Chapter 34 Nico
Nico
The weekend is a special kind of hell.
I don’t call. I give her some space.
Every instinct screams at me to go to her. Show up at her apartment. Fix this. Control this. Make her understand.
But that’s exactly what got me here in the first place.
So instead I sit with the discomfort. Let it eat me alive. Let myself feel what it’s like to want someone I can’t force into existence.
Callahan checks in twice. Once Saturday afternoon. Once Sunday morning. “Just confirming everything is all right, sir.”
“A-okay,” I tell him both times.
Thessaly leaves food I don’t eat. The containers stack up in my refrigerator.
Bree’s toothbrush is still in my bathroom. Her jacket still draped over the chair in my bedroom. I don’t move them. Can’t bring myself to touch them.
Thank god she hasn’t sent anyone to pick them up.
That has to mean something, right?
Monday morning. My office. The chair across from my desk is empty.
More importantly, Bree’s desk is empty, too. Has been since Friday when she walked out and I let her go.
Which was the right call.
The not-being-a-stalker move.
Doesn’t make it hurt any less.
I check my phone for the thirty-fifth time. No messages. No missed calls. Nothing but the silence I deserve.
Piper called earlier to inform me, with barely concealed satisfaction, that Ms. Dawson had called in sick.
“She sounded terrible,” Piper added. “Really broken up about something.”
I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her.
Instead I said “Thank you, Piper” and hung up.
Now I’m sitting here staring at some report on my computer screen that I don’t give a shit about while my chest feels like someone’s performing surgery without anesthesia.
Fitting metaphor for a guy who sells facial prosthetics.
Better than the cat metaphor.
Fuck.
Would you forgive a fucking cat for stealing your fucking food?
Can’t believe I told her that bullshit. She saw right through it, of course, but gave me a pass anyway.
Until she learned the truth.
By now I’ve convinced myself it’s over. That I’ve finally fucked up beyond repair the one good thing in my life. That I’ll spend the rest of my days building prosthetics to help other people while my own chest cavity stays permanently hollowed out.
Dramatic?
Sure.
But I’ve got nothing to do except marinate in my own misery.
She just met my parents for fucks sake.
Fuck!
My phone buzzes. I grab it so fast I nearly knock over my coffee.
Cressida. Not Bree. I had Bree’s calls forwarded to her while Bree is out of office.
“Mr. Rossi, your 2 PM with the Singapore distributor has been moved to Thursday. And Dr. Morse had a cancellation. He can see you at 11 if you’d like.”
I didn’t request an appointment with Ethan Morse, my therapist. But Callahan knows me. Probably heard me pacing my penthouse at 3 AM through whatever security feeds he monitors and reached out to him.
“Book it,” I end the call and go back to staring at nothing.
Two hours later, I’m in Ethan Morse’s office on the Upper East Side.
“I lost her,” I say before I even sit down.
Ethan doesn’t react. Fifty-one years old, patient as a saint, refuses to let me hide behind intellectualization. He’s seen me through the worst years. Knows every ugly corner of my psyche.
Ethan raises an eyebrow. “Who?”
Right.
It’s been months since my last appointment.
He wouldn’t know about Bree.
“The woman I’ve been seeing,” I reply.
“You lost her?” he asks. “Or you drove her away?”
I shrug. “Same difference.”
“It’s not.” He gestures to the chair. I sit. “Tell me what happened.”
So I do. The whole thing. Kendrick. The investigation. The lies. The promise I broke. Her face when she found out.
“I thought I was protecting her,” I finish.
Ethan is quiet for a moment. Then he says the thing I don’t want to hear.
“You weren’t protecting her, Nico,” he explains. “You were controlling the situation. Like you always do. There’s a difference.”
“He was still teaching,” I protest. “Still doing it to other women.”
He nods. “And that’s terrible. It warranted action. But whose action?”
I don’t answer.
“You made a decision about her trauma without her consent,” he continues. “You decided what she needed. What justice looked like for her. You didn’t ask. You didn’t include her. You just acted.”
“Because she asked me not to act,” I explain. “And I couldn’t live with that.”
He presses his lips together. “So you decided your judgment was better than hers.”
“I was trying to help,” I argue.
He leans forward. “Were you? Or were you trying to fix something you couldn’t fix when you were fifteen?”
There it is. He figured it out.
“No you’re right, Doc,” I agree. “And I told her as much.”
“It matters, you know, that you didn’t trust her to make her own choice,” Ethan says quietly. “You can’t protect people from their own choices. You can only support them.”
I rest my chin in one palm. “So what do I do?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “What do you think you should do?”
“I don’t know,” I reply. “That’s why I’m paying you four hundred dollars an hour.”
He almost smiles. “You already know what you should do. You just don’t want to do it because it requires giving up control.”
I narrow my eyes. “But what if I give up control and she still leaves?”
He shrugs ever so slightly. “Then she leaves. And you’ll survive. But at least you’ll have done the right thing.”
The right thing.
I’ve spent so long doing the strategic thing. The winning thing. The thing that gives me the upper hand.
Maybe it’s time to try something different.
Back at the office, I call Larissa to my office.
“I need you to draw up an employment contract,” I tell her when she walks in. “Executive Director of the Rossi Foundation. Market rate. No, above market rate. Full authority, independent board reporting, budget autonomy, hiring and firing discretion. Everything.”
Larissa’s pen hovers over her notepad. “Mr. Rossi, am I correct in assuming this is for Ms. Dawson?”
“Good guess,” I reply.
“And am I also correct in assuming you two had a fight?”
“That’s none of your business.” I pause. “But yes.”
She clears her throat. “Should we wait until things are resolved before proceeding?”
“No. Do it now.” I meet her eyes. “Even if she never speaks to me again, she deserves this.”
Larissa nods slowly. Something like respect crosses her face. “I’ll have a draft by later today.”
After she leaves, I do something I’ve never done. I write a letter. By hand. On actual paper.
It takes me three hours and six drafts. My handwriting is shit. I haven’t written anything longer than a signature in years.
But some things shouldn’t be typed. Some things need to cost you something.
Bree,
I was wrong. About Kendrick. About lying to you. About making decisions that were yours to make.
I told myself I was protecting you. I was protecting myself. From feeling powerless. From watching someone I care about carry pain I couldn’t fix. I made it about me when it should have been about you.
I promised you a promotion. I’m giving it to you.
I want you to be Executive Director of the Rossi Foundation.
This position isn’t a gesture. It’s not an apology gift. It’s what you earned. What you deserved weeks ago.
I was a coward about offering it properly.
Waiting for the perfect moment instead of trusting you to handle whatever moment we were in.
I understand if you can’t forgive me. I broke your trust. That’s not something you get back just by apologizing.
But I want you to know that I see what I did.
I see the pattern.
And I’m trying to be better.
Whatever you decide, the position is yours if you want it.
Nico
I give the envelope to Cressida.
“Ms. Dawson’s apartment in Astoria,” I tell her. “I’ll text you the address. Delivery it in person. If she’s not there, bring it back.”
“But Elspeth—”
“Can wait.” Technically she works for Elspeth, but it’s my company.
Cressida looks at the envelope, then at me. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.”
She studies me. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I reply flatly.
She nods and leaves.
The rest of the day passes. I try to work. Fail. Try again. Fail again.
At 4:47 PM, my phone rings.
Bree’s name on the screen.
My heart stops. Restarts. Hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
I answer. “Bree.”
Silence for a moment. Then her voice. “We need to talk.”
Three words.
The most terrifying three words in any language.
“Okay,” I say. “When?”
“Tomorrow morning,” she replies. “Your office. Eight o’clock.”
“Tomorrow, eight o’clock,” I tell her.
She hangs up without saying goodbye.
I sit there holding my phone, staring at the screen, feeling something unfamiliar bloom in my chest.
Hope.