Chapter 15 - Poppy
The car moves through the dark streets, and I can't stop shaking.
I press my hands flat against my thighs, willing them to be still. My reflection stares back at me from the tinted window—pale face, wide eyes, lips still parted from words I didn't say. I look like a woman who's seen a ghost.
Maybe I have. Maybe the ghost is me—the version of myself I thought I knew, the woman who would never feel anything but revulsion for a man like Gabriel Ambrose.
I want everything.
His voice echoes in my head, low and intimate. His fingers on my jaw, tilting my face up. The heat of his body so close to mine, the way the air between us seemed to thicken and spark.
I should have pulled away. I should have slapped him, screamed at him, run from him the way any sane person would run from a predator.
Instead, I stood there. I let him touch me. And for one terrible, shameful moment, I wanted him to do more.
The driver glances at me in the rearview mirror. "Are you all right, miss?"
"Fine." The word comes out strangled. "I'm fine."
I'm not fine. I'm the opposite of fine. I'm falling apart, unraveling, losing my grip on everything I thought I understood about myself.
He's a murderer. I watched him kill a man. I stood in a doorway and saw blood on his hands and peace on his face, and I know—I know—what he's capable of.
So why didn't I pull away?
The car stops in front of my building. I mumble thanks to the driver and stumble out onto the sidewalk, fumbling for my keys. The familiar motions—lock, stairs, door, deadbolt—feel foreign, like I'm performing actions I learned in another life.
Inside, the apartment is dark and silent. The dahlia sits on the counter where I left it, its petals still impossibly perfect. I stare at it for a long moment, then turn away.
I can't look at it right now. I can't look at anything that reminds me of him.
The shower helps a little. I stand under water as hot as I can bear, letting it scald my skin, trying to wash away the memory of his touch. It doesn't work. I can still feel his fingers on my jaw, a phantom pressure that won't fade.
I want to take you apart piece by piece and see what's underneath.
I press my forehead against the tile and close my eyes.
What's wrong with me? What kind of person feels attraction to someone who's been systematically destroying her life? This isn't Stockholm syndrome—it's been weeks, not months or years. This is something else, something darker, something I don't have a name for.
Or maybe I do have a name for it. Maybe the name is broken.
I get out of the shower and wrap myself in a towel, avoiding the mirror. I don't want to see my reflection right now. I don't want to see the woman who stood in that ballroom and trembled under a murderer's touch.
Sleep doesn't come.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the evening in excruciating detail. The way he watched me across the room during the dinner party. The way he found excuses to stand close, to speak to me, to remind me of his presence. The way he said my name—Poppy—like it belonged to him.
And then the ballroom. The empty room, the dim light, his voice behind me. The moment when everything shifted, when the professional distance I'd been maintaining collapsed like a house of cards.
Look at me.
And I did. God help me, I did.
Around three in the morning, I give up on sleep and make tea instead. I sit at my kitchen table with my hands wrapped around the warm mug, watching the steam rise and disappear. The dahlia watches back, silent and patient.
"I hate you," I tell it.
The dahlia doesn't respond.
I hate him. I hate everything about him—his control, his manipulation, his certainty that I'll eventually give him what he wants. I hate the way he looks at me, like he can see through every wall I've built. I hate the way he touches me, casual and possessive, like I already belong to him.
Most of all, I hate the way my body responds. The heat that spreads through me when he's near. The way my breath catches when he speaks my name. The treacherous, shameful wanting that I can't seem to control.
I'm supposed to be smarter than this. I'm supposed to be stronger than this.
But I'm not. I'm just a woman sitting alone in the dark, drinking cold tea and trying not to think about a monster's hands on her skin.
The next few days pass in a fog.
I go through the motions of normal life. I buy groceries. I clean my apartment. I answer emails, pay bills and pretend to be a functioning human being.
But underneath the surface, something has shifted. Something I can't quite name.
Bea insists on lunch on Saturday. I meet her at a café near her apartment, and she's already waiting when I arrive—arms crossed, expression determined.
"Okay," she says before I've even sat down. "Talk."
"About what?"
"Don't do that. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about." She leans forward, studying my face. "You look different. Something's happened."
"I got a new job." The words come out easily—I've been rehearsing them. "A big contract, exclusive work for a private client. It's good money."
"That's great." Bea's eyes narrow. "But that's not what I'm asking about. Something else is going on. You've been weird for weeks, and it's getting worse, not better."
I take a sip of water, buying time. "I've just been stressed. The business was struggling, and then this opportunity came along, and it's a lot of pressure to perform well—"
"Poppy." She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. "It's me. I know when you're lying."
For a moment, I consider telling her everything. The murder, the stalking, the contract. The way he looks at me. The way I'm starting to look back.
But I can't. The NDA is one thing—I could break it if I had to, consequences be damned. But the truth is more complicated than legal agreements. The truth is that I don't know how to explain what's happening between me and Gabriel Ambrose, because I don't understand it myself.
How do you tell your best friend that you're attracted to the man who's been destroying your life? How do you explain that some sick, broken part of you wants him anyway?
"I'm okay," I say instead. "Really. I'm just... adjusting to a new situation. It's a lot."
Bea doesn't look convinced, but she lets it go. We talk about other things—her job, her terrible boss, the guy she's been texting who keeps sending unsolicited pictures of his cat. Normal friend conversation. Normal life.
I nod and laugh in the right places, but my mind keeps drifting back to him.
I want everything.
What would it feel like to give him everything? To stop fighting, stop resisting, stop pretending I don't feel what I feel?
The thought horrifies me. It also makes something twist low in my stomach, hot and shameful.
I'm losing my mind.
On Sunday, my mother calls.
"Sweetheart." Her voice is tight with the anxiety that never quite goes away. "I've been trying to reach you."
"I know, Mom. I'm sorry. I've been busy with work."
"This new job?" She pauses. "The one with the Ambrose family?"
My blood runs cold. "How do you know about that?"
"You mentioned it last week. Don't you remember?"
Did I? I can't remember. The past few weeks have blurred together, one crisis bleeding into the next.
"Right," I say. "Yes. It's going well."
"Is it?" Another pause, longer this time. "Poppy, I need you to be honest with me. Is everything okay? Are you safe?"
The question lands like a punch to the gut. Are you safe? No. I'm not safe. I haven't been safe since the moment I walked into that gala.
"I'm fine, Mom. Why wouldn't I be?"
"I don't know. I just... I have a feeling. You know how I get feelings."
I do know. Her feelings have haunted our whole lives—the paranoia, the constant vigilance, the way she always seemed to be waiting for something terrible to happen. I used to think she was overreacting. Now I'm not so sure.
"Everything is fine," I tell her. "I promise."
She doesn't believe me. I can hear it in her silence, in the careful way she changes the subject. But she doesn't push, and I don't volunteer anything more.
After we hang up, I sit at my kitchen table and stare at the dahlia.
Are you safe?
No.
And the worst part is, I'm not sure I want to be.
On Monday, another assignment comes.
The email is from Eleanor, crisp and professional: a consultation at the Ambrose Group offices downtown. Mr. Ambrose is planning a charity gala for next month and would like my input on the floral design.
A consultation. In his office. Just the two of us, presumably.
I should say no. I should cite illness, a scheduling conflict, or anything to avoid being alone with him again. Every instinct I have screams that this is a trap, that he's engineering another intimate encounter, that the professional pretext is just that—a pretext.
But the money. The contract. The rent that's due in a week.
And underneath all of that, the treacherous whisper: I want to see him again.
I hate that whisper. I hate myself for listening to it.
I type my response: Confirmed. What time?
The answer comes within minutes: 2:00 PM. I look forward to seeing you.
Tuesday afternoon, I stand in the lobby of Ambrose Tower and try to remember how to breathe.
The building is all glass and steel, soaring toward the sky like a monument to power. People move through the lobby with purpose, expensive shoes clicking against marble floors, their faces set in expressions of professional determination.
I don't belong here. I'm a florist from a cramped apartment, playing dress-up in a world that could swallow me whole.
But I'm here anyway. Because he summoned me, and I came.
The elevator takes me to the top floor. A receptionist checks my name against a list and directs me down a corridor lined with abstract art—dark, violent pieces that probably cost more than I make in a year.
His office is at the end of the hall. The door is open.
He's standing by the window when I enter, silhouetted against the city skyline. He turns at my approach, and the sight of him hits me like a physical blow. Dark suit, white shirt, that face that could belong to an angel or a devil.
"Poppy." He smiles, and something in my chest tightens. "Thank you for coming."
"You're paying me to come."
"Am I?" He moves toward me, and I have to fight the urge to step back. "I thought I was paying you for your expertise. The coming was optional."
"Nothing about this arrangement feels optional."
The words slip out before I can stop them, sharper than I intended. His smile widens.
"Honesty. I've missed that."
He gestures to a sitting area near the window—two leather couches facing each other across a glass coffee table. I sit on one, expecting him to take the other. Instead, he sits beside me. Close. Too close.
"The gala," he says, as if we're having a normal business meeting. "I'm thinking black and white. Dramatic. Elegant. What do you suggest?"
I try to focus on the question, but his proximity makes it difficult. I can smell his cologne—something dark and expensive. I can feel the heat of his body, inches from mine.
"Black dahlias," I hear myself say. "White roses. Perhaps some dark greenery for contrast."
"Dahlias." His voice drops, intimate. "You know I love dahlias."
My hands are trembling. I clasp them in my lap, hoping he won't notice.
He notices. Of course he notices.
"You're nervous," he observes.
"I'm professional."
"You're nervous." He reaches out and touches my hand—just a brush of his fingers against my knuckles. "You don't need to be. Not with me."
I should pull away. I should stand up, walk out, break the contract, and damn the consequences.
Instead, I sit frozen, feeling his touch like a brand on my skin.
"What are you doing?" I whisper.
"I'm not doing anything." His fingers trace along my wrist, finding my pulse. "Your heart is racing."
"Because I'm afraid of you."
"Is that all?"
I don't answer. I can't answer. Because the truth is more complicated than fear, more shameful than I can admit.
He leans closer, his breath warm against my ear. "I think about you constantly. Every moment of every day. I wonder if you think about me too."
"I don't—"
"Don't lie to me, Poppy." His hand slides up my arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. "I can't bear it when you lie."
I should move. I should run.
I don't.
"This isn't..." My voice is barely audible. "This isn't what I signed up for."
"I know." His lips brush my temple—the lightest touch, barely there. "That's what makes it so interesting."
The intercom on his desk buzzes, shattering the moment. Eleanor's voice, professionally neutral: "Mr. Ambrose, your three o'clock is here."
He pulls back, and I feel the loss like a physical ache.
"We'll continue this discussion later," he says, standing. "My assistant will see you out."
I gather my things with numb hands and flee.
That night, I dream of him for the first time.
Not a nightmare. Something worse.
In the dream, I'm not running. I'm not fighting. I'm standing in his arms, letting him hold me, letting him whisper things I can't quite hear but understand anyway.
And when I wake, tangled in sheets and gasping for air, the wanting doesn't fade.
It's getting worse.
I'm losing this battle.
And part of me—the dark part, the broken part—doesn't want to win anymore.