Chapter 3
Chapter three
~EMMA~
"You're doing it again."
I look up from my laptop to find Sasha standing in my kitchen doorway, arms crossed, wearing the expression she reserves for when I'm being an idiot.
Which, to be fair, is an expression I've seen a lot over the past three weeks and six days.
Not that I'm counting.
"Doing what?" I ask, even though I know exactly what.
"Staring into the distance like you're the tragic heroine of a Nicholas Sparks novel." She walks into my shoebox apartment—sorry, "cozy studio"—and plucks my coffee mug from my hands. Takes a sniff. Wrinkles her nose. "How old is this coffee?"
"Today."
"Emma. This is from yesterday. Possibly the day before." She dumps it in the sink, as if it’s a biohazard
Dammit, I knew it was a mistake to give her a key to my place.
“You mind? I’m working.” I gesture at my laptop, which is open to the Titan Industries employee portal I've been refreshing obsessively since I got my offer letter. "I'm being productive. I'm preparing."
"You're freaking a bit.”
"I'm not—"
"Riley!" Sasha calls toward the front door. "She's freaking out again!"
"I can hear you," Riley says, stumbling into my kitchen with a bag of bagels and the judgy energy of someone who's known me since college and has zero patience for my bullshit.
"And yes, she's absolutely freaking. She did that thing where she reorganizes her coffee mugs by color and then gets mad at the colors for not being aesthetic enough. "
"I did not—Okay, I did that once. But that was a completely different freak-out. That was a 'Josh is a dick’ freakout. Totally different.”
The name still tastes like battery acid in my mouth.
Josh.
My ex-fiancé who I supported through law school while working two jobs and doing my own MBA.
Josh, with his sandy-brown hair, lopsided grin and lying mouth.
"How is this different?" Sasha sits on my bed—which is also my couch, because studio apartment—and levels me with a look. "Convince me."
I slam my laptop shut. "Because this time, I'm not sad. I'm focused. I'm excited. I start my dream job in two days, I'm moving to New York City, and I'm finally getting my life together."
"Uh-huh." Riley sets the bagels on my counter and starts unpacking them. "And the fact that you've checked your phone every four minutes for the past three weeks has nothing to do with that fine-ass silver fox from Miami?"
My face burns. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"'Don,'" Sasha says, making air quotes with her fingers. "Mysterious businessman who 'probably isn't even his real name' according to your drunk texts at two AM last Saturday."
"I was not drunk—"
"You sent me eleven consecutive messages analyzing what kind of businessmen could afford penthouses in the Rialto suite in Miami,’” Riley says, pulling up her phone to read directly from the evidence.
“And then you spiraled over whether or not those types of businessman are likely to be married. I have the receipts here.”
She shakes the phone, and I lunge for it.
Holding it out of reach, she hangs it over my head, managing to remind me of all the times she’d done just this since we were freshmen roommates.
"That was a moment of weakness," I mutter.
"You've had a lot of those lately," Sasha’s brows waggle. "Almost like you're hung up on someone."
"I'm not hung up. I'm just..." I trail off, searching for a word that isn't "obsessed" or "pathetic.”
"Processing?" Riley offers.
"Overthinking?" Sasha suggests.
"Delusional?" I conclude. "Because that's what this is. Delusion. I spent one night with a guy whose last name I don't even know, and I'm acting like it was some great romance when really it was just..."
“Just what?” Sash prompts.
“I don’t know—Biology? Or pheromones. A rebound hookup that was supposed to be a palate cleanser.”
They both stare at me.
"Wow," Riley says finally. "That was the most weirdly clinical description of great sex I've ever heard."
"It wasn't—" I stop. "Okay, yes, the sex was great.”
Riley bites into a bagel. “I believe the word you used was ‘mind-blowing’.”
“Still, that changes nothing. People have one night stands all the time.” I swallow. “Okay, I don’t. But even I know that once they’re over, people move on with their lives without turning into obsessive weirdos who google 'Miami penthouse hotels' at three AM."
Sasha grins wide. “Well, of course you were Googling that delicious hunk of Business Daddy meat. When a man ‘cleanses your palate’ like that, who could blame you?”
Riley offers me a bagel, and I take it, ripping into it with my teeth.
“Okay, I love you both,” I say, pointing the carb-loaded circle in their direction, “but I will literally scream if we don’t change the subject.”
“Agreed. But first…” Riley sits next to me, bumping my shoulder with hers.
“Here's the thing. Even if Don was great—even if he was the best sex and conversation and whatever else you had—you're never going to see him again.
So you need to decide: are you going to spend the next six months wondering what if, or are you going to accept that you had one perfect night and move forward? "
"Option B," I say immediately. "Definitely option B. I'm done letting men derail my life. Josh took four years from me. Don gets one night. That's it. I'm focusing on my career now, and no man—no matter how great the sex was—is going to make me lose sight of what I've worked for."
But even as I say it, my chest squeezes.
I attribute the feeling to the carbs, and take another chunk out of my bagel.
"Good." Sasha stands, all business now. “Now, let’s focus on the fact that you're about to move to New York City and start working for one of the most innovative tech companies in the country."
"Titan Industries," I say, and just the name puts a butterfly in my stomach. "I still can't believe I got the job."
"You got the job because you're brilliant and you crushed that interview," Riley says resolutely. "Not because of connections or luck or anything else. You earned this on your own merit. Nobody handed it to you."
"I know."
And I do know that.
I went through six rounds of interviews, completed two case studies, and competed against hundreds of applicants. "It's just..."
"Impostor syndrome is a bitch?" Sasha offers.
"Impostor syndrome is a bitch," I agree. “There’s always a nagging thought in the back of my mind that maybe I’m not as good as I think I am. Or as talented. Or—“
"Stop." Riley grabs my shoulders. "You have an MBA from Northwestern. You graduated top of your class. You are absolutely qualified."
"But—"
"No buts. You're qualified. You're prepared.
And you're going to walk into that office on Monday and show them exactly why they were smart to hire you.
You're going to prove—to them and to yourself—that you don't need a man to validate your worth.
You're Emma freaking Sinclair, and you're going to kick ass. "
I take a breath. Another. "Okay. You're right. I'm qualified. I'm prepared. I'm not going to think about Miami or Don or the fact that I still have his shirt."
Silence.
"You have his shirt?" Sasha's eyes widen. "The expensive one you ruined?"
“There was no way I was walking out of that hotel without something to cover up that itty bitty outfit," I say defensively. “Those outfits work at night. But in the morning? In daylight?”
Sasha nods, chewing on her bagel. “Hookersville.”
“Exactly!”
Riley laughs, followed by Sasha, and I join them.
I release a long breath, sighing. “But I’m getting rid of it. Today."
"You don't have to—" Riley starts.
"No, I do. It's weird to keep it. It's a physical reminder of something that's over, and I need to stop...I need to stop this. Whatever this is. I need to stop hoping he'll somehow find me or that I'll magically run into him again. That's not how real life works.”
Newly determined, I march to my closet, yanking open the door and reaching for the garment bag I'd carefully hung in the back.
My hand closes around it just as a wave of nausea hits me like a truck.
"Oh no," I whisper.
"Emma?" Riley's voice sounds distant. "You okay?"
I'm not okay.
I'm very much not okay.
I stumble toward the bathroom, barely making it before I'm violently sick into the toilet.
This has been happening for a week now.
Random waves of nausea, usually in the morning but sometimes—like now—at completely inconvenient moments.
I'd convinced myself it was stress.
Excitement about the new job.
Maybe that questionable Thai food from three days ago.
But as I sit on the cold tile floor, breathing hard and trying not to throw up again, a different possibility starts forming in my mind.
A possibility that feels impossible and terrifying and completely, devastatingly plausible.
"Emma?" Sasha's knocking on the door. "Let us in."
I unlock the door with shaking hands, and they both crowd into my tiny bathroom, brows furrowed.
"How long have you been sick?" Riley asks, already shifting into her practical problem-solving mode.
"A week. Maybe a little more." I close my eyes. "I thought it was stress."
"Could be stress," Sasha says, but her voice is careful. "Or..."
"Don’t. Don't say it."
"Emma." Riley crouches down next to me. "When was your last period?"
I try to remember.
It was before Miami, definitely.
Early May, maybe? But I've never been super regular, especially when I'm stressed.
Then I remember….
“We used a condom,” I blurt out, hand clasping over my heart. “We’re good. I’m good.”
Sasha eyes me warily, but then nods. “Alright, then, let’s get you some Pepto and some water to wash it down with. No use being sick on your first day of work.”
I swallow, nodding fast. “Right.”
The plane touches down at JFK just after noon, the jolt shaking me hard enough to slosh my stomach.
I immediately regret every eating decision that led me to this moment.
Not the job—that’s still in the “pinch me, I can’t believe this is real” category.
No, I regret the airport turkey sandwich I decided to eat thirty minutes before takeoff.
Because now it’s staging a violent coup in my digestive system.
“Are you okay?” the woman next to me asks as I white-knuckle the armrests, plastering on a smile that’s about as convincing as a TSA-friendly shampoo bottle.
“Fine,” I grit out. “Totally fine. Love flying. Love it so much.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
The second the seatbelt sign dings off, I’m on my feet and power-walking toward the restroom. A few deep breaths over the sink later, I decide that I am definitely not dying.
Just stressed, dehydrated, and running purely on caffeine and anxiety.
Perfect combo for first impressions.
By the time I collect my bags at baggage claim, I’m exhausted but buzzing with adrenaline.
New York thrums like a steady beat outside the terminal—honking horns, shouting cab drivers, humidity so thick it feels personal.
I drag my suitcase toward the exit and remind myself why I’m here.
I’m Emma Sinclair.
First-generation overachiever.
New Strategy Development Manager at Titan Industries.
I worked for this. Fought for this.
Earned this.
So what if my hands are shaking, my stomach’s in knots, and I feel like the human embodiment of “overthinking”?
It’s just pre-first-day jitters.
Altitude and adrenaline conspiring against me.
As the automatic doors slide open and that muggy New York air hits my face, I straighten my shoulders and square my jaw.
New city. New job.
New chapter.
No more looking back. No more what-ifs about a man I barely knew.
I can do this. I will do this.
Even if the thought of walking into Titan Industries on Monday makes me want to throw up all over again.