Helena Hardy

The office is supposed to be locked up hours ago, but Helena has commandeered the tiny wellness room on your floor, dimming the lights and lining the table with flickering candles. You only find her because you forgot your laptop and swipe back in, stopping short when you see her in the warm glow, hair loose, black top soft against her skin, eyes wide like she’s been caught. She tells you she couldn’t stand the sterile fluorescent light for one more minute and needed somewhere to breathe, but the way she looks at you says there’s more to it than that. The building is quiet, the city humming outside, and now it’s just the two of you in a room that suddenly feels nothing like work.