Letters Between Floors

Sophie Lang had worked as an office assistant on the 12th floor of Zurich’s glass-and-steel landmark, the Vantage Building, for three years. She was efficient, quietly charming, and just anonymous enough to go unnoticed by most of the high-powered suits who passed her desk.

Except one.

Every Tuesday at precisely 10:15 a.m., Markus Rüegg, the CEO of Rüegg International Holdings, would walk out of the executive elevator on the 14th floor, two floors above Sophie’s station. He never looked rushed. Never impatient. Always in that tailored charcoal suit and a navy silk tie.

And every Tuesday, he’d send a handwritten note down to her desk.

The first one read simply:

You make this building warmer than all the glass and heat ever could.

No name. No signature. Just beautiful cursive on thick linen stationery.

Sophie thought it was a joke. A prank from the interns. She tucked the note into her drawer and told herself it meant nothing. But the next Tuesday, another appeared, hand-delivered by the same grinning security guard.

Some mornings, your smile lingers longer than my coffee does.

She’d barely smiled that day.

By week five, curiosity turned into anticipation. She began to keep the notes in a little leather folio. Each one was different—never demanding, never inappropriate, always poetic. And though they never said his name, she knew.

Markus Rüegg was a ghost in the building. Everyone whispered about him—he was “too young” to have built such a legacy, “too Swiss” to show such warmth. But Sophie saw glimpses. He once held the elevator door for a pregnant cleaner. Another time, he brought a thermos of tea to the night receptionist.

She started writing back.

Do you write like this to every assistant in Zurich?

The next Tuesday:

Only the ones who hum when they staple.

She didn’t know she hummed.

Their written exchange bloomed over the months. The building became a secret world they shared—a world of paper and ink and late-afternoon glances through glass walls.

One note changed everything.

Would you meet me for coffee, 5:15 p.m., Café Miro across the street?

She nearly dropped the paper. Her hands trembled. She’d never once imagined what he looked like up close—his energy, his expression when not hiding behind executive poise.

At 5:12, she stood outside Café Miro, hands tucked into her coat. Her heart thumped with a rhythm only nervous hope could produce.

And then he was there.

No bodyguards, no entourage. Just Markus, holding a single yellow tulip and looking more human than she imagined.

“You came,” he said, smiling.

“I almost didn’t,” she replied. “This all felt…”

“Like fiction?” he offered.

“Yes.”

“Well,” he said, gently holding the tulip between them, “then let’s write it.”

---

They became something rare—quiet and intense. Markus was still the man in the tailored suit, but with her, he shed layers he didn’t know he wore. Sophie, once reserved and content to hide behind her post-it notes and printer codes, found her laughter.

They kept the relationship quiet. Switzerland was small. So was the building. She didn’t want rumors. He respected that.

They met in secret parks after work, traded books like other couples traded playlists, and even wrote each other letters by mail for the thrill of it. He called her *die Sonne unter Glas*—the sun beneath the glass.

But love, even the kind written in ink and tulips, isn't immune to life’s tides.

In late November, Markus was offered a merger deal that required relocating to Singapore. It was everything his board wanted—and everything Sophie feared.

“I don’t belong in a world of penthouse negotiations and diplomatic dinners,” she said the night he told her.

“I don’t belong in a world without you,” he whispered.

Still, she said no. No to long-distance promises. No to the idea of becoming a hidden shadow behind a powerful man.

So he left.

And the building, once a place of glances and words passed like confessions, became just another office again.

Sophie kept working. The notes stopped. Her folio stayed closed.

Months passed. Seasons turned.

Until one spring morning—one full year after their first note—she arrived at her desk to find a letter.

It was the same thick linen paper.

Still humming when you staple?

Her breath caught.

Inside the envelope was a boarding pass—Zurich to Singapore. One-way.

She stared at it, her pulse roaring in her ears.

No demands. Just a choice.

She didn’t go.

Not at first.

Weeks passed. The note remained on her nightstand like a dare.

One rainy evening, while organizing the old office archives, she found an envelope addressed to her, dated months ago, buried beneath a stack of forgotten HR reports.

Inside was another letter. No boarding pass this time. Just words.

I understand your silence. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that timing isn’t everything. Choice is. And you have all of mine.

That night, Sophie packed a bag.

---

Markus looked up from his corner table at the rooftop café in Singapore. The rain hadn’t quite stopped, but the sky was clearing.

She stepped out of the elevator.

“Still writing letters?” she asked.

“Only one,” he said.

He handed her a small envelope. Inside, a note:

You’re not the sun beneath the glass anymore.

She looked at him.

He smiled.

“You’re the sky itself.”

---

Author's Note:
This story is based on true patterns of life in Zurich’s business world, inspired by real urban routines, Swiss corporate culture, and the universal ache of workplace romance—where moments are fleeting, and written words become the soul's loudest voice.