CHAPTER 12 Kimberly
Kimberly
Some apologies arrive too late to erase the wound. They only prove the person who caused it finally understands where the knife landed.
The man in the shed was gone.
The man who had knelt in the dirt beside me, his bare hands slick with fluid as he held a blind kitten, had been replaced overnight by a version of Jackson Whitlock that was colder, sharper, and more determined to dismantle my existence than ever before.
On Monday, he stripped me of the vendor report I’d spent four days preparing, reassigning it to a junior analyst without a word. I found out when the analyst emailed me asking for my appendix data.
On Tuesday, he sent my quarterly summary back with a single word inked across the top of the first page.
Redo. No note on what he wanted changed, not a mark on a single line.
I rebuilt all eleven pages from the studs up, resubmitted the same figures in a different order, and he approved them an hour later without a syllable of comment.
On Wednesday, he pulled me into his glass office at six-fifteen p.m. to review a compliance contract I had already memorized, pointed out three tiny formatting errors that didn't actually violate protocol, and sent me to fix them while he leisurely put on his cashmere coat and left.
It was targeted. A man who had accidentally let his armor crack for five seconds in a potting shed and was now punishing both of us for his brief lapse into humanity.
Sophie cornered me in the break room on Thursday afternoon. I was standing in front of the coffee machine with an empty mug, staring at the display in a daze.
"Okay," she said, sliding into my peripheral vision and gently prying the mug from my white-knuckled grip before I could accidentally shatter it.
"Spill it. Because the dictator upstairs has been on a scorched-earth campaign all week, and he seems to be directing ninety percent of his orbital lasers specifically at your skull. "
"Nothing happened, Soph. He’s just being… himself."
"He’s keeping you in a chokehold, and you look like a Victorian ghost who died of typhus." She leaned closer, her eyes scanning my face. "Did something happen at the estate? Did you accidentally see him eat a carb?"
"No," I said, the word catching on the way out. "Nothing happened."
It wasn’t technically a lie. Nothing had happened.
That was the tragedy of it. For one breathless, terrifying moment in a warm shed with the rain drumming against the tin roof, the space between us had thinned to nothing.
I had looked at his mouth, he had looked at mine, and everything stopped.
Then he stood up, rebuilt his fortress brick by brick, and slammed the heavy iron door so hard I could still feel the phantom draft in my bones.
I poured my coffee, went back to my desk, and buried myself in spreadsheets. Feelings weren’t on this quarter’s agenda.
By Friday, I was operating on pure adrenaline and caffeine. Logan texted me around eleven, asking if I wanted to escape the tower for lunch at the bistro across the square. I replied so fast my thumb nearly cracked the screen.
When I arrived, he was already seated by the window.
"Jesus, Kim," he said, sliding a double-shot espresso toward me the second I sat down. "You look exhausted."
"Good afternoon to you too, Logan. I should really get that printed on my business cards. Kimberly Bishop: Looker of Exhausted."
He chuckled, but his brown eyes were cataloging the dark circles under mine. "Jack’s been putting you through the woodsplitter this week, hasn’t he?"
"Jack is just executing his corporate mandate," I said, taking a scalding sip of the espresso.
"This isn’t corporate mandate." He leaned forward, resting his chin on his steepled fingers. "I mean he’s always been like this, but is something wrong?"
"We had a disagreement over a domestic matter," I muttered, staring into the dark foam of my coffee. "It’s fine."
Logan let it go.
Instead, he pulled out his phone as it buzzed, a smile transforming his whole face. The screen flashed with a contact name: Lily flanked by a ridiculous cluster of emoji stars.
"Sorry, give me one second," Logan said, typing rapidly with his thumb. "Birthday logistics. She turns six next week and she has officially informed me that her cake must feature both a princess and a fire-breathing dragon."
He turned the screen around to show me a photograph.
My heart did a soft flip. The little girl in the image was breathtaking—a wild mane of dark curls, huge brown eyes, and a face smeared with chocolate ice cream while she held up a live toad. She looked like a tiny, beautiful disaster.
"She’s adorable, Logan."
"She’s a menace," he said, his voice thick with unshielded affection. He slipped the phone back into his pocket. "I’m doing a small thing for her next weekend. Just a picnic party. I was actually wondering… if you’re free, would you want to come?"
Something warm cut through the icy fatigue of the week. "Logan, that is the sweetest offer I’ve had in months. Truly. But next Saturday is Penny’s birthday too. My sister, I mean."
"You’re kidding."
"Twenty," I said, a bittersweet knot forming in my stomach. "Big milestone. I really would have loved to come but..."
Logan nodded, his expression softening into an understanding that didn’t require me to explain the heavy parts. "A rain check then. Lily will survive."
I smiled, leaning back in my chair. "Does Jack know?" I asked quietly, the question slipping out before I could stop it. "Does he know he has a niece who negotiates cake requirements with dragons?"
Logan took a slow sip of his water. "I don’t think Jack cares, Kim. Jack doesn’t really do… family milestones. If it can’t be audited or acquired, it doesn’t fit into his schedule."
The image of Jackson from the weekend flashed behind my eyelids—the tenderness in his hands as he carefully cleaned the caul off that tiny gray kitten.
I shoved the memory away and cleared my throat.
"Right. Well," I said, "I should get back to work."
The humor stayed with me just long enough to get me through the Friday afternoon rush, but the transition back to the estate at dusk always felt like crossing a border into occupied territory.
I practically sprinted from my car into the house, my heart hammering with nervous, stupid excitement. The tracking app on my phone had flashed a bright green checkmark twenty minutes ago:
Delivered. Signed for by Household Staff at 4:17 PM.
I checked the marble foyer table where Hollis typically left the daily mail. Nothing but a stack of financial journals.
I checked the butler’s pantry. The kitchen island. The bench by the mudroom. Nothing.
I found Hollis in the silver pantry, carefully polishing a set of heavy Edwardian candlesticks.
"Hollis," I said, "There was a package delivered around four. A large, flat box from an art supply warehouse in Chicago. Did you take it upstairs?"
Hollis set down the candlestick. The pity in his eyes told me before his words did.
"Mr. Jackson had the courier return it, Ms. Kimberly," he said softly. "He instructed the delivery service that the estate address was no longer authorized to accept personal parcels or freight for non-family residents."
I stood in the doorway of the silver pantry, and for a terrifying second, the marble floor tilted under me.
He’d sent it back.
The shock burned off in an instant, replaced by a rage so sharp my ears rang.
I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I threw open the heavy double doors of his private study without knocking, the wood slamming against the plaster walls with a sound like a gunshot.
Jackson was sitting behind his mahogany desk, a glass of ice water at his elbow, his tablet balanced on his knee. He looked up, his features locking into that familiar, unbothered mask of arrogance.
"You sent back my package," I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but it was vibrating so violently I could barely enunciate the words.
"Non-essential freight requires prior residential authorization," he said, his tone smooth and cold. "It’s standard estate policy, Ms. Bishop. If we allow unregulated courier drops—"
"It was a birthday gift," I cut him off, taking two steps into the room, my hands clenched into fists so tight my fingernails bit into my palms. "For my sister. It was her twentieth birthday present."
"Then have it routed to her apartment," he replied, not a single muscle in his jaw twitching as he looked down at his tablet. "This is a private residence, not a distribution center for the Midwest. If you cannot manage your personal logistics—"
I had promised myself I would never cry in front of this man.
I had made that vow in the glass lobby of Whitlock Group on my very first day, and I had kept it through every cold ambush, every sneering performance review, every humiliation he had thrown at me like a weapon. I had survived weeks of his frost.
But the dam broke anyway.
The tears came hot, fast, and thick, scalding my cheeks before I could even blink them back. I refused to wipe them away. I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me try to hide the wreckage he’d caused.
"Why?" My voice came out wrecked, and I hated the sound of it. "Why do you hate me this much? What did I ever do to you besides exist in a house your mother chose to give me? I didn’t ask for any of this! I didn’t ask for her shares, I didn’t ask for this miserable mausoleum, and I certainly didn’t ask for you! "
Jackson’s hand froze over the screen of his tablet. His gray eyes lifted, locking onto mine, and for the first time since I’d met him, the clinical detachment in his face slipped.