Chapter 2 - The Midnight Blueprint
By midnight, the offices of Carter & Associates looked like a disaster zone.
Empty coffee cups littered the drafting tables, crumpled tracing paper overflowed the recycling bins, and the digital clock in the corner blinked mercilessly: 01:14 AM. My eyes burned from staring at CAD software for six hours straight, trying to compress a six-month construction timeline into a thirty-six-hour sprint.
My phone buzzed on the edge of the desk.
Expecting another frantic text from my structural engineer about supply chain delays in New Jersey, I swiped the screen.
Unknown Number:
Stop working. You'll make mistakes on the load-bearing calculations for the mezzanine lounge.
I frowned, staring at the glowing text. I hadn't given my personal cell number to anyone at Kang Hospitality Group except Mark, and Mark went to bed at nine o'clock sharp.
Who is this? I typed back.
A minute passed. Then my phone buzzed again.
Unknown Number:
Someone who knows you haven't eaten since noon. Look down.
My heart skipped a beat. I crossed the loft-style studio, pushing open the heavy metal door that led to the cobblestone alleyway behind our building.
Parked at the curb beneath the flickering amber streetlamp was a sleek, matte-black town car with tinted windows. The rear door clicked open, and a tall figure stepped out into the freezing night air.
Daniel Kang.
He wasn't wearing his tailored charcoal suit tonight. Instead, he wore a heavy black wool overcoat, his collar turned up against the wind, his dark hair ruffled slightly by the midnight breeze. He held a plain brown paper bag in one hand and two steaming cups of coffee in the other.
I froze on the concrete step, clutching my cardigan tightly around my shoulders. "Mr. Kang? What are you... how did you know where my office was?"
"You listed the studio address on your incorporation tax filings," Daniel said smoothly, walking across the pavement toward the steps. His voice was calm, cutting through the silence of the alleyway. "And as for what I'm doing here—you have twelve people working under your name, and you're trying to carry the structural load of a twenty-story hotel on your own shoulders. That's inefficient."
"I don't need your efficiency audit, Mr. Kang," I said, trying to sound defensive, though the rich, warm scent of roasted coffee beans drifting from the paper cup he held was already dismantling my resolve. "And I certainly didn't ask you to deliver midnight takeout."
Daniel stopped two steps below me, tilting his head slightly as he looked up. In the dim amber light of the streetlamp, the sharp angles of his face looked less like a corporate titan and more like something carved from granite—dangerous, unyielding, yet strangely captivating.
"It's not takeout," he said softly, holding up the brown bag. "It's garlic pork soup from a place in Chinatown that stays open until three a.m. It helps with exhaustion."
"How do you know what helps with exhaustion?" I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper.
Daniel held my gaze for a long, quiet moment. The wind rustled the dead leaves in the gutter between us.
"Because," he said, his voice dropping an octave, "I've spent a lot of late nights watching people work themselves into the ground."
May you like
He set the coffee and the bag on the top step beside my feet, turned without another word, and slid back into the waiting town car. The door shut with a solid, muffled thud, and within seconds, the car dissolved into the New York traffic, leaving me standing alone in the cold with a cup of coffee and a heart that refused to slow down.
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