Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
DEREK
I don’t go out to Jamie’s desk.
Not because I can’t.
Because I don’t trust myself not to make it look like work—or her to make a scene.
Her desk sits in the open by the elevator—public, visible, a place where anything said becomes a rumor before it becomes a sentence. I won’t give the floor that.
So I pick up the phone and press her extension.
“Jamie,” I say when she answers. “Can you come into my office.”
There’s a pause—brief, precise.
“I’ll be right there,” she says.
When she steps inside, she closes the door behind her without being asked.
She doesn’t sit.
That tells me everything.
“This is personal,” I say. “Not work.”
Her expression doesn’t soften. “Then talk.”
I don’t decorate it.
“The night at The Vault,” I begin.
Jamie’s eyes flicker—just once. Not surprise. Recognition.
“I didn’t know she was going to be there.”
“And you still ended up with her,” she says.
“Yes,” I reply. “Because she was roofied.”
Jamie exhales sharply.
“I took her to the hospital. She stayed at my place. Mark and Alex were there. I didn’t leave her alone.”
“That’s not why you called me in here,” Jamie says.
She’s right.
“The next night,” I say, “I went back out.”
“To forget her,” Jamie says flatly.
“Yes.”
I keep going.
“I drank too much. I went home with someone. I didn’t get her name.”
Silence.
“And then you took Audra to dinner,” she says.
“Yes.”
“And you were intimate with her,” she continues. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell Audra.”
“No.”
Jamie steps closer.
“Do you know what you did,” she asks.
“I know what I did,” I say.
“Say it.”
“I let her believe she was chosen without giving her the information she needed to decide.”
Jamie’s jaw tightens.
“You don’t get to be careless with someone like her,” she says. “Audra of all people.”
“I know.”
“No,” she snaps. “You noticed. You didn’t honor it.”
She exhales.
“You’re not a villain,” she says. “But you behaved like a man who thought silence was restraint.”
“I was protecting myself,” I say quietly.
“Yes,” Jamie agrees. “You were.”
She opens the door.
“But who was protecting Audra?” she says without looking back.