I was drinking coffee in sweatpants.

I stared at his name.

Then answered.

“Yes?”

“Harrington moved again.”

I almost laughed.

“You fired me.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

A pause.

“Habit.”

That surprised me.

“Jackson.”

“I’m not asking you to work.”

“Good.”

“I wanted to tell you your timeline held.”

I sat back.

“Legal used version fourteen?”

“Yes.”

“And the domestic projections?”

“Closed exactly where you modeled them.”

“Good.”

Silence.

Then Jackson said, “I should have said that more often.”

“Said what?”

“Good.”

That landed harder than I expected.

I looked out my apartment window.

“What do you want, Jackson?”

“Ten minutes.”

“For what?”

“A conversation.”

“We had one.”

“No. I gave orders. You resigned. That’s not a conversation.”

“You fired me.”

“You’re going to keep correcting that, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Fair.”

I almost smiled.

Almost.

“Ten minutes,” he repeated. “Public place. Your choice.”

I chose a coffee shop two blocks from my apartment.

Jackson arrived alone.

People noticed him immediately.

It was difficult not to.

He sat opposite me.

No laptop.

No folders.

That alone felt unnatural.

“You have nine minutes,” I said.

“I’ve rewritten your position.”

“No.”

“You haven’t heard it.”

“I don’t want my old job.”

“It isn’t your old job.”

He slid one sheet of paper across the table.

Director of Executive Operations.

I looked up.

“Jackson.”

“No weekend requirement without advance agreement. Authority to delegate. Separate reporting line for board operations. Thirty percent increase.”

“You think money fixes this.”

“No.”

“Then why thirty percent?”

“Because I was underpaying you.”

I blinked.

He continued.

“I had HR benchmark your actual responsibilities.”

“You had HR do that now?”

“Yes.”

“That’s embarrassing.”

“It was.”

I studied him.

“Why?”

His expression hardened, but not at me.

“Because Saturday morning, three senior executives spent two hours trying to locate information you had organized clearly enough that a competent person should have found it in five minutes.”

“That sounds flattering until the end.”

“It wasn’t meant to flatter anyone.”

I pushed the paper back.

“No.”

Jackson looked at it.

Then me.

“What would make you return?”

“Nothing today.”

He nodded once.

That surprised me too.

He stood.

“Thank you for the ten minutes.”

“That was only seven.”

“I’m learning efficiency.”

“Now you learn efficiency?”

The corner of his mouth moved.

He left.

That afternoon, Sophie called.

“You said no?”

“Yes.”

“To thirty percent?”

“Yes.”

“Are you feverish?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do?”

I looked at the job listings open on my laptop.

“Find out who Elena Carter is when she isn’t solving Jackson Pierce’s problems.”

Three days later, I interviewed with a technology firm.

Then an investment company.

Then a private foundation.

For the first time, people asked me what I wanted.

I had embarrassingly little practice answering.

Friday afternoon, Margot called.

“Don’t panic.”

“That sentence guarantees panic.”

“Pierce Global has an emergency board meeting.”

“Why?”

“Harrington.”

My stomach tightened.

“What happened?”

“Someone circulated an old valuation appendix.”

“That appendix has confidential assumptions.”

“I know.”

“Who sent it?”

“They don’t know.”

I closed my eyes.

“Tell Legal to compare the document metadata against the distribution log.”

Margot went silent.

“What?”

“That’s exactly what Jackson said.”

I opened my eyes.

“He remembered?”

“He said you taught him.”

That was new.

Then Margot added, “He also told everyone nobody was calling you.”

I frowned.

“Why?”

“His exact words were, ‘Elena Carter no longer works here. Our emergency is not her responsibility.’”

For several seconds, I said nothing.

Margot laughed softly.

“He’s learning.”

Maybe.

But by evening, Harrington had become something worse.

And this time, Jackson wasn’t the one who came looking for me.