At first he was charming—bringing coffee to her desk, texting sweet notes between meetings. But his attention soon grew clingy. He’d call during client calls, insist she spend lunch breaks proving she missed him, and get angry when she worked late on pitches.
Noemi tried to keep boundaries, yet guilt became routine. She left early to soothe his moods, skipped brainstorming sessions to answer his nonstop messages, and covered missed deadlines with late‑night bursts of caffeine and panic. Coworkers noticed. So did her boss, who warned her twice that the team needed reliability, not excuses about “personal emergencies.”