Chapter 15 #2
She didn’t wait for a response. She practically ran across the crowded restaurant, keeping her head down, her heels clicking frantically against the floorboards. She fled the table before the tears of pure, unadulterated humiliation could spill over her lashes and ruin her makeup.
She pushed violently through the heavy doors of the women’s lounge, the thick wood sealing her inside the cavernous, white marble bathroom.
It was entirely empty. The harsh, bright vanity lights reflected off the endless mirrors, exposing the terrified, pale, shaking girl hiding beneath the designer clothes.
Katherine dropped her bag onto the marble counter and gripped the edges of the sink. Her chest heaved violently as she dragged oxygen into her tight lungs.
What the hell is going on? she thought frantically, staring at her own terrified reflection. Did he find out?
Her hands trembled so violently she could barely unlock her phone screen. She couldn’t call Sean. If he was in a board meeting, he would be furious if she interrupted him over a declined card, and if he did know about David, calling him would be walking straight into a firing squad.
Instead, she scrolled to the contact for his executive assistant, a notoriously cold, incredibly efficient older woman who had always looked at Katherine like she was a piece of trash stuck to the bottom of Sean’s shoe.
She hit the call button, pressing the phone to her ear. It rang twice before the professional, icy voice answered.
“Mr. Sterling’s office. This is Claire.”
“Claire, hi, it’s Katherine,” she said, her voice breathy, rushing, and laced with absolute panic.
“I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m at lunch and both of my cards just declined.
I think there’s a block on the accounts, or fraud protection maybe?
The bank is making a mistake. Can you please just call them and lift it so I can pay for my valet? ”
A long, chilling silence echoed over the line.
“Miss Cole,” Claire finally replied. Her tone was perfectly polite, but utterly, terrifyingly devoid of a single ounce of warmth or sympathy.
It was the voice of a woman reading an execution order.
“There is no fraud alert on the cards. Mr. Sterling has personally placed a temporary freeze on all of your auxiliary accounts.”
Katherine’s breath hitched, a cold knife sliding straight into her gut. “What? Why? For how long?”
“Pending a comprehensive internal financial audit of your spending,” Claire recited mechanically. “I do not have a timeline for when the freeze will be lifted. You will be notified when the audit is complete.”
“But I don’t have any cash!” Katherine pleaded, the desperation completely breaking her voice, a tear slipping free to track down her cheek. “Claire, please, I just need a few hundred dollars to get my car—”
“I apologize for the inconvenience, Miss Cole,” Claire interrupted coldly, the absolute, unyielding finality in her tone acting as a heavy steel door slamming shut. “I have to return to my desk now. Good afternoon.”
Click.
The dead dial tone echoed in Katherine’s ear.
She stared at her reflection in the massive mirror, a creeping, paralyzing dread settling deep into her bones.
Sean had frozen the accounts. He had cut off her lifeblood without a single word of warning, stranding her.
It’s just an audit, she told herself frantically, wiping the tear away, pressing a trembling hand to her racing heart.
It’s just a billionaire being cautious with his money. He doesn’t know. He can’t know.
But the terror wouldn’t subside. The sprawling luxury of the bathroom suddenly felt like a pristine, marble prison cell.
She needed an anchor. She needed comfort. She needed the man who had promised her she was the most intoxicating woman in the world, the man who had begged her to meet him at a motel just hours ago.
With shaking, clammy fingers, she dialed David’s burner phone.
She paced the length of the marble bathroom, biting her thumbnail hard enough to draw blood as the phone rang. One. Two. Three. Four.
Just as it was about to go to voicemail, the line clicked open.
“David,” Katherine gasped, a desperate, pathetic sob of relief catching in her throat. “David, thank god. You have to help me, I am trapped at a restaurant and Sean completely froze my—”
“I can’t talk right now,” David hissed.
His voice wasn’t the deep, dominant rumble of the lover who had worshipped her body.
It wasn’t the arrogant lawyer who claimed he owned her.
It was a harsh, furious, entirely stressed bark that made Katherine flinch backward as if she had been slapped.
In the background of his call, she could hear the chaotic, frantic noise of an office in absolute meltdown—phones ringing off the hook, muffled shouting, the sound of absolute disaster.
“Wait, please, just listen to me,” Katherine begged, her voice cracking, her chest tightening with absolute despair.
“I’m stranded here. I don’t have any money for the valet.
My friends had to pay for my food on a live stream, David.
I’m so humiliated. Can you just wire me some money right now so I can leave? ”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” David snapped. His voice dropped into a vicious, incredibly cruel whisper that sliced straight through her chest, completely devoid of any affection. “I don’t give a shit about your credit cards, Katherine!”
Katherine froze, her mouth falling open in shock.
“Vanguard’s three biggest corporate clients just launched a surprise, aggressive audit on all of my active cases!
” David raged, his breathing completely unhinged with raw panic.
“My entire floor is in absolute chaos. I am losing millions of dollars as we speak! Do not call this number during the day!”
“David, please—”
Click.
The second dial tone of the afternoon hit her ear.
Katherine slowly lowered the phone, the screen going dark in her trembling hand. The cold, stark, devastating reality of her situation came crashing down, entirely shattering the glamorous, arrogant illusion she had built her life around.
She was standing entirely alone in a freezing marble bathroom, deeply in debt to a girl she hated, publicly humiliated in front of thousands, completely cut off from the billionaire’s money, and violently rejected by the lover who claimed he couldn’t live without her.