After Hours
The 42nd floor of Sterling & Voss was eerily quiet after 11 p.m., the kind of silence that amplified every small sound. The hum of the HVAC, the distant clack of a single keyboard still being tortured somewhere down the hall, the soft whoosh of the elevator doors opening on an empty car.
Stephanie Moreau stepped inside without looking back.
Her black 5-inch Louboutins echoed against the polished marble like gunshots in the deserted lobby.
She’d just hit “send” on the final term sheet for the Peterson acquisition—$1.4 billion, her numbers cleaner and more aggressive than anything Chad Alden had ever modeled.
She’d cc’d the entire M&A team, subject line: “Peterson – Executed. See attached model (outperformed consensus by 8 bps).”
Petty? Maybe. Satisfying? Absolutely.
She jabbed the lobby button, already rehearsing the look she’d give Chad tomorrow morning when he slunk into the 8 a.m. deal review with nothing but excuses.
The doors were halfway closed when a large hand shot between them.
They reopened.
Chad fucking Alden stepped in.
Sharp-tongued, impeccably tailored Wall Street predator with an UPenn Wharton MBA, born into old-money privilege in the Hamptons, his bloodline tracing back to ancestors who crossed on the Mayflower—everything about him screams legacy, entitlement, and the kind of effortless arrogance that makes you want to wipe that smirk off his face…
Of course.
He looked infuriatingly unruffled for someone who’d presumably been grinding on the same deal she’d just buried.
Dark hair slightly mussed from running his hands through it, top two buttons of his Charvet shirt undone, sleeves rolled to mid-forearm, exposing corded muscle and the edge of a Patek Philippe that probably cost more than her rent for three years.
The faint scent of cedar-and-whiskey cologne drifted in with him—expensive, understated, designed to make lesser men feel inadequate.
He didn’t speak at first. Just leaned one shoulder against the wall opposite her, arms crossed, and watched her with those storm-gray eyes that always seemed to see too much.
“Celebrating early, Moreau?” His voice was low, amused, the barest hint of gravel from too much black coffee and not enough sleep.
She didn’t dignify that with eye contact.
“Some of us finish what we start.”
A soft chuckle. “And some of us know when the numbers are bullshit dressed up in pretty formatting.”
Her head snapped toward him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
He pushed off the wall, closing half the distance between them in one lazy stride. The elevator felt smaller instantly.
“I saw your sensitivity table. Cute. But you assumed a 75 bps compression on the revolver—Peterson’s treasury head laughed in my face when I floated anything under 100. You’re banking on a miracle that isn’t coming.”
Stephanie’s jaw tightened.
She hated how he could do this—dissect her work with surgical precision while sounding like he was discussing the weather.
“Maybe if you spent less time schmoozing at the partner dinners and more time actually running scenarios, you’d have seen the upside case I built. But go ahead, keep coasting on legacy deals and daddy’s Rolodex.”
The barb landed.
Something flickered in his expression—anger, maybe, or something darker.
He stepped closer still.
Close enough that she had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze.
“You think I don’t earn every inch of this?” he murmured. “You’ve been gunning for my spot since day one. Every pitch, every model, every fucking email is you trying to prove you’re better. Newsflash, Steph: you’re not invisible. I see you.”
Her pulse kicked hard against her throat. She hated that nickname on his lips—hated how intimate it sounded when Whitaker said it like that, low and deliberate.
“It’s Stephanie, Chadwick.” She corrected.
He laughed. She didn't.
The elevator lurched.
Then stopped.
A metallic screech, a hard shudder, and the lights flickered once—twice—before settling into a dimmer, emergency glow.
Silence.
Stephanie’s stomach bottomed out. “No. No, no, no.”
Chad hit the call button. Static crackled through the speaker. He pressed the red emergency phone. Nothing.
“Perfect,” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “Just perfect.”
She pulled out her phone. No service. Of course not—in the shaft between floors, the signal was a joke.
They were trapped.
For real.
Minutes stretched.
Five.
Ten.
The emergency lights cast harsh shadows across Chad’s features, sharpening the line of his jaw, the faint stubble that had grown in since his morning shave.
Stephanie leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed tight, trying to ignore how the confined space made every breath feel shared.
He broke the silence first.
“You gonna keep glaring at me like I personally engineered this, or are we going to figure out how not to kill each other before maintenance shows up?”
“I’m not the one who turned this into a pissing contest the second you walked in.”
He smirked, but there was no real humor in it. “You started it upstairs with that victory-lap email. Thought we were past the kindergarten phase.”
“We’ll be past it when you stop acting like the sun shines out of your—”
The HVAC kicked on—loud, hot, and sudden.
Warm air blasted from the vents overhead like a hair dryer set to scorch. Within thirty seconds the temperature jumped five degrees.
Stephanie shrugged out of her blazer, tossing it onto the floor.
Her silk blouse clung slightly to her skin already. She caught Chad’s eyes flick down—quick, involuntary—before he looked away.
“Don’t,” she snapped.
“Didn’t do anything.”
“You looked.”
“So did you.” He nodded toward her. “Three times since we got stuck. My forearms seem to be particularly offensive tonight.”
Heat crawled up her neck that had nothing to do with the broken air handling. She hated that he noticed. Hated more that he was right.
The minutes dragged into thirty, then forty. The elevator was a sauna now. Sweat beaded at her hairline, trickled down the valley between her breasts.
Chad had loosened his tie completely, pulled it off, and unbuttoned another button on his shirt. The dark hair on his chest was visible now, damp, curling slightly.
Neither of them sat. Pride, probably. Or fear that getting too comfortable would make this feel real.
He spoke quietly. “You remember the Goldman pitch? Two years ago?”
She blinked. “The one you stole from under me?”
“The one where you spent three weeks perfecting that deck, only for the client to go with my structure because it was simpler and faster to execute. You cried in the bathroom after.”
Her breath caught. “I didn’t cry.”
“You did. I heard you.” He looked at her—really looked. No smirk this time. “I didn’t gloat. Not out loud. But I knew it hurt. And I still took the win.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because we’re stuck. And maybe I’m tired of pretending I don’t notice how hard you fight.” He stepped closer again. “Or how much it turns me on.”
The words landed like a slap and a caress at once.
Stephanie’s heart slammed against her ribs. “You’re insane.”
“Am I?” His voice dropped to a near-whisper.
“Every time you one-up me in a meeting, every time you lean across the conference table in that red dress and make sure I see the lace at your bra line, you’re daring me. And I’ve been daring you right back.”
She swallowed. Hard. “You’re projecting.”
“Am I?” He reached out—slowly—brushed a damp strand of hair off her cheek with his knuckle. The touch was electric. “Tell me to stop.”
She didn’t.
