Chapter 12
Pauline
Jack Specter had been gone for a week.
Not that I was keeping track. I just noticed—like you notice when the weather shifts or when the break-room coffee runs out.
Monday came and went without him appearing on the executive floor, and then Tuesday followed, and Wednesday after that.
The elevator stopped making my pulse jump every time it chimed.
The building felt different without him prowling through it—quieter, somehow. Emptier.
I should have been relieved. The man had bought my company, stalked my desk with coffee, kissed me senseless on a dark street and then looked at me like I’d ripped his heart out when I pushed him away. His absence should have felt like freedom.
It didn’t. It felt like something was missing.
I came home Monday evening tired and irritable, my feet aching from a day spent chasing down sources who didn’t want to be found.
I kicked off my shoes at the door and dropped my bag on the floor and stood there for a moment in the silence of my apartment, listening to the radiator clank its familiar rhythm.
The pigeon was back on the fire escape, glaring at me through the window like I owed it money.
Everything was exactly as I’d left it that morning, and somehow that made me feel lonelier than if something had changed.
I grabbed leftover pasta from the fridge—cold, because microwaving felt like too much effort—and collapsed onto the couch with my legs tucked under me.
The remote was buried somewhere in the cushions, and I dug it out without thinking, flipping to the local news because I needed noise.
Background. Something to fill the quiet that had started to feel oppressive.
Traffic updates. Weather forecast. Some story about a new restaurant opening downtown that I’d probably never be able to afford.
Then his face filled the screen, and my heart attacked my ribs fiercely.
Jack. Standing outside some building in a charcoal suit, answering questions from a cluster of reporters.
The headline underneath read something about Specter Capital and a new acquisition, my pasta was getting cold in my lap and I couldn’t look away.
Even through a television screen, he looked like something that could wreck me if I let it.
I’m going to kiss you now.
The memory hit me without warning—his voice low and rough in the darkness, his hands cupping my face. And I’d kissed him back. For that perfect seconds, I’d let myself have what I wanted, let myself melt into him.
I did the right thing. We don’t belong in the same world—him with his private jets and charity galas and a last name that opens doors I didn’t even know existed.
Me with my student loans and my grandmother in the hospital and a career I’m still fighting tooth and nail to build. He’s champagne and penthouse views. I’m cheap wine and a one-bedroom apartment.
The kiss was a mistake. A beautiful, devastating mistake that I couldn’t afford to repeat.
On the screen, Jack said something that made the reporters laugh.
I grabbed the remote and switched off the TV before I could torture myself any further.
His face disappeared. The ache in my chest didn’t.
The apartment felt too quiet now, the silence pressing in on me from all sides. I sat there with my cold pasta and my racing heart and wondered when exactly I’d become the kind of person who couldn’t watch the news without having an emotional crisis.
A knock at my door made me jump so hard I nearly dropped my fork.
I set the pasta aside and crossed the room, wiping my hands on my jeans. Through the peephole, I could see purple hair and an apologetic expression.
I opened the door.
“Hey!” Candy stood in the hallway looking frazzled, her keys in one hand and Meatball’s leash in the other.
“I am so, so sorry to ask this again, but I have a pipe emergency. Like, water-shooting-everywhere emergency. The plumber’s on his way but I can’t have Meatball in there while they’re working because last time he tried to eat the tools and it was a whole thing.”
She said all of this in one breath, barely pausing for air.
“You want me to watch him?”
“Just for an hour. I know you’re still not his biggest fan, but he keeps looking at your door when we walk past. It’s kind of sweet, actually. Or creepy. One of those.”
I looked at Meatball. Meatball looked at me. His tail gave a single, tentative wag.
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “Sure.”
What?
“You’re a lifesaver. Seriously. I owe you so many coffees.” She was already handing me the leash, already backing away.
“There’s treats in my apartment if he gets antsy. He likes the peanut butter ones. Don’t give him more than two or he gets weird. Love you, thank you, you’re amazing!”
She disappeared around the corner, and I stood there in my doorway holding a leash attached to a dog the size of a small bear.
Meatball looked up at me. I looked down at him.
“Well,” I said. “I guess you’re coming in.”
He followed me inside with surprising gentleness. I unclipped his leash and watched him sniff around—the couch, the coffee table, the spot where my shoes had landed by the door.
He moved carefully, like he understood this was my space and he was just a visitor.
I sat back down on the couch, and after a moment he settled at the far end of the living room, lying down with his massive head on his paws. His eyes stayed fixed on me, watching. Waiting.
We stayed like that for a few minutes, the silence between us oddly comfortable. I picked at my cold pasta without really tasting it, my thoughts drifting back to Jack despite my best efforts to think about literally anything else.
I must have made some kind of sound—a sigh, maybe, or something closer to a whimper—because Meatball’s head lifted.
His ears perked forward. He watched me for a long moment, and then slowly, he got to his feet and started walking toward me.
I tensed automatically. But Meatball didn’t lunge.
He just kept coming at that same measured pace, like he was giving me time to tell him to stop.
I didn’t tell him to stop.
He reached the couch and sat beside it.
His tail swept across the floor once, twice. His big eyes looked up at me with something that might have been concern.
“I’m fine,” I told him, which was ridiculous. I was talking to a dog. Explaining myself to an animal who probably just wanted food or belly rubs or whatever dogs wanted.
He inched closer. His nose bumped my knee, soft and wet.
I reached out before I could talk myself out of it.
My fingers touched his fur. It was softer than I expected, thick and warm. I scratched behind his ear, and his whole body seemed to relax into the touch.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay. This is okay.”
For about two seconds, he accepted the attention with dignity.
Then something in him broke loose—joy, maybe, or relief, or whatever dogs felt when they finally got what they wanted—and he surged forward.
He didn’t bite. Didn’t growl. He just launched himself at me with the enthusiasm of a creature who had been waiting for this moment his entire life, his tongue everywhere at once, his massive body wiggling with happiness.
“Oh my God—” I tried to push him back but he was relentless, licking my face, my neck, my hands, making sounds of pure canine delight. “Meatball—stop—that’s disgusting—you’re disgusting—”
He did not stop. If anything, he doubled down, his tail wagging so hard his entire back end swayed with it. He climbed half onto the couch, which shouldn’t have been possible given his size, and pressed his face against mine like he was trying to absorb me through sheer force of affection.
And I was laughing.
The sound bubbling up from somewhere I’d forgotten existed.
I gave up trying to fight him off and just let it happen, one hand finding that spot behind his ears while the other tried unsuccessfully to wipe dog slobber off my cheek.
“Fine,” I gasped between giggles. “Fine. We’re friends now. You win. Happy?”
He was clearly very happy. He flopped onto the couch beside me—fully on the couch now, taking up approximately two-thirds of it—and rested his giant head in my lap like this was something we did, like we’d been doing it forever.
I stroked his fur and felt my heart rate slowly return to normal. The ache in my chest was still there, but it felt smaller now. Less sharp.
“Can I ask you something?”
His ears twitched.
“Do you think it’s embarrassing that I’m sitting here being sad over a man I shouldn’t even be thinking about?”
Meatball lifted his head and let out a bark. One sharp, definitive sound, like he had strong opinions on the matter.
“That’s what I thought.” I scratched under his chin. “Very embarrassing. Incredibly pathetic. You’re not supposed to agree so fast.”
He barked again, his tail thumping against the cushions.
“Sheesh, that bad?”
I was smiling. Despite Jack on the television, despite the kiss I couldn’t stop replaying, despite the mess my heart had become—I was sitting on my couch with a dog I used to be terrified of, and I was smiling.
Ethan asked me to dinner on Friday.
I said yes because I couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse. He’d been kind to me since my first day at California Times—showing me the ropes, warning me about office politics, bringing me coffee without being asked like I was a stray cat he’d decided to adopt.
He picked me up at seven, right on time, wearing a blue button-down that brought out the warmth in his eyes. His car was clean and smelled faintly of the pine air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.
“There’s this Italian place downtown,” he said as he pulled onto the main road. “My buddy swears by it. Apparently the carbonara is life-changing, but the decor looks like someone’s Italian grandmother exploded.”
“That’s either a warning or a selling point.”
“Honestly? Both.”