HR so nobody to feel guilty about.

Her name was well is Carmen Delgado. HR Director. Age thirty-seven. Known for reducing interns to tears and once writing a three-page single-spaced memo about proper stapler usage. She had the kind of face that looked like it had never smiled naturally, only performed the action when required by social protocol.

Miles discovered his power on Carmen Delgado. A woman he would rather never know.

The email arrived at 2:47 PM. Subject line: Performance Review Required. Conference Room B. Immediate.

Conference Room B was the small one. The one with the broken thermostat and the chair that squeaked. Miles had sat in it twice before, both times to sign forms acknowledging he understood he was not entitled to health insurance. Carmen had watched him sign with the patience of a vulture.

This time she sat across from him with a folder open. His folder. She did not look up when he entered.

"Sit."

The chair squeaked. Carmen's pen scratched against paper. The silence stretched until Miles considered that he might die in this room, that his body would be found by the cleaning crew and his parents would have to identify him while Carmen explained that he had failed to meet expectations regarding breathing.

"You have been here eleven weeks." Her accent was precise, Colombian, the consonants sharp enough to cut paper. "In that time, you have not filed a single complaint. No disputes with coworkers. No requests for advancement. No incident reports. No personality."

"I... thought that was good?"

"That is the problem, Mr. Brown." She finally looked up. Her eyes were the color of strong coffee and about as warm. "You are invisible. You are furniture. You contribute nothing to workplace culture because you refuse to engage with it. Do you know what happens to employees who do not cause problems?"

"They keep their jobs?"

"They become irrelevant. And irrelevant employees are let go during restructuring. Which is happening next quarter." She closed the folder with a snap. "You are not being retained. Your internship will conclude at month end. You may use that time to learn how to be memorable."

Something broke in Miles' chest. Not his heart. Something adjacent to it. The autopilot had failed. The keeping his head down had resulted in exactly what he feared. He would be ejected from the only place he had managed to fit.

He looked at Carmen Delgado, really looked at her, and felt something new. Not anger. Not despair. A reaching. A hunger.

I wish you understood, he thought. I wish you saw me. I wish you were someone who wanted me to stay.

The reaching found purchase.

Carmen blinked. Her hand went to her throat, not in fear, but as if loosening a collar that had suddenly become too tight. The severe bun at her neck began to unravel, dark strands falling free across her shoulders, glossy and full. She did not seem to notice.

Miles noticed everything, because he could feel it happening. The reaching was not one way. It fed back into him, warm and electric, a connection humming with information he had no right to know. He could feel her confusion softening into certainty, her professional disdain evaporating like morning fog. He could feel her seeing him differently, and worst of all, he could feel that he was the one doing it.

Stop, he thought, panicked. Stop reaching.

He could not stop.

"These people," Carmen continued, her accent thickening, musical edges creeping into her consonants. She leaned forward, closing the distance, her eyes fixed on his with an intensity that made his chest tight. "They do not appreciate what you are."

The feedback surged. Miles felt her evaluation of him shifting in real time, felt her mind reshuffling priorities, felt genuine concern for his wellbeing crystallizing where cold dismissal had been. It was like watching someone fall in love in fast forward, and he was the one pushing them.

This is wrong, he thought. This is me. This is my fault.

"They give you nothing," she said, her hand reaching out to brush his shoulder. The touch sent a jolt through the connection, and Miles felt her own pulse quicken, felt her skin warm with sudden attraction, felt all of it mirrored back into his own nervous system until he could not tell where she ended and his influence began. "No más, sí?"

"I don't..." Miles started, meaning to say I don't know what's happening or I don't want this or I don't understand, but the feedback flooded him with her sudden worry that she had offended him, her desperate need to correct course, to please him, to be exactly what he needed, and the words died in his throat.

Carmen stood, moving around the table with a grace that carried her perfume, warm and inviting, definitely not present when he entered. She walked with an exaggerated sway, a deliberate wiggle of her hips that commanded attention, each step a statement of invitation. She stood too close now, hips still angled toward him, her body language having rewritten itself into something flirtatious and possessive.

"You deserve someone who takes care of you," she said, her fingers tracing down his arm, casual and intimate. The touch opened the connection wider, and Miles felt it, felt the power drinking in his desires, his loneliness, his secret wish to be seen, and translating it into her. She was becoming his ideal, and he could feel every adjustment, every calibration, every piece of her authentic self bending to complement his damage.

She did not wait for him to answer. Her hand shot out, fingers curling into his tie, and she pulled him up from the squeaking chair with a strength that surprised them both. She bent over him, dark hair falling like a curtain around their faces, and pressed her lips to his.

The kiss opened the connection wide, a floodgate of sensation pouring through the feedback loop. Miles felt her desire, her certainty, her absolute conviction that this was right, that he was everything she had failed to see, that she would spend every moment from now forward making sure he never felt invisible again. He felt her authentic self reshaping around the template of his need, and he felt how genuinely thrilled she was to become this person for him.

When she finally pulled back, her lips were swollen, her eyes dark with an affection that had not existed five minutes ago. She kept her grip on his tie, keeping him close, her breath warm against his face.

Then she reached into her blazer pocket and pressed a folded scrap of paper into his palm. Her personal stationery, not company letterhead. An address in the upscale district, followed by a phone number she had not given any intern before.

"Two hours," she said, her accent thick enough to taste, rolling the words in her mouth like candy. "You come to me. I intend to spoil you, Miles. To show you exactly how you deserve to be treated."

She released his tie with a reluctant slide of her fingers, as if touching him had become necessary, addictive. "Do not keep me waiting, mi vida."

The power hummed between them, hungry for more, and Miles realized with perfect clarity that he had just done something that could not be undone. He had reached into another person and reshaped them, and the feedback had shown him exactly how much they enjoyed being reshaped. Carmen did not know she was changing. She only knew that she had never wanted anyone to feel safe as much as she wanted it for him right now.

He had reached out. And she had answered.

And he had no idea how to let go.