Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
DEREK
DP Enterprises is quiet in a way it only is on the weekends.
It’s Sunday. The building hums instead of roars. No assistants, no back-to-back meetings, no polished urgency echoing down the halls. Just the soft whir of HVAC, the muted glow of screens, and the smell of coffee that’s been sitting too long on a warming plate.
I wasn't planning on working today. I closed the priority deal yesterday while Audra slept. I don't need to be here.
I know that. I knew it when I left the house this morning, keys in hand, jacket pulled on like armor. I told myself it was about clearing my head, about getting ahead on Monday. About not wasting a day.
That was a lie.
The truth is simpler and more irritating.
Everywhere I looked at home, I saw her.
The couch where she’d slept. The blanket folded too neatly afterward. The faint citrus scent she’d left behind in the guest bathroom. Even the kitchen — usually my territory, controlled and impersonal — felt altered, like it remembered her presence and refused to let it go.
So I came here.
My office is exactly as I left it. Desk pristine. Papers aligned. Screens dark until I wake them with a touch. This space doesn’t ask anything of me. It doesn’t look back.
I loosen my tie anyway.
Audra Sullivan should not be in my head like this.
She was vulnerable. Drugged. Shaken. Anyone with a conscience would have helped her. That’s what I did. End of story.
Except it isn’t.
Because I keep thinking about the way she fit into my house without trying to. The way she didn’t poke or pry, didn’t ask invasive questions, didn’t treat the night like leverage or drama. The way she thanked me without making it transactional.
And the way she looked at me the next morning — not grateful, not dazzled.
Just… seeing me.
I don’t want this.
I’ve built my life carefully. Intentionally. No mess, no overlap, no blurred lines between work and everything else. Audra lives directly on that fault line.
My phone sits face-down on the desk.
I haven’t texted her.
That’s deliberate. Measured. Sensible.
What I don’t love is the other half of the equation.
She hasn’t texted me either.
I tell myself that’s good. Healthy. Proof that we both understand this wasn’t something that needed follow-up or reassurance or explanations. That we’re adults who can let a moment exist without trying to define it.
Except the thought doesn’t sit cleanly.
Because Audra Sullivan is not passive. She doesn’t wait around wondering what someone else is thinking. She acts — or she decides not to, and does that just as deliberately.
Which means this silence isn’t absence.
It’s choice.
The realization needles at me more than I expect.
A knock hits my door — sharp, familiar, unwelcome in the way only friends can be.
“Wow,” Mark says as he walks in without waiting for permission. “You’re here on a Sunday. Did hell freeze over or are you avoiding something?”
Alex follows him in, coffee in hand, already shrugging out of his jacket. “I told you he couldn’t sit in that house.”
I glare at both of them. “I’m working.”
Mark looks around pointedly. “On what? Your brooding?”
Alex snorts and drops into the chair across from my desk. “So. How’s Audra?”
The question prickles.
“She’s fine,” I say automatically.
Mark arches a brow. “You talk to her?”
“No.”
Alex tilts his head. “She talk to you?”
“No.”
A beat.
Then Mark lets out a low whistle. “Mutual silence. Bold strategy.”
“It’s respectful,” I counter. “She needed space.”
“And she didn’t need to check in?” Alex asks mildly.
I don’t answer that.
Because that’s the part I don’t have a handle on.
Mark leans back against the desk, arms crossed. “You think she’s mad?”
“No.”
“You think she’s hurt?”
“No.”
Alex watches me for a long second. “You think she’s okay.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t like that,” he finishes.
I look away.
“She doesn’t need me hovering,” I say. “And I’m not starting something I don’t intend to—”
“Finish?” Mark supplies.
“Repeat,” I snap.
The room goes quiet.
Alex exhales slowly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t lead her on,” Mark adds.
“I know.”
“But you did let her see you,” Alex says. “And that’s new.”
That’s the problem.
I rub a hand over my jaw and stare at the city through the window — all glass and order and distance. So much easier than people.
“She’s not texting because she doesn’t chase,” Mark says finally. “Not because she doesn’t care.”
That feels uncomfortably close to something I don’t want to name.
“And you’re not texting,” Alex adds, “because you’re scared of what happens if she answers.”
I scoff. “I’m not scared.”
Mark smiles slowly. “Sure you are. You just don’t call it that.”
They don’t push further. They don’t need to.
The silence stretches again — thicker now, charged.
Mutual.
Unresolved.
And for the first time, I realize this isn’t distance.
It’s a standoff.