission for what, exactly?"
"To touch you."
"You're already touching me."
"Not the way I want to."
Her breath caught. Just slightly. "And how do you want to touch me?"
"Everywhere."
The word hung in the air between them.
Sienna's hand on his chest tightened. Fingers curling into his shirt. "That's very forward."
"You don't strike me as someone who appreciates subtle."
"I don't." Her eyes searched his face. "But I also don't appreciate being played. So tell me. Is this you being genuine? Or is this you thinking you can charm your way into something?"
Alex met her gaze. Steady. Honest. "Both. I'm genuinely attracted to you. And I'm definitely trying to charm you. But I'm not playing games. If you tell me to stop, I stop. No questions. No pressure."
Sienna studied him for a long moment. Her expression unreadable.
Then she stepped back. Her hand left his chest.
Alex felt disappointment settle in his stomach.
But Sienna didn't walk away. She just stood there, looking at him.
"I don't mix business with pleasure," she said. "It's a rule I have. Keeps things simple."
"Okay."
"But," she continued, "I also don't believe in pointless rules. And you're not technically my employee. You're a contractor. Independent."
"Very independent."
"So technically, it wouldn't be breaking my rule."
"Technically," Alex agreed.
Another moment of silence.
Then Sienna took a step forward. Closed the distance between them. Her hand went back to his chest.
"If we do this," she said quietly, "it's just physical. No complications. No expectations. We both walk away when it's done. Understood?"
"Understood."
"And you tell no one. This stays between us."
"I don't even know anyone here to tell."
Sienna smiled. "Good."
Then she kissed him.
Her lips were soft. Insistent. She didn't waste time being tentative. This wasn't a first kiss exploring possibility. This was a decision made, being acted on.
Alex kissed back, his hand moving to her waist, pulling her closer.
Sienna's hands went to his shirt, unbuttoning it quickly, efficiently. Her fingers brushed his chest, his stomach, exploring.
She pulled back just enough to speak. "Your shoulder."
"What?"
"You're injured. Your left shoulder. I felt you wince."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. What happened?"
"Motorcycle accident. Yesterday."
She looked at him skeptically. "Motorcycle accident."
"Yeah."
"Right." She didn't believe him, but she didn't push. "Then we avoid the left side."
"Works for me."
She kissed him again, harder this time, and Alex forgot about his shoulder, about the stolen boxes in his hotel room, about presidential deliveries and police chases.
Right now, there was just this. Just her. Just the two of them in an office high above the city as night fell outside the windows.
Everything else could wait.