Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
olivia
The sound of his voice pulls me out of the fog.
“Baby?”
I turn slowly, the phone still warm in my hand. The words from the call still reverberate through me like a struck note I can’t quiet.
We’d very much like to offer you the position, should you still be interested.
The implications hit all at once.
If I accept, it means months—potentially, years—apart. If I decline, I lose a future I’ve spent half my life working toward. The choice I thought I’d been spared has come back like a ghost I didn’t summon, demanding to be made.
I force air into my lungs and slip the phone into my pocket as though hiding the evidence could make it less real.
“Hey,” I manage, my voice lighter than I feel. “You’re early.”
He walks into the room, unhurried, hands in his pockets. With each measured step, the familiar scent of cedar and clean linen drifts closer, wrapping around me.
“Thought I’d make sure my father wasn’t working you into the ground,” he says, a trace of humor under the words.
I laugh lightly, but my eyes stay fixed somewhere near the floor. My heart won’t slow.
He stops just shy of touching me. Another pause stretches thin, until he says quietly, “But above all, I missed you.”
That pulls my eyes to his.
The light from the window hits him in a way that makes my breath catch—gold licking at the sharp line of his jaw, turning his hair to something molten at the edges.
He looks like he could have walked out of a painting, or some historical romance novel.
Too composed, too heartbreakingly beautiful for the world we live in.
He tilts his head slightly, studying me. “Good call?”
The question lands like a test I’m not ready for.
I could tell him now. I could say, It was Castor & Wyatt, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.
But I can already see the flicker of concern that would pass across his face, the way he’d start thinking ten steps ahead of me, trying to solve something that isn’t his to fix. I want to hold this moment—our fragile peace—just a little longer.
“It was…” My voice catches. “Unexpected.” I let it hang there and pivot clumsily. “Did you have a good day?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead he asks in a deceptively casual tone, “Was it your mom?” His gaze roves over me, patient and heavy.
The relief is instant, shameful. An easy out, offered so gently I almost believe I deserve it.
“Yes,” I reply quickly, nodding once. “She just—had a question about the accounting for this month.” The lie comes out smoothly, and the guilt follows right on its heels.
Nathaniel nods once. I can tell he’s not convinced, but he lets it pass.
I know how unfair it is to him, so I step closer, searching for a way to undo the knot between us. “But that’s not important.”
His hands stay buried in his pockets, as if he’s holding himself back. “Then what is?”
I can see the toll that his restraint is taking on him, so I remind myself that he deserves the version of me that chooses him too. So, I reach out first, looping my arms around his waist and fitting myself against him.
“That I missed you too,” I confess quietly. The steady rise and fall of his chest settles the brewing chaos inside me, and when I look up at him, the smile that comes feels real.
His hands emerge from his pockets at last, sliding up to cradle my face. His palms are warm, thumbs brushing the hinge of my jaw. The touch makes my eyes flutter shut as my pulse skips. Then his mouth finds mine.
The kiss begins soft, searching, the kind that asks rather than takes.
But the moment my lips part, something deeper unfurls between us—his tongue sweeping into my mouth, the scrape of his teeth catching on my lower lip.
The pressure builds, and I feel it everywhere.
The curl of heat in my stomach, the way my fingers tighten in his shirt, the longing that always finds me when he kisses me like this.
I melt into it, letting his rhythm guide mine, until thought gives way to instinct—until all that’s left is the warmth of his breath against my mouth, the contented sigh that escapes me when he presses closer.
In his arms, the noise in my head finally fades. No Castor & Wyatt. No London. No impossible decisions. Just the simple truth of us, irrevocably bound, even when the world feels like it’s shifting beneath my feet.
When he finally pulls back—with great reluctance—he stays close enough that I can feel his words against my lips. “Go get your things, baby. I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
I hear what he doesn’t say: I’m here. I’m not leaving. I’ll wait until you’re ready to tell me.
My heart hurts. I nod, stepping back first, needing the space to steady myself. “I won’t be long,” I tell him.
He watches me for a moment longer before turning toward the door.
I barely slept.
Last night unspools in fragments—flashes of candlelight, the slow arc of Nathaniel’s smile across the table at Gramercy Tavern, the steady weight of his fingers covering mine. The restaurant was elegant in that understated way he prefers: warm wood, linen, the shimmer of glassware.
The taste of the wine lingered on my tongue, dry and floral.
His thumb stroked the inside of my wrist. Around us, conversation moved in low waves, steady and civilized.
It should have been enough to ground me in this life I chose.
Instead, I kept thinking of what it would mean to step away from it, to say yes to something that takes me across an ocean.
On the ride home, Nathaniel’s hand rested on my thigh. I told myself it was what certainty feels like. But he sensed my distance—he always does—and when we reached the apartment, he kissed me in the hallway, then against the bedroom door. That’s always how we meet when speaking feels impossible.
As he drew me to bed, there was no urgency in the way he pulled my pants down my legs and my blouse over my head. His hands slid over me, touching my throat, my ribs, my stomach, my thighs. With each caress, desire woke, hot and wild, filling my core and tightening it like a coil of pure heat.
When I wrapped my legs around his hips and held him tightly, the look of relief that passed over his features was almost heart-wrenching. He moved inside me with deep, purposeful thrusts, and I dropped my head back on the pillow, sighing with pleasure.
His fingers slipped between our bodies to feel where we were connected, then upward to circle my clit. With each decisive flick, pleasure rose higher and higher until I tipped over the edge, gasping out his name as my body shuddered in release.
Nathaniel followed soon after, spilling into me with a few jerky thrusts before burying his face in the crook of my neck. He stayed there for several moments, seemingly unwilling to separate us, while I ran my hands up and down his back, whispering words of love in his ear over and over.
Eventually, he rolled to the side, gathered me in his arms, and was almost instantly asleep.
I lay there in the dim light of his room, listening to him breathe while sleep eluded me.
At some point, I crawled out of his embrace and slid into the bathroom to wash up and pull on a shirt, grabbing my phone as I slipped back into bed, careful not to wake him.
The email from Castor & Wyatt was already in my inbox. The words were neat and thrilling and impossible. I imagined London: a new skyline, a new life. Then I looked at him, the stillness of his shoulders rising and falling beside me. The two visions didn’t belong in the same frame.
The next afternoon, I decide to slip out of the office for lunch on my own.
Bryant Park is just a short walk away. The air carries a subtle sweetness, somewhere between lilacs and exhaust. Sunlight slips through the plane trees, striping the grass in shifting gold. I buy a sandwich from a cart and a paper cup of coffee, then find a small table by the fountain.
Around me, the city exhales into its midday rhythm.
A man reads the paper on a bench. A woman in heels eats a salad while typing on her phone.
Two kids chase each other, laughter echoing through the open space.
The sound of life carries from every direction—voices, footsteps, the distant metallic rattle of the carousel turning.
I realize this is the first time I’ve been truly alone here. And surprisingly, it doesn’t feel daunting. It feels…expansive.
All the things I thought I needed to move abroad to find—anonymity, independence, possibility—are already at my fingertips.
For so long, I thought the only way to feel free was to leave.
I grew up believing that distance was the cure for duty—that if I could get far enough away, I could stop being the responsible one, the dependable one, the daughter who never got to want anything for herself.
Leaving the country had seemed like the only way to start over, to unlearn the version of myself that existed only to hold everyone else together.
But sitting here, surrounded by strangers who expect nothing from me, I feel something shift.
Maybe freedom isn’t running from what shaped me.
Maybe it’s realizing that those expectations don’t have power over me anymore.
I don’t have to disappear to be my own person. I can stay—and still choose me.
A breeze passes through, lifting the corner of my napkin.
I press it down and glance toward the skyline.
The glass buildings rise above the park, gleaming and severe, Caldwell Tower among them.
My reflection is somewhere within all that mirrored light, and for the first time, it doesn’t make me feel small.
I take the last sip of my coffee. The taste is bitter and grounding. Around me, people stand, scatter, return to the lives waiting for them. I linger another moment, letting the sunlight warm my face.
By the time I’m back at Caldwell Tower, the world feels a little sharper, more coherent. I swipe my badge, nod to the receptionist, and move through the glass doors toward the conference room.
The meeting runs long. Charles is at the head of the table, surrounded by his partners and analysts.
With my laptop open and pen poised, I fall easily into the rhythm of their discussion.
I listen first, tracing the logic of the argument until I find the small gap between what’s being said and what’s being missed. When the moment comes, I speak.
“If we reframe the issue as a communication gap rather than a market limitation,” I say, “we might reach the people who already want what we’re offering—they just don’t know it yet.”
A few heads turn. Someone writes it down. Another adds, “That’s a fair point.”
I catch Charles’s glance—brief, considering. The acknowledgment is subtle, almost invisible to anyone else, but it lands deep.
When the meeting ends, chairs scrape and people drift toward the door. Charles gathers his notes, then looks up at me. “Olivia, a moment?”
I stay as the others file out. The door clicks shut and I straighten instinctively—posture trained from years of wanting to appear capable.
He folds his hands on the table. “You’ve done well this week,” he says. “Not just in the work itself, but in how you think.”
I wait—unsure if that’s the entirety of it—but he continues, measured and calm. “Most people look at problems and see obstacles. You look and see how things connect. The pattern behind it. That’s rarer than you know.”
He says it simply, without flattery.
“Thank you, Mr. Caldwell,” I manage. “That means a lot.”
He nods once. “It’s not a favor to my son when I say this, so don’t take it as one. But if you ever wanted a place here—after Halford, after Baxter—we’d be lucky to have you.”
The words hit something deep, almost tender. My throat tightens. For a second, I can’t speak. This is what I’ve always wanted—to be seen for my mind, not my utility.
My family only sees what I can do for them. Nathaniel loves me so completely that sometimes his devotion eclipses everything else. But Charles—he’s seeing me.
When I finally find my voice, it comes out softer than I intend. “Thank you. That’s very generous of you.”
He smiles genuinely. “No. It’s simply true.”