Black Was Easier
Sadie Byrne had three heat patches stuck to her stomach, enough ibuprofen in her handbag to sedate a horse, and exactly six minutes before the Monday morning operations meeting.
Monday mornings should’ve come with legal warnings.
She pushed herself out of her chair slowly, careful not to move too quickly as pain twisted low in her abdomen like barbed wire being pulled tight. For one dangerous second, black spots flickered at the edge of her vision.
Not today.
Absolutely not today.
She planted one hand on her desk and breathed through it.
Across the office, nobody noticed. Or maybe they did and simply chose the socially acceptable route of pretending not to. Phones rang. Someone laughed near the printer. A Teams notification pinged every three seconds from somewhere nearby like psychological torture.
The world kept moving.
It always did.
Sadie straightened the sleeves of her black blouse, adjusted the silver rings on her fingers, and picked up her coffee.
Black blouse. Black trousers. Black boots.
Her wardrobe looked less like a fashion choice and more like she was permanently attending the funeral of her own patience.
“Morning, Sadie.”
She glanced up to find Kelly from HR smiling at her brightly from beside the filing cabinets, holding one of those aggressively cheerful water bottles covered in motivational stickers.
Live Laugh Love people frightened her.
“Morning,” Sadie replied.
Kelly’s smile faltered slightly. “You okay? You look a bit pale.”
Sadie almost laughed.
Pale was practically part of her personality at this point.
“Just tired.”
The lie came automatically now. Easier than explaining that her reproductive system had apparently declared war on her before she’d even finished university.
Adenomyosis. Endometriosis. PCOS.
Three diagnoses by twenty-one.
Ten years later, she still remembered the consultant barely looking at her before suggesting weight loss like he was recommending a new skincare routine.
Some doctors saw a plus-sized woman and immediately stopped investigating. Sadie had learned that the hard way.
Kelly gave her a sympathetic smile. “You should really slow down sometimes.”
Cute.
Because slowing down definitely paid mortgages and kept projects running on schedule.
“I’ll pencil it in for next year,” Sadie said dryly.
Kelly blinked uncertainly before wandering away.
Sadie grabbed her laptop and headed for the meeting room before another cramp folded her in half in front of witnesses.
The operations meeting was already half full when she walked in. Derek, her manager, stood at the front beside a PowerPoint presentation titled Q3 Efficiency Strategy, which sounded suspiciously like something designed to suck the soul directly from the human body.
“Sadie,” Derek called. “Front row today.”
Of course.
Fantastic.
Nothing said “good morning” quite like suffering publicly.
She lowered herself carefully into the nearest chair and opened her laptop.
The screen flickered once.
Twice.
Then died completely.
Sadie stared at it.
“No.”
She hit the power button repeatedly.
Nothing.
A deep sense of betrayal settled over her.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Mark from Finance leaned sideways in his chair. “Maybe it finally gave up on life.”
“Honestly? Same.”
A few people laughed.
Derek sighed dramatically. “Can you run it down to IT before the SAP briefing this afternoon?”
Every muscle in Sadie’s body tensed.
IT.
Specifically one deeply irritating member of IT.
Nathan Cole.
The man looked permanently offended by human existence.
“Sure,” she muttered.
The meeting dragged on for another forty minutes while Sadie fought through cramps sharp enough to make her nauseous. By the end of it, her coffee had gone cold, her heating patches had stopped working, and somebody had used the phrase “touch base offline” twice.
Corporate language was a disease.
The second Derek dismissed everyone, Sadie escaped with her dead laptop tucked under one arm.
The IT department lived downstairs beside the server rooms where the lighting was dim and the air permanently smelled faintly of burnt coffee and despair.
Fitting.
She pushed open the door.
Three people sat behind cluttered desks surrounded by cables, monitors, and enough tech equipment to survive an apocalypse.
Only one looked up.
Nathan Cole.
Of course.
Dark hair slightly too long. Rolled-up sleeves exposing tattooed forearms. Tired eyes. Expression somewhere between exhausted and mildly homicidal.
The man never smiled.
At least not at her.
His gaze flicked toward the laptop in her hands.
“What did you do to it?”
No hello.
No good morning.
Straight to accusation.
Sadie placed the laptop on his desk. “Love seeing you too, sunshine.”
Nathan pulled the laptop toward him. “That bad, huh?”
“It died during Derek’s presentation.”
“Lucky laptop.”
She narrowed her eyes.
Nathan plugged something into the side of the machine, completely unbothered by her glare.
“Did you spill coffee on it?”
“No.”
“Drop it?”
“No.”
“Try turning it off and on again?”
Sadie stared at him flatly. “Wow. Original.”
One corner of his mouth twitched so briefly she almost missed it.
“And yet,” he said, “people still don’t do it.”
He focused on the screen while Sadie leaned against the desk, subtly pressing a hand against her stomach as another wave of pain rolled through her.
Sharp.
Hot.
Nauseating.
Her breath caught before she could stop it.
Nathan glanced up instantly.
“You alright?”
The question threw her off balance more than the pain did.
“I’m fine.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Clearly, he didn’t believe her.
Unfortunately for him, neither did she.
Nathan looked back at the laptop. “Your hard drive’s corrupted.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“That sounds annoying.”
“Well, at least we’re both suffering.”
Another almost-smile.
Interesting.
A phone rang somewhere behind them. Nobody answered it.
Nathan typed something quickly before looking back at her again, his gaze briefly dropping toward the way she was standing.
Protecting her stomach.
Guarding herself.
“You should probably sit down.”
Immediate irritation flared in her chest.
Not because he was wrong.
Because he’d noticed.
“I’m okay.”
“You’ve said that twice now.”
“And?”
“People who are actually okay usually only say it once.”
Sadie opened her mouth.
Closed it again.
Because annoyingly, he had a point.
Nathan slid another laptop across the desk toward her.
“Temporary replacement.”
She blinked. “Already?”
“I’m good at my job, Byrne.”
“That sounded dangerously close to confidence.”
“It’s not confidence if it’s true.”
Despite herself, Sadie felt the corner of her mouth twitch.
Nathan paused for a second like the expression surprised him too.
Weird.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket before either of them spoke again.
SAP IMPLEMENTATION — FINAL TEAM ASSIGNMENTS
Dread settled immediately in her stomach.
She opened the email.
Project Lead — Sadie Byrne
Technical Lead — Nathan Cole
Absolutely not.
Slowly, she lifted her head.
Nathan was staring at his own phone with the expression of a man reconsidering every life choice that had led him to this moment.
Their eyes met across the desk.
“Oh, this is going to be a nightmare,” Sadie said.
Nathan leaned back in his chair slowly.
“For one of us,” he replied.
And somehow that was worse.
