Chapter Ten
Bella
Manhattan, New York
The air in my office always smelled clean.
Not clean like soap. Clean like money—high-end filtration, espresso that came in thick little porcelain cups, and whatever faint scent the building pumped into the vents to remind you that you were not, under any circumstances, supposed to bring chaos past the lobby.
Which made it infuriating how easily two people had messed up the whole system with a surprise lunch and a couple of smirks. Their words during lunch were currently distracting me from returning to work.
After grilling me with the expertise of FBI interrogators, Sloane and Jax had looked at me like I was a TV show they’d already watched and were now waiting for the season finale.
“Stop doing that,” I’d said, halfway through my salad. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Stop what?” Jax had asked, making a face. “Being right?”
Sloane had smiled into her drink. “Sorry, no can do.”
“You’re not right,” I’d corrected. “About him. About me. Were you listening at all? It was embarrassing . . . and a blatant attempt to show he could outdo The Beacon.”
They’d both leaned in—synchronized, like a pair of people who shared a brain.
Jax had said, “It’s going to happen.”
Sloane had said, “One Wednesday soon, you’re going to say it.”
I’d stared at them. “Say what?”
They’d answered together, too cheerfully, too sure. “I fucked Drew Burke.”
I’d nearly choked on an arugula leaf. The problem wasn’t the words. The problem was how easily they had said them. Like I hadn’t spent half my adult life building a wall between myself and anything that stupid or ill-advised.
Sloane and Jax were intelligent women. They had jobs. Voter registrations. Reusable water bottles. And yet somehow they’d decided my future included having sex with someone who had always been—and would always be—the worst choice for me.
“Have your fun,” I’d told them, and I meant it. “But he’s not in that category.”
“You categorize men?” Jax had asked, delighted. “I love that. Do you tell them or let them guess?”
Sloane leaned in. “More importantly, what category is he?”
“He’s off-limits,” I’d said, very calmly. “Non-negotiably so.”
Sloane had waved her fork like she was conducting an orchestra. “You’re rattled.”
“I’m not rattled.”
“He made you uncomfortable and you liked it,” Jax had said.
“He fooled me,” I’d said, and my voice had stayed even. Controlled. Reasonable. The way it always did when I could feel my pulse trying to do something humiliating. “The escape room. The warehouse. Whatever you want to call it. It was payback and meant to challenge me.”
“That was a lot of effort to put in.” Sloane’s eyes had lit. “But you challenged him first.”
“I invited him to a professional setting.”
“You summoned him,” Jax had repeated, dreamily. “And he went because he wants some of that uptight, Holliston honey.”
I’d stared at them both until they’d finally sobered enough to pretend they were eating.
“I have no attraction to Drew Burke,” I’d said with the finality of a legal document. “None. Not even the slightest possibility. I do not like him. I do not trust him. And there is absolutely nothing happening between us.”
“Okay,” Sloane had said too easily. A pat. Sure, babe.
Jax had grinned like an idiot. “You’re going to hate us for being right, but we’ll hug you through that painful stage.”
I’d left lunch with my jaw clenched and my nerves frayed. Sloane and Jax knew me better than anyone else did, and their takes on how I felt were usually spot on.
Just not this time.
Back in my office, I stared at the city through glass that could withstand a hurricane, and I told myself—again—that my friends were delusional.
I didn’t want Drew Burke. Okay, sure, things got a little heated in the escape room. That’s adrenaline.
Not attraction.
This wasn’t about my ego.
I knew Drew. He’d been an unwelcome part of my summers my entire life. I’d never, not once, seen him as anything but an annoyance. And he’d just shown me why I’d been correct.
I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, and answered the first email in my queue with the cold efficiency that had built this life. It should have been easy. My world was predictable. Structured. Clean. I knew what to expect. I knew where the threats were.
Then there was a soft knock on the door.
“Come in,” I called, irritated because I was already distracted.
My assistant stepped in with a box in her hands.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “This was delivered via courier.” She placed it on my desk before me.
The box wasn’t big. Medium-sized, neat corners, plain brown. There was no logo. No brand. No name on the outside except mine.
It could be from anyone.
It could be from a client. A friend. It could be from my mother, sending something she’d seen online and decided my office needed.
It could be—
But I knew. I don’t know how I knew, but I would have bet my inheritance it was from Drew.
“Who signed for it?” I asked.
My assistant hesitated. “The front desk. No return label.”
Of course there wasn’t.
“Thank you,” I said as I pushed at it with the back of a pen like it was a device meant to detonate.
When my assistant left, the door closing softly behind her, I stared at the box.
It stared back at me like a dare.
Not labeled. No return address. Unassuming.
Which was exactly how hand grenades wanted to be perceived before they ruined your day. What did Drew want now?
I was done with thinking about what had happened between Brady and Nora. They seemed fine now. I was also done thinking about Drew.
Sending the package back unopened would be the perfect way to express that.
You don’t get to keep knocking on my door.
You don’t get to keep making yourself relevant.
I could call the front desk, arrange for pickup, have it shipped back to wherever it came from.
Unopened.
A message.
A boundary.
A win.
My fingers flexed.
I need to know what he sent.
Not because I cared.
Because I wanted to understand his motivation.
Someone like Drew didn’t send gifts without a point. He didn’t move without a strategy. He didn’t do anything without expecting a reaction.
Was embarrassing me once not enough? Was this an invitation to another challenge?
Or was it worse.
Was it suggestive? Crude?
The thought arrived fully formed, and I hated my mind for offering it so easily.
For all I knew, it was a sex toy. Or a note with the kind of suggestion men like him made when they mistook a woman’s composure for consent.
He probably thought all the heavy breathing I’d done in the warehouse had been due to him and not because that’s how I breathe when my life is on the line.
I pictured him in his office. So smug. Basking in his win.
Fury rose in me and I remembered his joke about sex dungeons.
Did he think I would be shocked by a sex toy?
I snorted. I had a respectable collection of them. Who didn’t? But to be sent one? By someone like him? No.
Even if he wanted me.
I gasped at the memory of how good he’d looked in that damn body suit, but I doubled down on being angry with him.
If he did want me, he wouldn’t be crude. No, he’d send something he’d think I would value. A piece of jewelry, sleek and expensive, tossed into a box the way men like him tossed their attention. A trinket no different than what he sent any potential romp.
The indignity of it hit so fast I tasted metal.
Of course he would view me as a conquest. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate win for him.
I stared at the box like it had insulted me in public.
Then I turned to my laptop.
I would do the mature thing. The emotionally stable thing.
I would send the box back unopened.
But before I do that, I should probably make sure it really is from him.
Trying to focus, I opened a spreadsheet and attempted to review its forecast. I clicked into an email thread and reread the same sentence three times.
Then answered an email twice.
God, I hate that man.
Finally, my hand moved without permission, and I dragged the box closer. My fingertips brushed the tape. The package was smooth and resistant like it was confident it would win. My nails dug under the edge of the tape, and I paused, not liking the physical evidence of how I was losing control.
Fuck it.
With a sharp tug, I ripped the tape. The sound was loud in my quiet office. I opened the top. And—
I blinked.
Not a toy.
Not jewelry.
Inside was a bag of candy.
Not just candy—my favorite childhood indulgence.
Root beer barrels. The kind that stuck to your teeth and tasted like nostalgia. Wrapped in that old-fashioned clear plastic, the kind that squeaked when you crinkled it.
For one second, my brain stalled.
And my stomach dropped. How did he know?
No one knew.
Sneaking away to Firebrook Valley’s candy store had been my secret little escape. And this candy? My passport to heaven. I could eat an entire bag of them all by myself, and I often had. Candy was a waste of calories in my model-thin mother’s opinion, and bad for one’s teeth.
To me? A little bit of defiance wrapped up in a sugar-induced bliss.
But I hadn’t thought about root beer barrels in years. The store in Firebrook Valley had closed and I hadn’t let myself miss them. They were one of the few things I’d liked about Firebrook Valley.
One of the few things I missed.
Drew must have seen me scarfing down candy. And remembered?
That was what unsettled me.
I pulled the bag out of the box slowly, as if it might vanish if I moved too quickly. There was a small, monogrammed card tucked beneath it. Simple. Cream-colored. I flipped it open.
The words were written in black ink, neat and precise.
Bella,
There is no feud between us.
I shouldn’t have implied I had more information than I did. None of the challenges were meant to embarrass you, and if any of them did, I’m sorry.
Thank you for bringing a potential issue regarding Nora to my attention.
Drew
Beneath, he’d included his cell phone number.
What is this?