Chapter 23
April
The penthouse is too quiet after he leaves.
Not empty, never empty. The city is always there, humming through the glass.
The refrigerator purrs. Somewhere deep in the walls, vents circulate air and heat like a slow breath.
It’s the kind of quiet that makes you aware of your own thoughts and turns your heartbeat into a metronome.
I drift from room to room like I’m trespassing in a museum.
Every surface pristine, every line deliberate.
Even the light feels curated. It’s odd being here in the daytime.
My phone buzzes.
Anthony Voss:
Delores is stopping by for a bit to water the plants. You don’t have to speak to her if you don’t want to.
She’s nice. You’re safe. Promise.
My throat tightens on that last part. As if he has to remind me. As if he has to remind himself.
Me:
Okay. Hope everything’s all right
I put the phone down and pace anyway, nerves looking for something to snag on.
A soft chime sounds from the private elevator, followed by measured footsteps, not at all like a stranger trying not to be noticed. I hover at the edge of the living room, unsure whether to make myself scarce like Anthony offered or prove to myself I’m not hiding.
Curiosity wins. I follow the sound through the sliding doors to the terrace, and then up to the rooftop garden area I hadn’t even realized existed.
Delores is there, kneeling beside a long row of planters.
Her hair is gray and coiled into a neat bun, her hands in thin gloves, a small watering can balanced beside her like an old friend.
She doesn’t jump when she senses me. She turns her head slowly and looks right at me.
“You must be April,” she grins, like she’s been expecting me.
“I—Hi.” My voice comes out smaller than I intend. She knows my name? “Anthony said you’d be here. For the plants.”
Delores’s mouth curves gently. Not quite a smile, but something warmer. “He worries about his plants,” she says, “almost as much as he worries about other things.”
Heat creeps up my neck. I step closer, the cold air biting at my cheeks. “You don’t have to—I mean, I won’t get in your way.”
“You aren’t in my way,” she says, and goes back to tending a leaf with careful fingers, pinching off something brown and dead. “You’re allowed to be here.”
Allowed. The word lands with weight in a place like this.
I hover by the railing, looking out over the city. From up here, Manhattan looks unreal, like someone painted it with lights. The wind tugs at my hair and my sweater, trying to pull me apart at the seams.
Delores waters slowly, methodically, like time belongs to her. “He told me you might not want to speak.”
“Been a bit of a rough day,” I admit. “But I wanted to say hi, at least. I didn’t know if you’d mind.”
Delores hums softly. “I don’t mind. I’ve been with him a long time. He’s not always very talkative, so it’s nice.”
That makes my stomach flip. With him a long time. As if she’s been there for all the versions of Anthony I’ve only glimpsed around the edges.
“He’s—” I start, then stop, because what am I even trying to say? He’s what? Cold? Complicated? Sweet when no one’s watching? A man who can leave a board meeting to pick a crying woman up off the street?
Delores finally looks at me again, and it’s unsettling how much she seems to see without asking a single question. “You’ve changed him,” she says gently.
I let out a sharp breath. “I don’t think I have that kind of power.”
Delores’s eyes soften. “Oh, it isn’t power,” she says. “Its presence. And until you arrived, he lived the last six years like no one would ever come home to him again.”
The words slip under my ribs, quiet and lethal.
I turn my face away quickly, as if the skyline is suddenly fascinating, because I don’t want her to see what that does to me.
“He has people,” I say, too fast. “Staff. Colleagues.”
Delores makes a small sound, almost a pitying laugh.
“People around you isn’t the same as someone coming home to you.
” She stands, wipes her gloves clean, and adjusts the watering can.
“He used to eat standing at the counter. Never used the dining table. Bedrooms untouched except for sleep. Like he was passing through his own life.”
My throat tightens again, painfully.
“And now?” I manage.
Delores looks at me a moment longer than she needs to. “Now he’s… here,” she says, and there’s something quietly triumphant in it. “Not just in his body. In his life.”
I don’t know what to do with that. It feels too intimate, too revealing, like I’ve opened a drawer I wasn’t supposed to.
Delores moves to the door, unhurried. “I’ll be finished in a few minutes,” she says. “If you’d like tea, I can make it. If you’d like privacy, I can disappear as if I were never here.”
The choice makes my chest ache. “Tea would be nice,” I say.
“Of course.” She inclines her head, and something about the gesture feels like respect.
While she’s inside, I stay out on the rooftop a little longer, breathing cold air until my thoughts stop sprinting. When I come back down, there’s a mug waiting for me and Delores is already slipping away, quiet as a shadow.
————
I try to settle into the calm she leaves behind.
I curl into the corner of Anthony’s sofa with the blanket he gave me, mug warm against my palms, some mindless show playing on the television. The kind where nothing matters except the lighting and the storyline that you can forget five minutes later.
For a while, it almost works.
Then my phone rings. Unknown number.
I stare at it until it stops, then it rings again immediately, insistent. My pulse jumps. I swipe to answer before I can think too hard, wondering if it’s the clinic or a work phone, maybe. “Hello?”
“April,” a man says, smooth as polished glass. “April Swan.”
Every hair on my arms lifts. I know that voice. I’ve heard it on podcasts, on financial news segments, at pre-show events and runway nights. My mouth goes dry. “Who is this?”
A faint smile in his tone. “Aidan Snow.”
The name lands like a stone dropped in my stomach. CEO of North/Snow. The man Anthony’s world is built to keep out. My hand tightens around the phone. “How did you get this number?”
“I have an urgent concern,” he says, ignoring my question like it’s irrelevant. “About Anthony. And about you.”
My spine goes stiff. “If this isn’t business—”
“It is,” he says. “And it isn’t. I’d prefer to discuss it in person. A discreet meeting. Twenty minutes. I can send a car.”
Absolutely not. “I’m not meeting you,” I say, voice sharper now.
A pause—measuring. “You should hear what I have to say.”
“I’m not interested,” I repeat.
Aidan exhales, like he’s amused. “You’re loyal,” he says. “That’s rare.”
“Is there a point to this call,” I snap, “or are you just enjoying yourself?”
The smile becomes audible. “There’s a point. I’m offering you an exit. A job. Something stable that doesn’t involve you getting dragged down with him.”
My stomach twists. “I’m not looking for a job.”
“Everyone is looking for safety,” he says, voice lowering. “Especially when they’ve tied themselves to a sinking ship.”
Cold dread prickles behind my ribs. “Anthony isn’t sinking.”
“Not yet,” Aidan says. “But he’s surrounded by people who would love to watch him drown.”
My pulse thuds hard. “I’m hanging up now.”
“Consider it,” he says quickly, urgency threading through the smoothness. “Because if you wait too long, you won’t have choices. Call me if you change your mind.”
“I won’t.” I end the call with shaking fingers.
For a few seconds, I just sit there staring at the black screen, my reflection warped faintly in it — pale face, wide eyes, glasses askew, hair a mess. The apartment suddenly feels less like a sanctuary and more like a fortress under siege.
My mind races in ugly loops. How did he know? How did he get my number? How much does he know? What does he want?
I almost call Anthony immediately, but I stop myself.
Not because I don’t trust him, but because I can’t stand the idea of sounding needy again, of sounding like I’m always the next problem he has to fix.
But the phone call sits under my skin like a splinter.
It doesn’t stop hurting just because I ignore it.
So I wait.
————
It’s dark outside when Anthony comes home.
The elevator opens and he steps into the penthouse like a man walking out of a storm, coat still on, hair slightly disordered, jaw set hard enough to cut glass.
He looks up the moment he sees me on the sofa, and something in his face shifts.
Relief, maybe. Or the kind of worry he hates admitting to.
He crosses the room in a straight line. “You ate?” he asks immediately, eyes scanning me like he’s checking for injuries.
“I had toast,” I say.
His gaze flicks to the mug on the table, the blanket around my legs, the remote in my lap. He exhales through his nose, controlled. “Good.” He loosens his tie with a sharp tug. “How are you?”
“I was okay.” My voice wavers. “Until I got a call.”
His posture stills. Like a predator catching scent. “From who?”
I swallow. “Aidan Snow.”
The temperature in the room drops so fast it’s almost physical. Anthony’s eyes narrow. “What did he say?”
“He said he had an urgent concern about you,” I tell him. “He wanted to meet. Offered me a job. Said I should consider an ‘exit.’”
Anthony’s mouth goes tight. He tosses his keys onto the console hard enough that they clatter. “That fucking bastard.”
“Do you know how he got my number?”
“I can guess,” he says, and the way he says it makes my stomach clench. He paces once, a tight, contained loop, then stops and looks at me. “I’ve seen Karen having lunch with him. Not a rumor. Not speculation. I saw it, with my own two eyes.”
My mind flashes back to the boardroom he walked into today. The photo. The cold faces. “Karen,” I repeat.
“She’s building support,” he says, voice controlled but edged.
“Board meetings, little ‘concerns,’ questions about my conduct, my judgment. There was a picture of us, candid, in the press today, and she made it into the world’s largest problem.
She’s been trying to fracture my position for months, and now she’s escalating. ”
“So Aidan is part of it,” I whisper. “Wait, there’s a picture?”
Anthony’s gaze holds mine. “He’s opportunistic,” he says. “And she’s ambitious. Together, they’re a problem. And yes, princess, welcome to the tabloids.”
He sets the photo down beside me, and I stare at it for half a second before deciding to shelf that issue. “I said no. I told him I wasn’t meeting him. I hung up.”
“I know,” he says, and the words are immediate, certain, like he never doubted it.
That should feel good. But it feels like a tether tightening around my ribs. “I don’t want to be used,” I say quietly. “By anyone.”
Anthony’s expression flickers, something protective, something harsh flashing. “You won’t be.” He says it like a promise he’s already prepared to kill for.
I pat the cushion beside me before I can overthink it. “Come sit.”
He hesitates. It’s small, but I see it — the instinct to stay standing, to keep distance, to keep control.
But he exhales and sits, heavy and precise, like he’s placing himself where I asked without letting it look like he’s yielding.
I shift closer slowly, careful, like approaching a skittish animal. “I’m not going anywhere,” I say, voice low. “Okay? Whatever games they’re playing, whatever Karen’s doing, you don’t have to worry about my loyalty.”
His hand moves, finding mine over the blanket. His fingers close around it, firm and warm, and he doesn’t let go.
Then he moves, and I slide into his chest like he’s rearranging the world to fit us together. His arm comes around me, sure and gentle, his hand pushing into my hair and tucking me into him. It’s protective in the way a locked door is protective.
My cheek presses against his shirt. I can hear his heartbeat, steady but heavy, like it’s carrying more than it wants anyone to see.
“Good,” he murmurs, and the single word is rough, like he’s swallowing something sharp. His thumb strokes once over the back of my head, a tiny motion that feels like restraint and need tangled together.