Chapter 13
VIOLET
Four days.
It’s been four days since he stood in my kitchen, called me Miss Wolfe like the night before had been a silly little mistake, and walked out my door without looking back.
At the office, Gianni is polite and professional. It’s a total contrast to the Gianni from the one who gazed at me with those dark eyes as he pumped hard between my thighs, the one who drained every last goddamn drop of his seed into me.
And the truth is that it kind of pisses me off. How could we have a night like that only for him to turn around and treat me like the girl who makes sure the coffee’s restocked in the break room?
OK, that is technically one of my jobs. But still.
Instructions from Gianni come through Chance again. The way they used to, before any of this started. No texts. No late-night summons to his office. No reading my manuscript aloud like it’s our own special kind of foreplay.
It's as if I dreamed the whole thing. Except I didn’t. It was real, and it happened. And the worst part is, I want it to happen again.
Every time I see him—across the conference room, at the elevator, through the glass wall of his office while he's on a call—my skin heats and my stomach drops and I'm mentally right back on that pull-out couch on all fours, his cock splitting me in two, making me come harder than I ever have in my freaking life.
I don't understand what changed. Maybe it was Patrick. Maybe he saw my son and all of a sudden the fantasy of screwing some employee became too real.
Or maybe he just got what he wanted.
Whatever it is, I bury it. The way I bury everything—deep, neat, and compressed inside where all the things I can't afford to feel go to sit quietly and not bother anyone.
I write instead. The book is getting darker, meaner, more honest. The heroine is falling for a man who keeps pulling her close and pushing her away, and she can't tell if the distance is cruelty or some sort of sick kindness.
Neither can I. But at least she's fictional. She can throw a lamp at him in chapter fourteen and it somehow makes me feel better in the real world.
Wednesday rolls around and I need to talk to someone. Of course that someone is Kylie. On my lunch break, I rush into the mostly private bathroom on the IT floor where it’s mostly men and the women’s room is almost always empty.
Once I’m inside, I dial her number, my stomach tensing right away.
“Lunch break call,” she says, picking up on the second ring. “Never a good sign.”
"He's ghosting me," I say, leaning against the tile wall beside the hand dryer. "In person. At work. To my face."
"Define ghosting. Because my definition involves never seeing the person again. I should know—it’s happened to me way more times than I’d like to admit. And I’m pretty sure you can’t do it to someone’s face."
"Well, he figured out a way. He nods at me in the hallway, Ky. Like, super professional style, not a trace of emotion. Like I'm one of the IT guys on his way to fix a printer or something."
"You are aware that I'm an IT person and that's highly offensive. Printers are below my pay grade."
"You know what I mean. Four days ago this man was—" I lower my voice "—doing things to me on my pull-out couch that I still can’t believe, and now he's sending instructions through my supervisor and won't make eye contact for longer than half a second."
"What happened between the couch and the ghosting?"
I hesitate. "He met Patrick."
There’s a silence, then, “Oh. You left that part out.”
"Rudi brought him back in the morning. Gianni was still there. Patrick asked him to stay."
"Oh, Vi."
"Yeah."
"And you think that's what did it? The kid?"
"What else would it be? One minute I'm a mysterious woman who writes dirty novels about her boss, the next I'm a single mom in Sunnyside with Cheerios on the counter and a pull-out couch. That's not exactly the fantasy."
"First of all, you are absolutely the fantasy, shut up.
Second—" Kylie pauses, obviously thinking.
"Have you considered that maybe he's not pulling away because of Patrick? Maybe he's pulling away because of him. Because of what he is and what that means for you and a four-year-old. I mean, he has to have the self-awareness to realize that a kid shouldn’t be anywhere near the kind of life he leads.”
I hadn't considered that. Or I had, somewhere underneath the hurt, but I didn't want to look at it directly because it makes the whole thing more complicated and painful.
"Either way," I say, "the result is the same. He's out."
"Is he, though? Maybe what you think what you’re seeing is distance when it’s actually restraint.”
I pause, give the matter some thought. “I mean, maybe. But you don’t know for sure.”
"I know men. I hack their emails for a living. Well, more as a side-thing. Speaking of which, have you been checking on Lance?"
The pivot is so fast it gives me whiplash, which is probably the point. Kylie never lets me stay in one emotional lane too long, which is actually refreshing.
"Every morning," I say. "Nothing new."
"Good. I ran a fresh sweep last night. No movement, no transfer filings, no travel flags. He's still in Chicago."
"Okay. Thanks Ky. I gotta go."
"Call me tonight?"
"Yeah."
"And Vi? If he's pulling away to protect you, that's not ghosting. That's the opposite of ghosting. That's a man who gives a shit."
"Goodbye, Kylie."
"Love you, weirdo."
"Love you too."
On Thursday evening, I stay late. Patrick’s having dinner with Rudi and her grandson, Marco, who’s about Patrick’s age. The plan is to write, but the words don’t come. Instead, I sit at the keyboard, staring at the screen, my mind as blank as the Word page in front of me.
At a little after seven I get a text from Rudi letting me know they’re done with dinner. I close my laptop, letting out a frustrated noise, and leave.
The lobby’s empty aside from the security guard half-asleep at his desk. Outside, the street is dark and damp, one of those early spring nights that smells like clean rain and dirty exhaust. A chilly wind picks up, and I pull my jacket tighter before starting toward the subway.
I make it two blocks before I feel it, a specific hot, burning feeling at the back of your neck, the sixth-sense you have to develop when you’re always looking over your shoulder. It’s a skill I trained myself to detect during the last year, since packing my bags in Chicago and disappearing.
I’ve learned to trust that feeling.
I glance over my shoulder casually and see a man, half a block behind me. He’s in a dark jacket with a hoodie on underneath, the hood pulled over his head, his hands in his pockets. He’s moving at exactly my speed, staying just inside the edge of the streetlight’s reach. But I can’t see his face.
My heart rate triples and my face heats.
It's nothing. It's a guy walking home. This is Midtown. People walk behind other people. It doesn't mean anything.
I push the thoughts out of my head. A part of me wants to pretend the world is safe and that I don’t have to worry about strange men following me. Unfortunately, I know better.
I speed up. Just slightly. A natural adjustment, like I just realized I’m in a little bit of a hurry.
So does he.
The fear hits and every survival instinct I’ve developed since Lance came into my life fires at the same time. One word repeats over and over in my mind.
Run.
I cross the street. He crosses.
I walk faster. He walks faster.
I run.
My heels slam against the pavement, my purse banging against my hip.
The man behind me matches this pace too, not bothering to look causal, like he isn’t trying to chase me down.
The sound of his heavy footsteps fills the air, and I hear nothing but that and my ragged breathing and my blood pounding in my ears.
I hit the intersection at Lexington and Forty-Sixth. The light is red and traffic is moving and I need to wait. Part of me wants to rush into the middle of the oncoming rush and hope the cars stop, but I know they won’t.
Tires screech. A black Lexus cuts across two lanes and slides to a stop at the curb, the passenger window rolling down—Gianni is behind the wheel. I’m too scared to feel relief. His face is hard and his gaze is locked on something over my shoulder.
He turns his dark eyes to mine.
"Get in."