This is what he got for hating to fly. If he'd just taken the flight back from Portland he'd be home already. Except he'd also be thousands and thousands of feet up in the air. That was just not a good enough of a trade off in Dakota's mind. He was willing to bite the bullet and even share his private compartment with a stranger.

It wasn't like his day could get worse. After the call from his ex-wife that morning, a new low would have to be below ground to be considered. Especially after she had asked him to invest in her new fiance's business. The only way he'd have gotten on a plane was if it was to get away from her.

Still, his inconvenience would be worth it to not see the woman across from him harassed by a creep on the train. Something about the panicked look on her face as she looked for an escape had drawn him in. The wide doe eyed gaze desperately scanning the seats reminded him of the same lost look he'd seen on himself in the mirror so many times.

Dakota leaned forward, slowly raising his hand when he saw her lean further back into her seat. "Just trying to introduce myself properly. Dakota," he said.

She took his hand and shook it briefly. "Mariana, it's nice to meet you." Her grip was firm but not aggressive or crushing. Mariana settled back into her seat and leaned on her left elbow to stare out the window, effectively shutting down further conversation.

The train sped along smoothly, down the tracks on their way to southern California. By an hour in, the tension in the compartment had dissipated as they both turned their focus to their work. Dakota had his laptop balanced on his knee as he scrolled through email after email. His eyes had started to burn and he moved the laptop to the seat next to him and leaned his head back.

"So you do blink," Mariana said.

Dakota looked up to see her staring directly at him. Her own work was in the form of a stack of papers separated by colorful folders and sticky tabs poking out at regular intervals. "Were you watching me?"

"Yeah. You looked like you'd turned into a statue, I was worried." Mariana lowered her eyes back to a heavily annotated piece of paper. "You're an angry typer."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Dakota crossed his leg to rest his right ankle on his left knee. Her eyes looked just as tired as his and he wondered if she'd been looking for an excuse to take a break.

Mariana sighed and tucked her pen behind her ear. "You push your keys as if you are crushing ants, like a child on the playground. One of these days you'll hit the wrong key and you'll snap the entire laptop. You should look into meditation and deep breathing."

Dakota snorted and began laughing. "Are you trying to psychoanalyze me based on the way I answer emails from lawyers?"The laptop beside him beeped with a new incoming message. "Alright, show me how you would answer them." He lifted the computer to give her room to sit beside him.

"I couldn't do that, I've never talked to a high class lawyer like you do," Mariana said nervously. After some insistence and coaxing, she did move to sit next to him. The laptop was warm against her knee.

"I have full faith you will be able to speak your mind and get your point across," Dakota assured her. The email wasn't anything overly important, a small dispute with a new hire in one of the businesses his company had bought. Even if she sent something subpar he could get ahold of the lawyer before any steps were taken. "Go on, show me how you'd handle typing out a response."

Mariana leaned forward slightly to read the email. Strands of her long brown hair trailed down her back and fell away from her neck as she moved. Her fingers hovered over the keys, forefinger sliding along the touchpad to move the mouse.

"Type gently, if you break my keyboard, you'll owe me a new one," he whispered in her ear. It was a strange choice, whispering in a room only occupied by the two of them. It made it feel like a promise between the two of them, or a threat. Goosebumps along her skin followed after the puff of his breath ghosted over her neck.

The words came slowly to her, at first. Mariana had taken a moment to read Dakota's previous reply and was trying to match her wording to his. Her lips parted slightly as she stumbled over the technical talk. It would have been easy to ask Dakota for an explanation, and he'd been waiting for it. Suddenly the typing took off in a flurry and she sat back a few minutes later looking pleased.

Through the entire process, she had been overly conscious of how hard she pressed the almost flat keys across the keyboard. His eyes had only left her hands occasionally to look at her calm face.

"There," she crowed, "an entire email and you could barely hear me typing. No need to slam the keys around while you answer a perfectly reasonable request from your employee."

Dakota took the laptop back and reviewed her attempt. After a few fixes here and there he hit send and nodded approvingly at her. "You're not as bad at this as you think. I'd guess you did this as a side gig, at least. What do you do anyway?"

"I'm a business consultant, mainly for restaurants," she told him. Across the way her top papers showed off possible menu designs as well as a seating layout.

"Do you enjoy that?"

"I enjoy helping others discover their dreams and make them a reality." Mariana shrugged and leaned back more comfortably in the seat. He matched her posture.

"Don't you have your own dreams to make happen?" Dakota closed the laptop, slipping it back into his bag. All of his attention had shifted to the brunette he'd let into his train compartment. She was becoming a welcome distraction from even the memory of his ex trying to get her hands on his money.

Mariana shrugged and tucked her fingers under her thighs. "Dreams take money, which I don't just have laying around. I'll get to them when I can." Her eyes swept over the stack of papers she'd left behind. "Until then, I can ride that excitement other people get when they figure out what they want."

Dakota nodded and pulled out a business card from his wallet. "Well, if you're ever in need of a side gig to bring in a little extra cash, I could use some help dealing with the lawyers," he offered. Part of him hopes she would refuse him outright. His current assistants were dedicated and amazing, he didn't want them to feel like they needed someone else to get the job done. Besides, he'd heard about how working together could bring people closer and he knew there was a chance Mariana would be trouble for him. There was a reason he'd made sure his female assistant was happily married when he hired her. That was when he'd still been married.

Then there was the other side of him that wondered, how bad could it be?