Chapter 11
The door shut behind her, and a moment later, a button clicked.
Dorian watched as Rune shrugged her coat on and made her way to the elevator. She had left a box on the table, black with a red bow on top. Only then did Dorian let his shoulders droop. He pressed the intercom to let Tom know that he wasn't to be disturbed.
He was good at compartmentalising. His life existed in neat, watertight boxes, business, family, social, personal. Rune had her own separate box, carefully sealed and tidy. Contained because she did not quite fit in one or the other.
Except now her box was leaking. Bleeding into all the others. Making a mess of the clean lines. He'd miscalculated somehow. This had never happened before since he hit adulthood. No, that's a lie; he’d almost lost his closest friend over a woman.
Women cheated. That was a fact. He'd seen it, expected it, and built his contracts to guard against it. He'd never thought Rune would, but she had. Her gilded cage did not stop that from happening, he thought as the glass in his hand shattered and the sharp edges cut into his palm.
For a desperate fraction of a second, he considered making her a counteroffer. Something tempting enough to keep her. Then he dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. The child was unacceptable. The child had to go, and he had a feeling Rune may not comply with that.
He rubbed his jaw, his unfocused gaze fixed on the wall without really seeing it.
Just weeks ago, Crispin had lost his ever-loving mind over a woman and went against his family in a board meeting.
It was like he was ready to burn his future to the ground for her.
Then he unravelled completely when Aria had pulled a disappearing act.
Now he was holed up in Oxford, chasing her ghost.
That couldn't be him. That would never be him.
Dorian let out a slow breath, drew a sheet of monogrammed paper from the neat stack on his desk.
Two weeks ago, after dropping Crispin in Oxford, he'd come back here and, he would admit, lost control with Rune. He had been an arsehole. More of an arsehole than usual. He knew what he was.
Then he'd made it worse. He hired Margo once he realized Rune loathed her on sight.
He knew exactly what the little bitch was doing, and he did nothing to stop it. The wall separating his office from Rune's desk could turn transparent at the touch of a button.
He'd watched Margo's little games, fully expecting Rune to break first. Margo turned his stomach but he played along just to get a rise out of Rune. But Rune had the last laugh.
The bitterness in his mouth tasted like jealousy, though he refused to acknowledge it. Finn and Tom sniffing around her. Even Eli. Instead of reeling Rune in, Margo had her sprinting in the opposite direction.
As if he would touch Margo with a ten-foot pole. Still, it had been mildly entertaining. Until it wasn't.
He looked down at his hand. It was shaking, barely, but enough for him to notice. He clenched the pen until the tremor stopped.
Rune wasn't coming back, he allowed the thought to sink in.
A child. How could she?
He forced those emotions which urged him to leap for the door, take the fire escape, and drag Rune back by her hair back into the box he had specially crafted for her.
After a long, deep breath, he wrested control back and started laying out the situation in clear mental columns, analyzing it like a chessboard.
He always won at chess. Except that one time, one too many drinks, Rune across from him, smiling, leaning forward with a spark in her eyes.
She'd almost had him then, playing with a verve and audacity she didn't usually show.
His gaze caught on the far corner of his office, on the empty space where a scarlet vase used to stand. The vase was a treasured gift, and yet in a brief moment of rage, it turned into nothing but broken pieces of ceramic.
The memory came uninvited. One winter evening, he didn't even remember what had set him off.
He'd locked himself in his office, silent, frozen, the shattered remains of that vase scattered across the carpet.
Rune had knocked, quietly at first, then once more.
When he didn't answer, she went away. Or so he'd thought.
Minutes later, the door eased open. She didn't say a word. She knelt and gathered the jagged red shards into a neat pile. Then she pulled a chair up beside him, sitting there without expectation or questions. Just company in the silence until whatever it was passed. And surprisingly, it did.
He crushed that thought now, shutting it in the same dark cupboard where he'd shoved the rest of her story about her brother. He wasn't going to unpack that either.
His hand hovered over the phone. He almost called her. Almost.
But then, no. What was done was done. He would let her go. Let her scramble for work. And when all the doors closed, she'd come back. Eventually, they always did.
He picked up the phone, this time for his PI, the one he kept off the books. His voice was flat as he eyed the second box that Rune had left.
"I need you to follow Eli for me."
Dorian wanted to know how she'd slipped out of the gilded cage he'd built for her. How had she thought that she could walk away from the exclusivity clause without getting burned? Rage burned in his chest. Eli? Was it Eli? Or maybe Finn?
Did she imagine she could stroll out of his world after a betrayal like that? His gaze drifted to the second box she'd left behind. He regarded it like a ticking time bomb, patient and dangerous.
Not yet.
He forced himself to go through the minutes of yesterday's meeting. Line by line. Motion by motion. Then he rose, walked to the break room, and poured himself a cup of coffee. The coffee was hot and he wondered, with a curl of distaste, why Rune was still drinking the stuff despite being pregnant.
Margo was there, but he ignored her. She'd have her walking papers today. She'd lasted two weeks. There'd never been a mention of anything personal in her contract, her sole purpose was to irritate Rune. Mission accomplished, though not in the way he'd intended.
Back in his office, he made himself wait another ten minutes. The box sat there, silent, waiting, almost willing him to open it. Finally, he went to it and hesitantly lifted the lid. It was filled with protective packing.
Underneath, something wrapped in cotton. He took it out, unwrapped it, and froze.
It was the scarlet vase he'd shattered a year ago.
She'd repaired it, or had it repaired. This had taken time and money. Silver seams ran through it, tracing the cracks like rivers on a map. Segments were missing. The repair was imperfect. The vase itself had never been perfect to begin with.
It had been made by a child's hand. He sat there, staring at it, at the silver glinting in the dim light.