Chapter Thirteen
Eliza
I perched on the edge of my sofa, knees together, back iron-rod straight, as if posture alone could stave off the vertigo.
The room was hospital silent, not even the fridge daring to hum.
Laptop: open, screen blinding, desktop uncluttered, except for the email draft I’d been staring at for about twenty minutes.
Phone: face-down, set to “do not disturb,” like maybe if I pretended it didn’t exist I could erase the urge to text Gabriel Valor a string of caustic, unprofessional, “are you up?” messages.
I could still smell him. Is that possible? Dry cleaning, sharp aftershave, something warm and soft. Even here, in my own cage, I caught whiffs of him whenever I blinked hard enough. He’d never been to my place, but somehow, he still managed to invade my life.
I forced myself to refocus on the spreadsheet, the one I should have finished hours ago.
I’d made it to row forty-four before realizing every cell read like an accusation.
No, not like. It was. I was making mistakes, a first, and I’d noticed.
A single missing decimal, a careless paste, numbers that didn’t reconcile.
My work was the only thing about me that never slipped, until now.
And this time, I couldn’t blame some faceless entity trying to sabotage me. I was making mistakes.
The last time my hands shook, I’d been waiting for my acceptance letter to Stanford. This was not that. This was not nerves. This was something worse.
Desire. There, I said it. Not “complicated.” Not “distracting.” Not “an unfortunate collision of DNA and trauma.” Just want.
I wanted Gabriel Valor, and the wanting was a double-edged guillotine: half lust, half terror, both sharp enough to draw blood.
I wanted the part of him that played chess two moves ahead, that parried my sarcasm with a twitch of an eyebrow, that respected me enough to fight me in the conference room and then pour me a whiskey neat afterwards with no apology.
That wanting was bad enough. But wanting anything, period, was the original sin in my family. Needs are liabilities. I’d carved out a life on that principle.
And I sat with the truth. I wanted him, and that made me weak, and nothing terrified me more than my own weakness.
Except maybe his.
I let myself replay the scene from this afternoon.
Not the part where he annihilated my proposal in front of the entire product team.
Not the way he turned it, last second, into a compliment, a display for the investors, of course, because Gabriel couldn’t let anyone see him sweat.
No. The moment that looped, slow-motion: after the meeting, when we both reached for the same legal pad, and his fingers closed over mine, deliberate, pressure just shy of a handshake.
He didn’t move away. I didn’t move away. The room spun around our two wrists. For three seconds, I felt the heat of him arc up my arm and punch straight through every inch of my being. I remember thinking: If you speak now, you lose.
Neither of us did. He just let go. My hand tingled for ten minutes.
That’s the thing with Gabriel. He’s a walking red alert, but he’s also the only person in my existence who knows not to flinch first. He’s also, statistically, the most likely to have engineered the entire cascade of “errors” that were now pinning me to my own couch like a pinned butterfly.
He’s always been the chess master. I hate how much I respect that.
I hated more that I couldn’t stop wanting him.
But it didn’t make sense. He’d been there in the room with me as someone messed with my code. Not that there was no way it could be done, it just seemed so… improbable.
Or I was making excuses for him because I wanted him. So, I sat, rigid, and did not touch my phone. I let the spreadsheet scroll down on its own, the numbers blurring into nothing. I let the memory of his hand on mine melt and settle in my gut.
The wanting didn’t get quieter. It sharpened, steadied, wore grooves in the soft parts of me. I let it, for once.
Fine. I wanted him. Fine. I wasn’t twelve anymore, hiding the romance novels under a calculus textbook. I was a grown woman, and if I wanted to imagine what his mouth would feel like against my neck, I’d do it, and then I’d get the fuck back to work.
Except work was the problem. The sabotage, the word still sounded melodramatic, but what else do you call it when someone keeps swapping your decks, sending cryptic edits, arranging calls that you’re never invited to?
The pattern was so textbook it should’ve insulted me.
But Gabriel never did anything textbook.
He rewrote the book and made you thank him for the privilege.
If he was coming for me, it was because he thought I could handle it. Or because he wanted to see if I could outplay him.
Or maybe, worst case, he had nothing to do with it, and I was about to walk face-first into a hostile takeover, blindfolded and handcuffed by my own ego.
The fear braided itself into the want. Wanting him made me susceptible. It made every text from him, every interaction a grenade with the pin halfway pulled.
What did that make me? Vulnerable. Controllable. Predictable.
Fuck that.
I considered, for the first time, just telling him. Calling his bluff. Gabriel, is this your idea of foreplay?
I pictured his response: A five-second pause, because he’d never let me see a reaction. Then, the half-smile, the “you’re smarter than this, Eliza,” as he closed the distance, physically or digitally, didn’t matter. He’d offer protection. Or a solution. Or, god forbid, sympathy.
And that was exactly why I couldn’t. I’d let him in, and then I’d never know if my victories were real or gifted. I’d never know if I was his equal or his pet project.
So, I didn’t. I stared the urge down. I went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, forced my hands to steady. In the reflection off the microwave, I looked a little wild-eyed, my hair’s razor-straight line shot through with a single rogue strand. The effect was unprofessional. I let it stay.
I re-ran the events of the last forty-eight hours, but this time like an outsider.
If I was watching myself, what would I do?
I’d take inventory. I’d verify audit logs, check for phishing, trace every login.
I’d go to the office at 5 a.m. and camp outside the server room if I had to.
I’d build my own failsafe’s. I’d give the saboteur enough rope to hang themselves, and then I’d pull the lever.
Fine. Good. This was a plan. My heart rate dropped, the dread subsumed by a precise, algorithmic anger.
But before I could let go, I had to test myself. One last time, I picked up the phone. I hovered over his name, the only one in my favorites list not labeled with an emoji or a nickname. Just Gabriel. Full stop. The empty message box taunted me. I didn’t type.
I thought about what I’d write, if I did: “You win.” Or maybe, “I miss the way you looked at me the night you kissed me.” Or, “Do you want me as your adversary, or your accomplice?”
I set the phone down. I didn’t text him. I sat with the wanting, and it didn’t kill me.
Maybe it even made me stronger.
It was about 2 o’clock in the morning. I closed the laptop, hard.
I pulled my hair free from its elastic, letting it fall, messy and uncontained, over my shoulders.
I turned out the light, savoring the cool dark.
I would find my saboteur. I would find out if Gabriel was the enemy or the only other person who could see the whole board.
But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me break first.
Soon, I’d have to get on a plane with him. Close quarters, manufactured chemistry, forced proximity. I was going to hate every minute of it.
And that’s how I knew I’d survive it.
If I was going to be brought down, it wouldn’t be for trusting the wrong man.
It would be because I underestimated myself. And that? That had never happened, and I’d be damned if it started now.