Chapter Twelve: Gossip, Glances, and Goddamn Color Coding

Evelyn Winterborne pushed open the doors to Thornton Enterprises at exactly 8:59 a.m., iced coffee in one hand, oversized sunglasses covering half her face, and a vague feeling that she was walking straight into the lion's den.

She wasn't wrong.

The second she stepped into the open-concept floor, silence rippled.

Phones froze mid-air.

Coffee cups paused halfway to lips.

Desks suddenly became quiet zones as conversations dropped into stunned whispers.

Evelyn lifted her sunglasses slowly, one arched brow rising as her heels clicked confidently across the marble. She wasn't about to flinch—not now, not after she'd been practically meme'd into national fame for passing out in the arms of New York's coldest CEO.

No, sir.

"Good morning," she chirped sweetly to a slack-jawed junior associate.

He nodded. Twice. Wrong direction both times.

She hid her smirk and kept walking.

Back in the glass fortress that was Theodore Thornton's office, the man himself sat brooding like a Wall Street Dracula—glaring at his inbox, jaw tight, eyes scanning emails he couldn't be bothered to categorize.

Because someone had decided to organize his schedule in alphabetical order yesterday.

Alphabetical.

Meetings were no longer sorted by time or priority—but by title.

Which meant "Brunch with Korean Investors" had leapfrogged ahead of "Boardroom Crisis: Asia Division."

His Tuesday morning was now held hostage by colorful chaos.

And she wasn't here to fix it.

Until she was.

He looked up the second he heard the door open.

And just like that—like a switch—his office felt normal again.

Or at least, functional.

"Morning, boss man," Evelyn said breezily, dropping her bag and shrugging out of her coat. "Enjoyed your Monday of press-fueled engagement rumors?"

He blinked at her, the only sign of recognition in that cold, unreadable face.

"I'll take that as a yes." She flopped into her desk chair outside his office and began sorting files like she hadn't just been the nation's favorite tabloid headline.

Theodore didn't speak.

But his shoulders dropped half an inch.

He picked up his pen.

And his inbox... stopped looking like a crime scene.

The whispers, however, didn't.

Across the floor, employees huddled in corners, stared over coffee cups, and not-so-subtly watched Evelyn's every move.

"I bet it's a real engagement and they're playing it off."

"Please. She was carried. He touched her like she was made of glass."

"I don't know, maybe it's a PR stunt? But she lives in Brooklyn. There's no way—"

"Exactly! She's normal. That's the plot twist!"

"She color-coded his emails pink last week and he didn't fire her."

"She what?"

"Pink. For 'urgent.' Like, hot pink."

"No one survives that kind of chaos unless the CEO secretly likes it."

They all turned to stare again.

Evelyn met their eyes, sipped her iced coffee, and gave a slow, deliberate wink.

Inside the office, Theodore was not thinking about hot pink emails.

Except... he kind of was.

Not because he liked the color (he despised it), but because—against all logic—the damn system worked.

Last week, he had skimmed through three hundred emails in record time because Evelyn had labeled them like some kind of caffeinated unicorn.

Red: Meetings
Yellow: Contracts
Green: Financial summaries
Pink: Urgent

It had made his eyes bleed—but his response rate had improved by 40%.

And yesterday, in her absence, the emails were back to default black-and-white and a mess of subject lines he didn't have time for.

He hated it.

He hated that he missed the pink.

What the hell had she done to him?

By 11 a.m., Evelyn had fielded three internal calls, fixed the schedule back to chronological, reminded two executives of their own meetings, and responded to fourteen emails—all while pretending she didn't hear the HR team whispering behind the glass walls.

Theodore hadn't said a word.

But he hadn't corrected her either.

He let her rearrange everything.

He let her touch his schedule.

Hell, he even let her throw out the soy protein bars he hadn't touched since last Thursday and replace them with actual lunch options.

That alone was worth a headline.

By lunchtime, the floor was buzzing.

Someone had spotted them both on DeuxMoi last night. Lie. She was hungover from the gala at home.

Someone else had printed the ship name "Eveo" on a sticker and slapped it onto the breakroom microwave.

Evelyn groaned when she saw it.

"You've got to be kidding me, it's a fake engagement guys..ding ding" she muttered.

Just then, Theodore stepped into the breakroom.

Silence.

The microwave sticker stared at him like a dare.

His eyes narrowed.

Evelyn braced herself.

But he said nothing.

Instead, he grabbed a coffee pod, slid it into the machine, and turned to her.

"Lunch?"

She blinked. "You're... inviting me?"

"No. I'm asking if you scheduled it."

"Oh."

A pause.

"I assumed you'd be in meetings, sir."

"I was. They were moved."

"To when?"

He took a sip of coffee.

"Alphabetical order," he said dryly.

She winced.

"I'm never calling in sick again, am I?"

"Not unless you want this company run by an intern who thinks 'Zumba With Zurich' should be top priority."

She snorted. "I'd pay to see that."

His mouth twitched.

Just barely.

But it was there.

The ghost of a smile.

Back at her desk, Evelyn was ambushed by three messages from HR asking for a "quick chat" and a "clarification on public narratives."

She ignored all three.

Then PR messaged her.

Hey Evelyn. Quick Q. Can you confirm you're not engaged in reality? Just need something on the record. Also, the photo's been shared by six celebrity accounts and your followers just hit 50k.

She texted back:

Not engaged. Just tragically clumsy and accidentally posing to be his fiancee for the world.

Also, tell them to stop posting memes of him carrying me like a rom-com poster. It's weird.

And kinda flattering. But mostly weird.

At 4:30 p.m., the day had settled into an odd kind of rhythm.

People still stared.

Whispers still swirled.

But Evelyn had reclaimed her desk like a throne, and Theodore hadn't fired her yet—so she figured that counted as a win.

Then he appeared at her desk again, holding out a tablet.

She took it, scanning the data.

"These aren't updated projections," she said, frowning. "These are two weeks old."

He nodded once.

"I know. You caught it."

She looked up, surprised. "Didn't think you'd notice."

"I notice everything."

Another pause.

He leaned down, just slightly, voice low.

"You being here makes this place tolerable."

Her eyes widened.

"You're saying I'm not completely useless?"

"I'm saying," he said, standing tall again, "that I'd like my emails pink-coded again by morning."

Her lips parted in mock outrage. "You do like the pink!"

"I never said that."

"But you implied it."

"I said nothing."

"You implied everything."

He turned and walked back into his office.

She grinned.

The king of cold had just admitted—in his way—that he missed her.

And she?

She might just be falling for this absurd office life, pink emails and all.

End of Chapter Twelve