Chapter 5
“You’re quiet,” Nora said.
“I am conserving energy,” Reid said coldly. “As my nursemaid instructed.”
“Good. Conserve it while I take a shower.”
She stood up, gathering her hair into a knot, and walked toward the bathroom. The door closed, and twenty seconds later, the unmistakable hiss of running water echoed through the small cabin.
Reid’s eyes snapped open.
He looked at the kitchen counter.
Her laptop wasn't there. She had taken it into her bedroom. But on the low cedar table beside the window sat her canvas field satchel—the one she had carried from the site walkthrough in Boston.
Reid didn't hesitate. He swung his cast off the sofa, ignored the sudden thump of his pulse in his throat, and lunged across the four feet of open flooring.
He dropped to his knees beside the bag, unbuckling the leather straps with trembling fingers.
Inside were field notebooks, a laser measure, a container of graphite leads—and a small, black USB thumb drive labeled *VANDERHOOF_EXEC_SUMMARY*.
Beside it, tucked into an inner zippered pocket, was an unfamiliar satellite-linked emergency phone. A rugged, yellow plastic brick.
*Bingo.*
Reid snatched the satellite phone, his thumb instantly hitting the power button. The screen illuminated with a crisp green glow: *SATELLITE CONNECTED.*
He had five minutes before the water shut off. He dialed the direct extension for Marcus Vance, his older brother and the firm’s senior managing partner.
The line rang once. Twice.
“Marcus,” Reid whispered urgently into the receiver, keeping his eyes glued to the bathroom door.
“Reid?” Marcus’s voice crackled through the speaker, sounding tinny and distant. “Where the hell are you calling from? Nora said you were under strict clinical isolation.”
“Listen to me very carefully,” Reid hissed. “Nora has lost her mind. She staged a medical retreat. My Achilles is completely fine—”
“Reid, stop.” Marcus’s tone wasn't surprised; it was weary. Heavy with an exhaustion that made Reid pause. “Dr. Lin sent over the preliminary triage telemetry yesterday afternoon. Reid, you need to stay where you are.”
Reid frowned, his knuckles tightening around the plastic phone. “What preliminary telemetry? I have a soft-tissue tear, Marcus! I need you to pull the zoning files from my penthouse safe before the planning board meets on Wednesday!”
“The zoning files are already handled,” Marcus said quietly.
“Handled? By whom?”
“Nora couriered the revised harbor schematics to Vanderhoof this morning. The board reviewed her deck cantilevers via video conference at nine. Vanderhoof signed the phase-one authorization ten minutes ago.”
The air left Reid’s lungs as if he had been struck with a sledgehammer.
“He... what?”
“He loved the titanium tension rods, Reid. He called it ‘an act of architectural maturity.’ He said the firm is finally stepping into the twenty-first century.” Marcus paused, the static hissing across the line. “Reid... take the rest. Let Nora carry the ball. You’ve been running yourself into the ground for five years. If you drop dead, the firm dies with you. Stay in Maine.”
The line went dead.
Reid knelt on the cold floorboards, the yellow satellite phone pressed against his ear, listening to the hollow dial tone.
*Signed the authorization.*
Without his name. Without his presence. Without his final review.
A floorboard creaked behind him.
Reid turned his head slowly.
Nora stood in the hallway, wrapped in a thick terrycloth robe, a damp towel draped over her shoulders. Her wet hair clung to her collarbones, dark and glistening.
She wasn't looking at the phone in his hand. She was looking at his knees—both of them pressed firmly against the hardwood floor, bearing his full body weight without an ounce of support from his crutches.
“Nice recovery,” she said, her voice impossibly quiet.
The silence in the room became absolute.
Reid slowly pulled himself to his feet, using the cedar table for balance, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped beast. The gray static flickered at the edges of his vision again, sharp and hot, but he refused to let himself sway.
“You went behind my back,” he said, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper.
Nora stepped forward, crossing the room until she was standing just three feet away. She didn't cross her arms. She didn't flinch.
“I did what was necessary for the project.”
“You used my injury to steal my client.”
“Is that what you think happened?”
“You presented your revisions to Vanderhoof behind closed doors while keeping me locked in a storm-bound cabin with no communications!” Reid took a step toward her, his jaw clenched, the aluminum cast swinging forward with a heavy, awkward thud. “You used my firm, you used my name, and you used a temporary orthopedic setback to stage a corporate coup!”
Nora tilted her head back to meet his eyes. For the first time since they had arrived in Maine, her calm veneer cracked. A flush of pure, molten anger colored her cheeks.
“You think this is about a corporate coup?” she demanded, her voice shaking with an intensity that stunned him. “You think I care about having my name on a brass plaque at Pier 4?”
“Then why did you submit the drawings without me?”
“Because you were going to kill yourself over this project, Reid!” she shouted, the sound cracking through the quiet room like a gunshot.
Reid froze.
Nora took a half-step closer, her chest heaving beneath the thick robe. “You haven't slept more than three hours a night since October. You live on black coffee, nicotine gum, and sheer spite. You treat every single project like a war to the death, and you treat everyone who cares about you like an enemy combatant.”
“That is how empires are built,” Reid snarled.
“And that is how men drop dead at forty-one in front of a concrete foundation!” she fired back. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, blazing with a fury that had nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with something far more dangerous.
She reached down, took the yellow satellite phone from his limp fingers, and set it firmly on the sofa cushion.
“Sit down,” she commanded, her voice dropping back into a ragged, controlled whisper. “Sit down before you fall down.”
Reid didn't sit. He couldn't. His blood was singing with an intoxicating mix of rage, humiliation, and a sudden, terrifying awareness of how close she was.
He could see the moisture on her eyelashes. He could see the pulse beating frantically at the hollow of her throat.
“You’re an associate, Nora,” he murmured, the use of her first name slipping out before he could stop it. “You answer to me.”
“Not out here, I don't,” she whispered.
They stared at each other, the air between them thick with five years of unspoken friction, late-night red-lines, shared blueprints, and the suffocating tension of two people who had spent half a decade pretending they were only colleagues.
Reid’s hand twitched. For half a second, his fingers rose, hovering in the small space between them, wanting nothing more than to cup the curve of her jaw, to pull her into him and silence the fierce, brilliant mouth that had dismantled his entire life in forty-eight hours.
Nora didn't move away. Her hazel eyes flickered down to his mouth, then back up to his eyes, wide and breathless.
