Member-only story
ADULT FICTION
The Appointment— Episode 1
Some doors should stay closed.
Nadia had a rule.
One rule, simple, non-negotiable.
Don’t be stupid.
She’d built her entire career on that rule. Three years at Calloway Consulting, two promotions, a reputation for being the sharpest person in any room she walked into. She didn’t make emotional decisions, she didn’t blur lines, she didn’t look at Cole Calloway — founding partner, her boss, married man, and think about anything other than the quarterly projections he needed by Friday.
She lasted two years and eleven months.
Now it was Wednesday 4PM, and she was walking down the hall toward his office like she had every week for the past three weeks, her heels quiet on the marble floor, her heart doing that thing it always did when she got close enough to see his shadow through the frosted glass.
Last time, she told herself.
She always told herself that.
She knocked once.
"Come in," he said.
She closed the door behind her. Heard the lock click — he did that, always, the moment she walked in, without looking up from whatever was on his desk, like locking that door was as natural as breathing now.
Maybe it was.
Maybe that was the problem.
"Nadia…" He said her name the way he said everything, quiet.
