Chapter 20 #2
I sat through the meeting on autopilot. Wrote notes I wouldn’t remember.
My handwriting deteriorated halfway through because my hand was shaking and I pressed the pen harder to compensate.
Jace was presenting something about the narrative direction.
His voice was steady. Professional. I tried to focus on the sound of it, the accent, the cadence.
The meeting ended. I excused myself before the handshakes. Told Jace I needed to prepare the follow-up documents.
I walked out of the conference room like a person who was fine.
The corridor was empty. I pressed my back flat against the wall and breathed. One. Two. Three. Four.
Footsteps. I knew the sound before I saw him.
He stopped across from me and leaned against the opposite wall. Hands in his pockets. A wide smile on his face as he looked at me.
"Well. This is a surprise. Little Anna Wilson, playing assistant to the freak show. Or, according to the news, it’s more than that."
I didn’t move.
"The man’s a walking punchline, Anna. And you’ve attached yourself to him. Downgraded from me to a germaphobe with a cleaning addiction." He smiled wider. "The trajectory is honestly impressive. Downward, but impressive."
The old choreography started in my body.
The instinct to fold inward, to make myself small so the loud man felt bigger.
My shoulders wanted to curve. My eyes wanted to drop.
My voice wanted to disappear. Every muscle remembered the steps Tobias had taught me over fourteen months of careful, patient destruction.
I didn’t dance to it.
"Jace Hunter is worth ten of you." I don’t know where the confidence came from. The cabin, maybe. The mountain air. The man who drew my face in charcoal and asked if I was sure before he touched me.
I stared at him. "Calling him a freak is rich coming from a man who ran over a woman and paid her family to shut up about it. The real freak in this corridor is the one who sleeps fine at night knowing a kindergarten teacher had to learn how to walk again because he couldn’t be bothered to call a car service. "
The smile stayed on his face but his eyes went flat. Dead. He moved off the wall and stepped toward me. The corridor was empty. His voice dropped to something only I could hear.
"You still have that mouth." He was close now. Too close. "That was always the problem with you, Anna. You never learned when to shut it. I tried to teach you. The lesson clearly didn’t take."
"Step back."
He grabbed my wrist. His grip was hard enough to bruise and I gasped and pulled.
He held on and shoved me back against the wall. My shoulder hit the surface and the impact jarred through my spine.
He leaned in. "You’re a slut, Anna. You crawled out of my bed into the freak’s bed and that’s all you’ve ever been good for.
Moving from one man to the next." His fingers tightened on my wrist. "When Hunter gets bored of you, and they always do, you’ll be crawling to the next one. That’s your pattern. That’s all you are."
He pulled me closer, his face inches from mine. Anger burned in his eyes now.
"You should have stayed gone," he said. "Coming back into my world was the worst decision you’ve ever made. I can erase you, Anna. I’ve done it before. One phone call. One. The world loves me. I have millions of followers and a PR team that makes problems disappear. Getting rid of a nobody like you is nothing. I won’t even have to try. "
"Let go of me!"
"Or what? You think that little freak with his hand sanitizer and his panic attacks is going to protect you?" He laughed. Quiet. Ugly. "He can’t even protect himself."
I wrenched free and shoved him back with both hands. Hard. He stumbled, surprise crossing his face for one second before the mask slid back into place. The surprise told me everything. He hadn’t expected me to fight. In Charlotte, I didn’t.
I wasn’t in Charlotte anymore.
"Be careful." His voice was calm again. "Nobody believes a nobody, Anna. Remember that."
He straightened his jacket and walked away down the corridor. His footsteps faded. His cologne lingered like a stain in the air.
I stood against the wall. Shaking. My wrist burned where his fingers had been.
I went to the bathroom, splashed water on my face. The woman in the mirror had just been shoved against a wall by a man she used to love and had stood up and shoved back. She was shaking. But she was standing.
I fixed my hair, fixed my face, then went back to work.
I met Jace outside the meeting room. His posture relaxed the moment he saw me. "Where did you go?" His eyes searched my face. The relief vanished. Something sharper replaced it. "What happened?"
His gaze lowered, finding my wrist.
I tried to speak. The words jammed. Everything I’d held together pressed against the back of my throat and fought to come out at once.
Jace took my hand, his thumb tracing circles across my knuckles. "Hey, I’m here. What happened, Anna?"
I managed three words. "My ex. Here. Now."
His hands went still on mine. The circles stopped. I watched his face—the exact moment the information landed.
"Where is he?"