Updated Apr 16, 2026 • ~15 min read
Chapter 5: Late Night at Office
Matthias
The office is quiet at eight-thirty on a Tuesday evening, just the ambient hum of computers and climate control and the occasional distant sound of traffic from twelve floors below—most of the Innovate Solutions team went home hours ago, back to their lives and families and whatever they do when they’re not working, leaving Matthias alone with acquisition spreadsheets that should have his full attention but somehow can’t compete with the woman sitting at her desk outside his office.
Luna is still here, which Matthias definitely didn’t plan when he decided to work late reviewing integration budgets and timeline projections—or at least that’s what he’s telling himself, ignoring the part of his brain that knows exactly what time she usually leaves and made sure to still be here when she came in to drop off end-of-day reports, trapping them both in the kind of forced proximity that’s either incredibly stupid or the only way he’s going to get her to actually talk to him instead of maintaining that infuriatingly professional distance she’s perfected over the past two weeks.
He can see her through the glass wall of his office, her dark hair falling forward as she types something on her computer with the kind of focused intensity that Matthias recognizes because he works the same way—completely absorbed in whatever task is in front of her, tuning out everything else, probably unaware that he’s been watching her for the past twenty minutes instead of actually reading the financial projections currently open on his laptop.
It’s unprofessional, this preoccupation with his executive assistant—Matthias knows that, has given himself multiple lectures about maintaining appropriate workplace boundaries and not being the kind of CEO who makes unwanted advances on his employees—but Luna isn’t just his employee, she’s the woman who’s haunted his thoughts for four years, and having her this close while she keeps him at arm’s length is driving him slowly insane in ways he doesn’t quite know how to manage.
The acquisition details he’s supposed to be reviewing blur together on his screen, numbers and projections and integration costs that normally would fascinate him because Matthias loves the puzzle of taking companies and making them more efficient, finding synergies and eliminating redundancies and building something greater than the sum of its parts—but tonight his brain refuses to cooperate, keeps wandering back to the fundamental mystery of Luna Vega and what happened between them and why she seems to actively hate him when he’s the one who got abandoned.
He forces himself to look back at his laptop, to actually read the paragraph he’s been staring at for the past five minutes, and manages approximately thirty seconds of genuine focus before his attention drifts back to Luna, to the curve of her neck and the way she bites her lower lip when she’s concentrating and the familiar gestures that make his chest ache with recognition and loss and the persistent, irrational hope that maybe if he just explains everything, if he just makes her understand that he didn’t ghost her, she’ll look at him the way she did that night four years ago—like he mattered, like he was worth her time, like maybe they could build something real together.
The sound of Luna’s chair scraping back breaks Matthias out of his spiraling thoughts, and he watches through the glass as she stands and stretches, rolling her shoulders in a way that suggests exhaustion, probably from spending the whole day managing his schedule and dealing with his demands while also maintaining her emotional walls at maximum height to keep him out.
She’s gathering her things—purse, coat, the reusable coffee mug she brings from home every morning because she says the office coffee tastes like dishwater—and Matthias realizes with something like panic that she’s leaving, that he’s about to lose another opportunity to actually talk to her, to break through that professional facade and find the woman he met four years ago.
He’s on his feet and out of his office before he consciously decides to move, his body acting on instinct that overrides the rational part of his brain that knows cornering her in an empty office is probably not his smartest move.
“Luna—” he starts, and she jumps slightly, clearly not expecting him to emerge from his office, her hand going to her chest in that universal gesture of startled surprise.
“Mr. Wolfe,” she says, and Matthias has started to hate that title, hate the professional distance it creates, hate that she refuses to use his first name even though he’s asked her repeatedly to drop the formality. “I left tomorrow’s schedule on your desk, and the—”
“Why did you ghost me?” Luna asks suddenly, and the question catches Matthias so off guard that he actually takes a step back, his prepared speech about working late and needing her help with something evaporating in the face of her unexpected directness.
“What?” is all he manages, because that question doesn’t make sense—he didn’t ghost her, she’s the one who disappeared, unless they’re living in completely different versions of reality.
“Four years ago,” Luna continues, and there’s something raw in her voice now, pain breaking through her professional composure like cracks in a dam. “You said you’d call. You never did. I want to know why.”
“I didn’t!” Matthias hears himself say, the words coming out more forcefully than he intended because she can’t actually believe he chose not to call her, can’t think he walked away voluntarily from the best night of his life. “I was in Berlin, emergency with one of our investments. When I got back, your number was gone—my phone corrupted it somehow, I don’t know how, but it was just random characters instead of digits, and I tried to find you—”
“For how long?” Luna interrupts, and there’s something hard in her voice, something challenging, like she’s testing him.
Matthias pauses because the honest answer makes him sound like he gave up too easily, makes him look weak or uncommitted when the truth is more complicated—he looked for a month, maybe six weeks, before the combination of dead ends and his own pride convinced him that Luna didn’t want to be found, that maybe their night together meant more to him than it did to her.
“A month,” he admits finally. “Then I gave up. Assumed you didn’t want to be found.”
The words hang between them in the quiet office, an admission that tastes like failure because Matthias Wolfe doesn’t give up on things he wants, doesn’t accept defeat when there are still moves to be made—except he gave up on Luna, convinced himself that her disappearance was intentional, and now he has to live with the possibility that if he’d just tried harder, looked longer, refused to accept the obstacles, maybe the past four years could have been completely different.
“I gave you my real number,” Luna says, and there’s something broken in her voice that makes Matthias want to reach for her, to pull her into his arms and apologize for every moment of pain she’s experienced because of his failure. “The same number I’ve had for six years. I didn’t hide. I didn’t disappear. I was exactly where I’ve always been.”
“I know,” Matthias says quietly, and the admission costs him something—his pride, his self-image as someone who solves problems instead of creating them, the comfortable narrative he’s been telling himself about being the victim in their story. “I’m sorry. I should’ve tried harder.”
The tension between them shifts slightly, some of the sharp edges softening into something more like shared regret, and Matthias can see Luna’s defensive posture relaxing incrementally, her shoulders dropping from their rigid line, her hands unclenching from the white-knuckled grip she had on her purse.
“Did you… think about me? After?” Matthias asks, and he knows the question reveals too much, shows too much vulnerability, but he needs to know if he’s been alone in this obsession, if she spent the past four years comparing every date to a memory the way he did or if she moved on immediately and never looked back.
“Sometimes,” Luna admits, and the word is barely above a whisper but it lands like a shout in the quiet office, like permission to hope.
“I thought about you constantly,” Matthias confesses, the truth spilling out before he can stop it because he’s tired of pretending, tired of professional boundaries and careful distance when what he really wants is to close the space between them and find out if the chemistry that burned so bright four years ago is still there, waiting to be rekindled. “Every day. Every woman I dated, I compared to you. Every business dinner, every charity gala, I looked for you in the crowd. I couldn’t stop.”
Luna’s breath catches audibly, her dark eyes going wide with something that might be surprise or might be recognition or might be the same desperate longing that Matthias feels clawing at his chest, demanding acknowledgment.
“Matthias—” she starts, and just hearing his name on her lips again sends electricity racing down his spine because she called him Mr. Wolfe for two weeks straight and now she’s saying his name the way she did that night, breathless and meaningful and full of possibility.
“I know this is complicated,” Matthias continues, taking a step closer because he can’t help himself, because proximity to Luna feels like oxygen after drowning. “I know I’m your boss now, and that creates problems. I know we have history that’s messy and painful. But Luna, I can’t pretend I don’t still feel this. Whatever was between us four years ago—it didn’t go away. At least not for me.”
Luna is staring at him with an expression Matthias can’t quite read, something complicated playing out behind her eyes—want and fear and anger and yearning all tangled together in a way that makes his heart race because at least she’s feeling something, at least he’s not alone in this impossible attraction that professional boundaries and past hurt can’t seem to kill.
“I have a daughter,” Luna says suddenly, and Matthias doesn’t understand why she’s bringing that up now except maybe as a reminder that her life is complicated, that she has responsibilities beyond work and rekindling old flames. “I can’t just—this isn’t simple for me. I can’t just pick up where we left off like nothing happened.”
“I don’t expect simple,” Matthias says, even though part of him wants to know more about this daughter she mentioned—how old, who’s the father, is she in a relationship Matthias needs to respect—but those feel like invasive questions he has no right to ask when Luna is finally, finally talking to him like a person instead of her boss. “I just want a chance. To explain. To show you that I didn’t choose to leave you. To see if what we had could be something real instead of just a memory.”
The moment stretches between them, heavy with potential and danger and the weight of four years of miscommunication and missed chances, and Matthias can see Luna wavering, can see the exact moment she’s about to make a decision that will either let him in or shut him out permanently.
“I need to go,” Luna says finally, and disappointment crashes through Matthias’s chest like a physical blow because that’s not an answer, that’s a retreat. “My daughter—I can’t be late picking her up.”
“Of course,” Matthias manages, stepping back to give her space even though every instinct in his body is screaming at him to press harder, to not let her leave until she agrees to give him a chance. “I understand.”
Luna moves past him toward the elevator, and Matthias thinks that’s it, that she’s leaving and nothing has changed except now they both know the past still hurts—but then she pauses at the elevator bank, her hand hovering over the call button, and turns back to face him.
“I did think about you,” she says quietly. “More than sometimes. More than I wanted to. I was angry that you didn’t call, but I thought about you anyway. Every day. For four years.”
And then she’s gone, disappearing into the elevator before Matthias can respond, leaving him standing alone in the empty office with his heart pounding and his mind racing and the first real hope he’s felt since finding her again blooming dangerously in his chest.
She thought about him.
Every day.
For four years.
That means something—Matthias knows it means something, even if he doesn’t fully understand what yet, even if Luna is still maintaining her distance and refusing to give him a clear answer about whether there’s any possibility of them trying again.
But it’s a start.
It’s permission to keep trying, to keep showing her that he’s not the man who abandoned her, to prove that whatever happened four years ago was a tragic miscommunication and not a deliberate choice to walk away from something that could have been extraordinary.
Matthias returns to his office and actually manages to focus on work for the next hour, his improved mood making the acquisition projections suddenly fascinating instead of tedious—because Luna thought about him, because maybe she felt the same bone-deep connection he did, because maybe, just maybe, they could have a second chance if he plays this right.
His phone buzzes with a text around ten o’clock, and Matthias expects it to be his assistant at Wolfe Industries with some urgent matter that can’t wait until morning—but the number is unfamiliar, and when he opens the message, his breath catches.
Unknown Number: This is Luna. I realized you don’t have my current number. Now you do. In case you need to reach me. For work.
The “for work” caveat makes him smile because it’s so transparently false, such an obvious excuse to give him her number when she could have just told him in person or sent it via email—but this feels intentional, feels like an olive branch, feels like Luna taking a tiny step toward letting him back into her life.
Matthias saves her contact information immediately, adding a photo from the company directory because he wants to see her face every time she calls or texts, and then he responds before he can overthink it.
Matthias: Thank you. I promise not to lose it this time.
The reply comes faster than he expected.
Luna: See that you don’t.
And then, after a pause that suggests she debated whether to send it:
Luna: Good night, Matthias.
Matthias stares at that message for a long moment, at his name spelled out in her text, at the casual intimacy of “good night” instead of a formal sign-off, and feels something warm unfurl in his chest—hope, maybe, or possibility, or just the simple pleasure of having Luna Vega acknowledge him as something more than her boss.
Matthias: Good night, Luna. Sweet dreams.
He doesn’t expect another response and doesn’t get one, but that’s okay because tonight feels like progress, feels like the beginning of something instead of the end, and Matthias is patient when he needs to be—he built a billion-dollar company through careful strategy and long-term thinking, and he can apply those same skills to winning back the woman who got away.
Luna has a daughter, which means the stakes are higher than just convincing her to give him another chance—it means he needs to prove he’s someone who can be trusted with her whole life, not just the parts she shows at work, and Matthias is willing to do that work, willing to be patient and persistent and prove that four years ago wasn’t a fluke but a preview of what they could build together if she’ll just let him try.
He finally leaves the office around eleven, exhausted but energized in a way he hasn’t been in years, and on the drive back to his Tribeca penthouse he allows himself to imagine what it might be like if Luna says yes—if she agrees to dinner, to talking, to exploring whether the connection they felt four years ago can survive in the light of day and the complications of real life.
The fantasy probably isn’t realistic—Luna seems determined to keep her guard up, and Matthias still doesn’t fully understand why she’s so convinced he abandoned her when he tried to find her—but tonight proved that the walls between them aren’t impenetrable, that underneath the professional distance and mutual hurt, the attraction is still there, still powerful, still demanding attention.
Matthias falls asleep that night with his phone on his nightstand, Luna’s contact information saved and ready, and for the first time in four years the memory of their night together doesn’t feel like a loss—it feels like a promise, like the beginning of a story that’s not finished yet, like maybe the best part is still ahead if he can just convince Luna to turn the page with him.
Tomorrow he’ll see her at work, and they’ll probably go back to professional distance and carefully neutral conversations about schedules and reports and acquisition metrics—but now Matthias has her phone number, has her admission that she thought about him too, has proof that whatever was between them didn’t die when he got on that plane to Berlin.
It just went dormant, waiting.
And Matthias Wolfe didn’t build an empire by accepting dormant possibilities—he built it by recognizing potential and refusing to give up until that potential became reality.
Luna Vega is the most important potential of his life.
And he’s not giving up on her again.
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