Chapter 15 Nolan
I stay in the bedroom and listen to him pack.
It’s a coward’s move and I know it. I should go out there, face him, demand answers about what the hell happened in that meeting that turned him from warm to ice.
But every time I think about opening that door, I remember the way he looked at me afterward—like I was less than nothing—and I can’t make myself do it.
So I sit on the edge of the bed we shared during my heat and I listen to the sounds of Erik Nilsson erasing himself from my life.
He’s efficient about it, methodical, like packing up and leaving is just another task to be completed. There’s no wasted motion, no hesitation.
For the last week, he’s barely looked at me. He’s slept on the couch, I slept in the bedroom, and during the day we orbited each other with careful distance. When he did speak, it was in a flat professional voice that made me want to shake.
I have no idea what transgression was so unforgivable that it could erase five days of what I thought was a real connection. It can’t be to do with Alistair and my court case against his company. We’ve already had that argument. Nothing has changed from before.
It has to be something else because in the last few days, he’s just looked through like I’d already become a ghost.
Even more pathetic, is the fact that he won’t talk about it.
That’s the most infuriating thing. This is toddler behavior.
Erik Nilsson might be one of the most powerful men in the country, worth billions, commanding a network of companies that employs thousands and he’s refusing to talk to me like he’s a five year old who didn’t have the crusts cut off his sandwich.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe he can’t tell me the reason because he knows he’s being ridiculous.
Whatever it is, it’s pathetic and it’s reminding me why I didn’t want to get involved with the asshole in the first place.
Chemistry might be recipe for great sex, but it’ll do nothing to prevent a bad marriage.
The front door opens and closes.
I don’t move. I count my breaths—in, out, in, out—and wait for the elevator chime that will confirm he’s actually gone, that this isn’t some cruel test to see if I’ll come running after him.
The chime sounds. The silence that follows is complete.
He’s gone.
I should feel relieved. This is what I wanted, after all.
When this started, I would have given anything to be free of Erik Nilsson.
The forced matching, the cohabitation, the heat—it was all supposed to be a means to an end.
Ellie’s treatment. One year of my life traded for her chance at survival. The exchange rate was brutal but clear.
Somewhere along the way, the math got complicated.
I get up from the bed and walk out into the main room.
The space feels bigger than it should, stretched somehow, like the walls have retreated while I wasn’t looking.
His laptop is gone from the kitchen counter.
His jacket no longer hangs by the door. The coffee mug he used every morning has been placed back in the cabinet.
The apartment is exactly as it was before he moved in, except for all the ways it isn’t.
His scent is everywhere. It’s woven into the couch cushions and the kitchen towels and the sheets I’ll have to wash before I can sleep in them again. I can smell him on my own skin, even though I have showered every single day since my heat.
We had five days of his hands on me. His mouth on me. His body covering mine while I fell apart again and again, trusting him to put me back together.
And then that look in his eyes when he came home from that meeting. Like all of it had been a lie and I was the one who told it.
I don’t understand.
Or maybe I do, and that’s worse. Maybe Erik Nilsson was always exactly who I thought he was from the beginning—an alpha who takes what he wants and discards it when he’s done.
Maybe the tenderness during my heat was just him playing a role that had nothing to do with genuine feeling. Maybe I’m the idiot.
The cold version of him is the one that makes sense. The CEO who stole my research, who built his fortune on my work, who looked at me so coolly across that ridiculous wedding. That Erik I understand.
It’s the other one I can’t reconcile. The one who held me through the worst of the heat. The one who kissed me like I was something precious. The one who traced patterns on my skin in the early morning light and looked at me like maybe, impossibly, he was feeling something too.
Two people in one body. And somehow I fell for the wrong one. I fell for the one who doesn’t actually exist.
I pull out my phone and compose an email to the Bureau.
To whom it may concern: I am writing to confirm that Erik Nilsson and I have completed the mandatory two-week cohabitation period as required by our matching agreement. Please advise whether any additional compliance requirements apply. Nolan West.
I hit send before I can second-guess myself.
I shower until the hot water runs cold, scrubbing at my skin like I can wash away the memory of his touch. It doesn’t work. He’s still there, imprinted on me in ways I can’t reach.
Hazel knows something is wrong the moment I walk into the coffee shop. I was due back today, supposedly after my honeymoon and I should be glowing.
“Oh, honey.” She catches my arm before I can escape behind the counter, her eyes scanning my face with the particular intensity of someone who’s known me long enough to read every crack in my armor. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” I reach for an apron, grateful for something to do with my hands. “Just tired. Heat took a lot out of me.”
“Bullshit.” She doesn’t raise her voice—the morning rush is just starting and there are customers to consider—but the word lands hard. “You look like someone died. Or worse. Did that alpha do something to you?”
The concern in her voice makes my throat tight. I focus on tying the apron strings behind my back, willing myself not to fall apart in the middle of my workplace.
“The cohabitation ended. That’s all. We did our two weeks, now it’s over.”
“That’s all,” Hazel repeats flatly. “You spent two weeks locked up with your prime match going through a heat and ‘that’s all’ is the summary you’re going with?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“You don’t have to say anything, honey, but I care about you. If you want to talk, you know I’m here for you.”
I grab the espresso machine, loading beans and tamping grounds with perhaps more force than strictly necessary. “There’s nothing to talk about. He’s exactly who I thought he was. End of story.”
Hazel is quiet for a moment, watching me work. Then, more gently: “Nolan. You’re grinding those beans into powder.”
I look down. She’s right. I ease off the pressure and try again, my hands less steady than I’d like.
“I’m fine,” I say without looking at her. “Really. I just need to get back to normal.”
Hazel doesn’t push. She just squeezes my shoulder once, brief and warm, and moves to take the next customer’s order. I stand behind the machine and make latte after latte and pretend my chest doesn’t ache with every breath.
Normal. I can do normal.
Ellie is actually standing up when I visit her at lunch, which is new. She’s holding onto the bar at the side of the bed but she is actually standing.
She’s still pale, still too thin, still hooked up to monitors that track her vital signs. But there’s color in her cheeks that wasn’t there a month ago, and when she sees me, she actually smiles.
“You look terrible,” she says by way of greeting.
“Thanks. You look better. The treatment’s working.” I’ve been so miserable all day but now I feel a welcome jolt of happiness. This is what I did it for. Suddenly, the price was worth everything.
“Something is.” She carefully maneuvers around the bed, then sits with a sigh of relief. She pats the edge of her bed next to her, an invitation. I sink down beside her, careful not to jostle any of the equipment. “Dr. Burke says my numbers are improving. She used the word ‘cautiously optimistic’.”
I grin. ‘Cautiously optimistic’ is doctor-speak for ‘please don’t make me commit to anything but this is good news.’ Both Ellie and I have become well-versed in doctor speak over the years.
The relief that floods through me is almost overwhelming. This is why I did it. This is why I agreed to the matching, the marriage, all of it.
It was worth it. Whatever happened with Erik, whatever this hollow ache in my chest means, it was worth it for this moment.
“That’s amazing, El.” My voice comes out rough. “I’m so glad.”
“Me too.” She’s watching me now with that particular look she gets when she’s about to pry. “So. The cohabitation ended?”
“Yesterday.”
“And? How was it?”
I stare at my hands, clasped too tight in my lap. “Fine.”
“Nolan.”
“It was fine. We survived two weeks together without killing each other. Compliance achieved.”
“That’s not what I’m asking and you know it.”
I do know it. Ellie has been curious about Erik since she first learned about the matching, asking questions I couldn’t answer, constructing theories about the kind of man he might be. She wanted to believe it could be something good. She’s always been the optimist in our family.
“He’s not what I expected,” I say finally, because I owe her some version of the truth.
“During the heat, he was... different. Kind. Almost tender.” The words scrape coming out.
“And then something changed. He went to a meeting and came back looking at me like I was dirt under his shoe. We spent the last three days of cohabitation barely speaking.”
Ellie is quiet for a moment, processing. “Did you ask him what happened?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Did you push?”
“What was I supposed to do, Ellie? Pin him down and demand answers?” I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to my own ears. “He made it pretty clear he was done with me. I don’t know what I did wrong, and honestly? I’m not sure I want to find out.”
“Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then why—”
“I don’t know.” She reaches over and takes my hand, her fingers thin but warm around mine. “I’m just saying, people get cold when they’re scared. I bet it had nothing to do with you. He doesn’t sound like someone who was exactly emotionally mature.”
I laugh. That’s probably an understatement.
“Are you relieved?” Ellie asks. “That it’s over?”
The question hangs between us. I open my mouth to say yes, of course I’m relieved, this is exactly what I wanted.
Nothing comes out.
“I don’t know,” I admit finally. “I thought I would be. I thought I’d be counting down the days until I could get away from him. And now...” I trail off, unable to finish the sentence.
“Now you miss him.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Should doesn’t have anything to do with it. It was a prime match. It was never going to be easy.” Ellie squeezes my hand. “The heart wants what it wants, even when it’s stupid.”
“My heart is an idiot.”
“All hearts are idiots. That’s kind of the point.”
I stay with her until visiting hours end, talking about nothing important, letting the simple comfort of her presence smooth some of the rough edges of the day. When I leave, she makes me promise to text her when I get home, to eat something real for dinner, to try to get some sleep.
I promise all of it. I’m not sure how much of it I’ll actually manage.
The apartment is dark when I return, shadows pooling in corners that felt bright when Erik was here. I turn on every light I can reach and it doesn’t help. The space still feels hollow, waiting for something that isn’t coming back.
I make a sandwich and eat half of it standing over the sink.
I try to watch television and can’t focus on the screen.
I pull out my laptop to work on job applications—real jobs, jobs that might actually use my skills—but the words blur together until I give up and get into a bed that somehow still smells like him even though I have washed the sheets twice.
As I’m drifting off to sleep, my phone buzzes with a Bureau notification.
Your compliance during the mandatory cohabitation period has been confirmed. A follow-up meeting has been scheduled for one month from today. Both parties are required to attend. Details to follow.
A month.
A follow up meeting? What’s that about? We’ve done what they wanted. Maybe it’s just about paperwork. Maybe they’ll try make us go through this nightmare all over again.
I stare at the message, trying to parse what I’m feeling. A month feels like forever. A month feels like no time at all.
I miss him. I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I also never want to see him again. The thought of sitting across from him in some Bureau office, watching him look through me with those cold blue eyes, makes me want to disappear entirely.
Both things are true. Neither one cancels the other out.
I turn off my phone, get up and strip and redo the bed. Sleep doesn’t come for a long time. When it does, I dream of him.