39. Rome
Holiday parties were torture.I hadn’t realized how much Nikki’s presence softened the sting of networking events, how much easier it was to talk to people when she was there to facilitate the conversation. How much I enjoyed being able to put my hand on her lower back and feel the heat of her body through her clothes.
Two weeks passed in a slow torture, and after the third soiree where I was asked incessantly where my dutiful plus-one had disappeared to, I decided that was enough for me. I closed myself off from all social activity and threw myself into closing the Monk deal.
We signed the contract on New Year’s Day.
I’d secured my company’s future. I’d paved the way for the next few years of financial success. I’d done exactly what I’d set out to do.
And the victory was hollow.
Employees celebrated around me. Clara even wrapped an arm around my shoulders and patted me with her palm in congratulations, and I mustered a curt nod in response. My legal team toasted to a successful negotiation, and Cole lifted his glass with the rest of them.
I bit back the urge to tell them all to get out. I’d done that once before, and it’d only made me feel worse in the end.
You could call her, temptation whispered. You could apologize.
For what? What could I possibly say to her after what had transpired between us?
She’d been hired to do a job, and she’d done it skillfully. Then, just like everyone else, she turned her back on me. The fact that she’d wrapped her abandonment in pretty words and honeyed promises meant nothing. If she wanted to be by my side, she would’ve stayed. End of story.
Cole found me in my office, where I’d gone to hide from the revelry. He dropped onto one of my sofas and gave me a long look. “You think she’ll be vindictive?”
I poured myself a drink and didn’t meet his gaze. “Who?”
A soft scoff was the only immediate response, until Cole said, “You know who.”
He was right, of course. Nikki. Who else? “No,” I answered. “What would she have to be vindictive about?”
“The fact that you threw her out of here.”
I glared over my shoulder at him. “She marched in here and basically quit. What was I supposed to do?”
Cole put his hands up, and I took a deep breath. He’d marched in here and quit too, and it wouldn’t be long until these chats were a thing of the past. Who would talk sense into me when Cole was gone? I set a drink down on a coaster in front of him and took a seat on the opposite couch with my own. The alcohol burned on the way down, and I relished the pain of it as I swirled the liquid in my glass.
“Is she going to be working for Roseanne?”
Sighing, I looked at my second-in-command, soon to be former second-in-command. “Probably. Roseanne would be smart to hire her.”
“They could get close. The truth could come out.”
I grimaced. The truth could come out regardless, unless I figured out how my mother had found out about the companion contract.
It was a problem.
We’d lied to Wilbur. We’d pretended to be a couple, closed the deal on false pretenses. It was a gaping hole of exposure, and it scared me a hell of a lot less than the pain in my chest that splintered through me every time I thought about Nikki.
“It’s in her best interests not to tell Roseanne the truth.” I couldn’t even say Nikki’s name out loud. It was pathetic.
“Right,” Cole said. “Makes sense.”
“You think I should reiterate that fact to her so she understands.”
Cole shrugged. “I could do it for you if you don’t want to speak to her.”
I sighed. It was tempting to have Cole do my dirty work for me. He could find Nikki, tell her to keep her mouth shut, and we could live our separate lives like nothing at all had changed in the past few months.
But that would be cowardly, and I’d learned long ago that if I wanted something done right, I had to do it myself. I should have kept that in mind before hiring Nikki as a companion in the first place.
“I’ll do it,” I told him, resigned.
That’s how I found myself at her building the next day, pressing the buzzer between the two sets of glass doors to see if she’d let me up.
“Hello?”
Even the sound of her voice through the terrible intercom speaker sent a spear through my chest.
“It’s me,” I said, then cleared my throat. “Rome.”
There was a long pause. Or at least, it felt long. The seconds dragged by, one after the other, and I wondered if she’d leave me here without even a word.
Then a buzz sounded, and the click of the inner doors told me she’d unlocked it for me. I stepped through, throat tight, the thumping of my heartbeat echoing in my ears.
I stared at my own reflection on the way up in the elevator, fixing a few stray strands of hair like a vain asshole, because apparently I still wanted to look good for her when she opened the door.
Still, when it swung open and Nikki stood before me in all her dark-haired, dark-eyed glory, I didn’t feel like fixing a few flyaway pieces of hair had helped me prepare for the sight of her before me.
She was barefoot, wearing soft, loose pants and a shirt that hung off one shoulder. Her hair was up in a clip and she wore no makeup, but her cheeks were flushed. She looked amazing. I hated it.
“Um, come in,” she said, stepping aside. “Can I get you a drink?”
“No,” I answered, gruff, “I won’t be here long.”
Was that disappointment on her face? I couldn’t tell, and Nikki turned away from me slightly. She crossed the space and took a seat on her couch, tucking her feet under her as she lifted her chin to meet my gaze, waiting patiently for me to speak.
Not wanting to sit on the same piece of furniture as her—being that close would be dangerous—I pulled a rickety-looking dining chair and spun it around so I could sit and face her. All her things were just this side of shabby, but they went together in a way that gave her place an easy, homey feel. She’d made herself at home in her new apartment, and for some reason it made me feel sad. Maybe because there was no room here for me.
“You said Roseanne offered you a job,” I started, not wanting to waste time here. The place smelled like her. Her personality was baked into every inch of it. It drove me to the brink of insanity just to sit in her space and not be able to touch her.
Nikki blinked at me, tilting her head slightly. “Yes.”
“You understand that if you divulge the details of our”—I cleared my throat—“relationship, there could be issues for both of us.”
Nikki’s shoulders dropped, but the expression on her face didn’t change. “Did you come here to warn me about keeping my mouth shut, Rome?”
Her words were soft, but they hit me like blows. I could hardly get my response out through the gravel that had taken residence in my throat. “Yes.”
She dropped her bare feet back onto the floor, and I noticed her toenails were painted a soft shade of pink. “Understood,” she said, standing to cross the room to stand at the door. She opened it and glanced at me meaningfully. “In the future, a text or an email will suffice. There’s no need to bother yourself with a personal visit when you need to threaten me.”
“It’s not a threat,” I said, joining her at the door. “It’s the truth.”
As Nikki met my gaze, her back was straight and there was no moisture in her eyes. A door had been shut between us, and I had the awful, sinking realization that I was the one who’d done it. Maybe I hadn’t even done it when I’d kicked her out of my office. Maybe there’d been a sliver of light still coming through the opening, but I’d walked in here and slammed it shut.
“Goodbye, Rome,” she said, and there was steel in her voice.
I tore my gaze away from the line of her neck, the shape of her body in those loose, shapeless clothes. She was just a former employee. A former lover. She didn’t mean anything to me, and I meant nothing to her. Now we were on the same page, and we could both move on.
“Good luck with the new job,” I told her, then walked out of her apartment.
The worst part of the whole visit, I realized when I got back to the car downstairs, wasn’t the widening gulf between us. It wasn’t the stilted conversation. It wasn’t the dead look in her eyes when she said goodbye, or the scent of her all around.
No, the worst part was that despite how horrible the visit had been, it was better than not seeing her at all.