By the third day, Cassian was starting to get the hang of temple life—or so he thought.
He swept leaves in silence. Sat through meditation sessions he didn't understand. Ate rice and vegetables on the floor with the monks, nodding when they nodded, bowing when they bowed. Still no phone. No schedule. No Sienna.
That morning, just after sunrise, a young monk motioned for him to follow. Cassian obeyed without question. He figured it was another chore.
The monk led him to a shaded courtyard where a large silver basin sat gleaming with water. Another monk stood beside it, holding a folded robe and a small towel. A third arrived with a short wooden stool.
Cassian blinked at them.
The elder monk smiled gently, pressed his hands together in a prayer-like gesture, and said, "New mind. New path."
Cassian tilted his head. "New… what?"
The monk patted his own bald head, then pointed at Cassian's hair.
Cassian nodded slowly. "Ah. Right. Hair wash."
The monk smiled brighter and motioned for him to sit.
Cassian sat on the stool obediently, even closed his eyes. Water splashed as someone dipped a ladle into the basin. A towel was draped around his shoulders.
He felt almost relaxed.
Until he heard the buzz.
His eyes flew open. "Wait—what the fu—"
Zzzzzip. The clippers ran right down the center of his head. A clump of wet hair flopped into his lap.
He jerked, but the monk behind him calmly placed a hand on his shoulder. Another monk stood in front of him, hands folded, offering silent encouragement like this was the most natural thing in the world.
Cassian stared ahead in disbelief.
He was getting his head shaved.
And no one seemed to think this was weird.
One of the younger monks by the basin looked like he was biting the inside of his cheek trying not to laugh. Cassian gave him a flat look, and the boy bowed hurriedly and looked away.
When it was done, they handed him the mirror—a round polished metal plate.
Cassian stared.
He looked like a very expensive, very pissed-off egg.
"Fresh mind," the elder monk said, smiling. "Very good."
Cassian exhaled through his nose. "Yeah. Super fresh."
Another monk gave him a thumbs-up.
He returned to the main hall bald, barefoot, and mildly stunned.
But somewhere between the laughter from the novice monks and the breeze brushing over his scalp… he started laughing too.
It was ridiculous. Humbling. Human.
He hadn't laughed like that in weeks.
And maybe, just maybe, this peace thing was starting to work.
Except it didn't.
Because when he closed his eyes that night—lying on a thin mat beneath an open-air pavilion with nothing but the stars and the scent of incense drifting around him—it wasn't peace that filled him.
It was her.
Sienna.
The way she smiled when she thought no one saw. The tilt of her head when she was annoyed. The softness in her voice when she said his name, not as an assistant, not as a subordinate, but as if he was hers.
The monks sat in long silences during their meditations. Cassian couldn't. Every silence only made her louder in his mind.
When he helped sweep the temple steps, he thought of her wiping down the whiteboard after a meeting.
When they served him plain rice and fruit, he remembered her handing him coffee, fingers brushing.
When he bowed, he pictured the slight dip of her chin when she was trying not to cry that day in the hallway—after he'd told her they'd stop.
He had left to forget. To clear his head. To find peace.
But Sienna had followed him here.
Not in body. In memory. In need. In everything he didn't know how to let go of.
He sat cross-legged in the stone courtyard that evening, the sky bleeding orange over the treetops, and tried to breathe.
But all he could see were her eyes looking up at him, asking silently, Did it mean anything to you, too?
He hadn't answered then.
But now, the silence was unbearable.
Peace, he realized, wouldn't come from solitude.
It would only come from her.
So he gave up.
Cassian pulled out his phone for the first time in days and turned it on.
The moment the screen lit up, it was chaos.
Fifty-three missed calls. Two hundred unread emails. Messages from Luis, from the board, from clients, from the team. Even Camille had texted: wtf where are you?? And Sienna—just one message. A short one. Simple. Hope you're okay.
He stared at her words longer than all the others combined.
He didn't even read the rest. Didn't check the meeting requests or calendar invites. He just exhaled through his nose, swore under his breath, and muttered, "That's it."
He was going home.
Not because they needed him. Not because the company was in a spiral.
But because he couldn't do this anymore.
He couldn't pretend peace was a place. Not when he knew damn well it was a person.
His beautiful, brilliant, maddening assistant who somehow made his life more bearable and more insane all at once.
He needed to see her.
He needed to fix this.
He needed her.