Elliot Hale had learned early that attention was a currency.
At eighteen, he possessed it in abundance.
Girls noticed him before he noticed them. In lecture halls, in cafés, across campus lawns where sunlight filtered through old trees and made everything feel unreal. His name traveled faster than he did—whispered, speculated about, exaggerated. Handsome. Rich. Untouchable. Cold.
He didn't correct any of it.
Freshman year at Westbridge University felt less like a beginning and more like a continuation of something he had never fully participated in. People assumed he was confident. Self-assured. Emotionally distant by choice.
The truth was simpler.
He just didn't feel what others seemed to feel.
Elliot sat in the back row of his economics lecture, notebook open but empty. A girl beside him leaned closer than necessary, pretending to borrow a pen she already had. Her perfume was sharp, deliberate.
"Did you understand the last assignment?" she asked, smiling.
"Yes," he replied, eyes still on the board.
She waited. When he didn't elaborate, she laughed lightly, like it was charming instead of awkward.
"You're not very talkative, are you?"
"No."
That usually ended things.
She sighed, disappointed but not surprised, and turned away. Elliot barely noticed. His thoughts
had already drifted elsewhere—to a living room bathed in warm light, to a woman standing awkwardly near his father, holding herself together with quiet restraint.
Iris Vale.
He frowned, irritated with himself.
He didn't think about people after first impressions. That was his rule. Observe, categorize, dismiss. It kept life simple.
And yet.
When the lecture ended, Elliot packed his bag and left quickly, ignoring the lingering looks. Outside, campus buzzed with life—laughter, conversations, movement. He moved through it untouched, like a ghost with a physical form.
Something about Iris had unsettled him.
Not because she was attractive—though she was, in a way that didn't try to announce itself. But because she hadn't tried to earn his attention. She hadn't smiled too much or leaned in. She hadn't even seemed to notice him after he dismissed her.
That bothered him more than interest ever did.
---
Iris spent the morning pacing her apartment.
The contract lay open on her kitchen table, pages neatly aligned, mocking her indecision. Every argument for signing was logical. Necessary. Irrefutable.
And every argument against it was emotional.
Marcus had not called. He never chased. He assumed people would come to their own conclusions—preferably the ones he had already calculated for them.
She made coffee she didn't drink and stared at the window, watching the city wake up.
Signing the partnership meant stability. Funding. Growth.
It also meant proximity.
It meant meetings, shared decisions, and a man who knew exactly how to unmake her with silence alone.
By noon, Iris had stopped pretending there was a choice.
She dressed carefully—not for Marcus, she told herself, but for the version of herself she needed to be. Professional. Unreadable.
The Hale Group conference room felt colder than before.
Marcus greeted her with a nod. No surprise crossed his face when she placed the signed contract on the table.
"You made the right decision," he said.
"I made the necessary one," Iris replied.
They reviewed timelines and deliverables. It was efficient. Clean. Almost sterile.
As she stood to leave, Marcus hesitated.
"Dinner tonight," he said. "To mark the beginning. Elliot will be there."
Iris paused.
"That's not necessary."
"It's appropriate," Marcus replied.
She searched his face for something—regret, perhaps. She found nothing.
"Fine," she said.
---
Elliot wasn't expecting to care that Iris was coming back.
And yet, when his father mentioned dinner casually, something in his chest tightened.
"Business dinner?" he asked.
"Yes."
"With her?"
Marcus glanced at him. "You remember her."
"I remember," Elliot said.
He didn't add that he had been thinking about her more than he wanted to admit.
Dinner was quiet. Formal. The kind of meal where words mattered more than flavor.
Iris sat across from Elliot this time.
He noticed things he hadn't before—the way she listened intently, the way she paused before speaking, as if choosing honesty over convenience. She didn't try to impress his father. She didn't try to soften herself.
She simply existed.
"Westbridge," she said suddenly, turning to Elliot. "You go there, right?"
"Yes."
"Freshman?"
"Yes."
She smiled—just a little. Not flirtatious. Not inviting. Just genuine.
"Do you like it?"
He hesitated.
"I don't dislike it."
Something in her eyes softened. "That's honest."
He watched her closely then. "You don't talk like most people."
"I don't see the point in pretending," she replied.
That answer lingered between them.
For the first time, Elliot felt something unfamiliar.
Interest.
---
After dinner, Iris stepped outside to take a call.
Elliot found himself following her a few minutes later, unsure why.
She stood near the edge of the patio, phone pressed to her ear, voice low and tense. When she hung up, she exhaled sharply, shoulders sagging.
"Everything okay?" Elliot asked.
She startled slightly. "Yes. Just… work."
"You always look like that when you say that," he observed.
She glanced at him, surprised. Then she laughed softly.
"You're perceptive."
"People assume I'm not," he said.
They stood in silence, the night air cool between them.
"You don't like me," Iris said suddenly.
Elliot blinked. "That's not true."
"You dismissed me the first time we met."
"I dismiss most people."
"And now?"
He didn't answer immediately.
"I don't think you're most people," he said finally.
Her breath caught—just barely.
That was the moment.
The moment Elliot realized indifference was no longer an option.
And Iris realized that something far more complicated than business had just entered her life.
Neither of them spoke after that.
They didn't need to.
Some shifts were felt, not announced.