At the quarterly all-hands, during the raffle, my boyfriend won the company's two-person trip to Santorini.

The whole room was hooting, asking who he'd take.

I stood in the crowd, heart hammering.

The night before, in bed, I'd told him I was so tired, that I wanted to see the sea. He said once this busy stretch was over, he'd take me.

The old employee handbook said anyone dating someone from their own department had to report it to HR, and one of them had to transfer out. Neither of us wanted to leave, so we never went public.

So I said nothing. I just looked at him, waiting for him to speak.

He glanced in my direction.

Then he looked at someone else.

"Sophie. She really came through on that last project — I promised her a trip and never made good on it."

The hooting exploded.

Sophie got pushed into the middle by colleagues, blushing and laughing.

I stood where I was, mind a total blank.

All the way until after it broke up, when he chased me into the fire stairwell to explain.

"Listen to me. Her father is our biggest client. I'm right in the middle of my promotion review. I can't afford to offend her."

I turned and looked at him.

"Then go be with her. You two are a better fit."

1

His expression faltered.

"It's not what you think."

He grabbed my wrist. His fingertips were cool.

I shook him off and stepped back.

"Her father's a client. What does that have to do with her?"

He opened his mouth, lips moving, but nothing came out.

"She helped on a project — take her to dinner, isn't that enough? You need to fly her to Santorini?"

He opened his mouth again like he wanted to argue, but in the end he just looked away.

I didn't give him room to breathe. I dumped out all the anger I'd been holding down all afternoon in that conference hall.

"We've been together two years. You won't go public — fine, I get it."

"But that stupid rule about having to transfer departments if you report it? HR changed it last year the moment the new hire started. Now it's one form. You know that better than anyone."

He lowered his eyes. His throat moved.

"You never brought up going public. I told myself you were being careful, that you weren't ready."

"But today, in front of the entire company, you said you'd take another woman on a trip."

I bit down, and my voice started to shake.

"Where does that leave me? How am I supposed to sit in that office after this?"

He reached for my shoulder. I turned away.

"It's not what you think. Sophie's just a colleague. She doesn't even know about us."

"So because she doesn't know, you get to pick her over me in front of everyone?"

I looked him in the eye and suddenly it was almost funny.

"So if she doesn't know, does that mean one day you can marry her?"

His brow furrowed, and a thread of impatience finally crept into his voice. "Can you not do this?"

I shoved my hands into my trench coat pockets and dug my nails into my palm.

"Fine. Then tell me how I'm supposed to think."

"You tell me — if you were standing in that crowd, watching your girlfriend pick some other man for a trip, what would you think?"

He didn't answer.

I waited ten seconds. He didn't speak.

I turned and walked to the stairwell door. As I pushed it open, he called my name from behind.

"Eleanor Grey."

I stopped. I didn't turn around.

"I'll make it clear to her."

I didn't answer. I pushed the door and walked out.

Back at my desk, Maggie was coming over with a cup of milk tea — her English tea with two sugars — grinning at me.

"Darling, you were the only one not hooting just now. What's wrong, feeling poorly?"

I pulled my mouth into something like a smile, shook my head, said I was fine, and flipped open the papers on my desk.

The spreadsheet I hadn't finished that afternoon was still up on screen. I stared at the numbers for a few seconds and didn't take in a single one.

Priya from the next desk leaned over and dropped her voice.

"Why would Lucas pick Sophie, out of nowhere? Doesn't he usually talk to you more than anyone?"

"I don't know him that well."

I tucked the hair that had fallen loose behind my ear.

"Nothing personal."

Priya pulled a face, didn't push it, and shrank back to her keyboard.

I glanced sideways at Lucas's desk. He hadn't come back yet.

After a while, footsteps came from down the corridor.

Lucas was back.

He didn't look my way. He walked straight to his seat, pulled out his chair, sat down, opened his computer.

Not long after, Sophie stood up with an iced oat latte in her hand and click-click-clicked over to Lucas's desk in her heels.

"Lucas, thank you so much."

Her voice carried to several rows of desks.

"You really didn't have to. That project was my job anyway."

Lucas stood up and talked to her across the desk.

"I should. You helped a lot, and I promised you a trip."

Sophie bit her straw and smiled, looked down at her toes, and her voice went soft.

"So this Santorini trip — is it just the two of us?"