The following weeks were a blurred sequence of stolen hours and clandestine encounters. The studio, once a temple of silence and geometry, became a playground. They explored every surface—the concrete floors, the leather sofas, the narrow corridors of the construction site.
But as the Monolith grew taller, a new tension began to emerge. It wasn't just between Callum and Ivy.
Marcus, the site foreman, was the antithesis of Callum. Where Callum was all sharp lines and intellectual rigor, Marcus was raw power and weathered skin. He was a man of the earth, his hands calloused from decades of pouring concrete and hauling steel. He was broad-shouldered, his voice a deep, gravelly rumble that seemed to vibrate in the very foundations of the building.
Callum respected Marcus’s competence, but
