Chapter 11 #2
“Even if he wants me.”
Jules’s face softened. “And do you want him?”
My body answered first, a low tightening at the memory of his hand in my hair.
“So much,” I stated unambiguously.
“Not fantasy want? Real want?”
I exhaled slowly. “That’s what scares me.”
“Because of the job?”
“Yes.”
“Because of the godfather thing?”
“Yes.”
“Because if it goes wrong, it goes spectacularly wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Because Benjamin will ascend through the ceiling and return as vengeance incarnate?”
A laugh escaped me. “Also yes.”
She smiled a little, then reached over and took my hand. Her palm was cool from the wineglass. “You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“Actually, I do. The skirt is a pretty specific RSVP.”
“No. You have to decide what to wear tomorrow. That is not the same as deciding your entire life.”
“It feels like the same.”
“That’s because you’re dramatic.”
“I am not dramatic.”
“You were kissed once and ordered Thai food just so you could process everything.”
“I ordered Thai food because he told me to eat.”
Jules stared at me. Then she slowly grinned. “Oh, this is worse than I thought.”
“Don’t.”
“He ordered you to eat and you obeyed?”
“I was hungry.”
“Were you?”
“Eventually.”
“Avery Melissa Hale.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you love me because I am the only thing standing between you and becoming a woman who buys pencil skirts at sunrise while muttering, ‘This is a choice, not a cry for help.’”
We both stared at each other.
Then she said, “Do you own a black pencil skirt?”
The answer, tragically, was yes.
It was in the back of my closet, a remnant from an interview phase where I had believed the right clothes could manifest the right life.
It was fitted, high-waisted, and incredibly flattering.
I had not worn it in over a year because it made me feel like I was trying to intimidate a room I was not sure I belonged in.
Jules made me try it on.
“I’m not deciding tonight,” I said through the bathroom door.
“Of course not.”
“I’m just checking fit.”
“Pure logistics.”
“This is practical.”
“Wildly.”
I opened the door.
Jules, sitting on the edge of my bed with a gummy worm halfway to her mouth, froze.
“What?”
She lowered the gummy worm. “That skirt is a weapon.”
“It is not.”
“It absolutely is. That skirt should have a permit.”
I turned toward the mirror and immediately regretted having eyes.
The skirt fit better than I remembered, sleek and black and severe, hugging my hips before narrowing at the knees.
I had paired it with the plain blouse I had worn that day.
Jules came to stand behind me in the mirror. For once, she did not joke immediately.
“You don’t have to,” she said.
“I know.”
“Wanting something doesn’t mean you have to walk toward it.”
“I know.”
“But wanting it doesn’t make you bad either.”
“What if I can’t handle what happens if I wear it?” I asked.
“What if you can?”
I closed my eyes.
That was Jules, always. She had a talent for locating the question I was avoiding because it was more frightening than the obvious one.
We talked for the rest of the evening. We did not solve anything.
We rarely did. Instead, we ate noodles out of cartons, argued about whether Callum’s instruction was ‘hot in a dangerous way’ or ‘dangerous in a hot way,’ and debated possible neutral outfits for the morning in case I decided to retreat with dignity.
Jules finally left at midnight and kissed the top of my head before going.
“Text me in the morning,” she said at the door.
“I might be dead.”
“Then haunt me with the details.”
After she left, the apartment felt too quiet.
I prepared both outfits.
That was the closest I came to a decision.
The black pencil skirt went into a garment bag with a soft ivory blouse.
I packed conservative black three-inch heels.
Then I packed stockings that I immediately removed from the bag, stared at, and put back in my drawer because his instruction had been specific enough without adding my own theatrics.
Then, because I was not insane, or because I was insane but committed to options, I packed gray trousers and a navy blouse into the bag as well.
I brushed my teeth, set three alarms, and laid down, but I did not sleep. At some point around three in the morning, I got up and moved the pencil skirt from the garment bag to the chair. Then I moved it back. By morning, I had become a person made mostly of coffee and bad judgment.
I wore the gray trousers to leave my apartment.
That was important. At least, it felt important. I buttoned the navy blouse, pinned my hair neatly, put on sensible shoes, and looked at myself in the mirror until I almost believed I had chosen safety.
On the train, I stood between a man reading emails and a woman holding a bouquet of grocery-store flowers. I gripped the pole with one hand and the bag of life-changing options with the other. Every stop gave me another chance to turn around. I did not.
I arrived at Rowe Tower about forty minutes too early.
The lobby was bright and polished and indifferent. I crossed it with my employee badge clipped to my blouse and the tote heavy against my shoulder. The security guard nodded. I nodded back like a woman who had not packed two possible futures next to a travel-size deodorant.
I went to the restroom off the lobby and changed into the skirt.
Then I changed back.
Then I stood in the stall with my forehead pressed briefly against the cool metal door and then I changed into the skirt again.
The black fabric slid up over my hips with a sound that seemed much too loud in the empty restroom. I tucked in the ivory blouse, smoothed the waistband, stepped into the heels, and looked at myself in the mirror.
This was all too much.
I changed back into the trousers so fast I nearly caught the hem under my shoe.
A woman came in while I was halfway through buttoning the navy blouse again. I froze in the stall like a fugitive. She washed her hands, hummed three notes of some song, checked her lipstick, and left. I waited until the door closed, then burst into muffled, hysterical laughter.
This was insane.
This was completely insane.
I checked the time. I had twenty more minutes.
I changed into the skirt one last time and removed my underwear.
I did not let myself think too much about that last part.
Thinking would have ruined me. Or stopped me.
Or made me sit down on the bathroom floor and call Jules, which was functionally the same thing.
I folded the gray trousers and navy blouse with shaking hands and shoved them into the bag.
I fixed my hair, reapplied my lipstick, washed my hands even though they were clean, and took a long moment to stare at myself.
The woman in the mirror looked pale.
My phone buzzed.
Jules: Report.
Me: I brought both.
Jules: Cowardly but sensible.
Me: I changed three times.
Jules: Iconic and concerning.
Me: I’m wearing it.
I started to hyperventilate.
Jules: Breathe.
A second later:
Jules: Also walk slowly. That skirt deserves narrative tension.
I laughed under my breath, locked my phone, and left the restroom before I could change my mind a fourth time.
The elevator ride to forty-seven felt endless.
I stood alone in the mirrored box with my tote hooked over one shoulder, hands folded in front of me, watching the floor numbers climb. Twenty-one. Twenty-eight. Thirty-six. Forty-two. Forty-seven. Then the doors opened.
And there he was.
He wasn’t waiting directly in front of the elevator.
That would have been too obvious, too theatrical, and too unlike him.
He stood near Benjamin’s desk with a file in one hand, speaking to Dana and Marcus, his dark suit immaculate, his expression serious.
Benjamin sat at his workstation, tablet in hand, already looking over because Benjamin’s instincts were demonic.
But Callum stopped speaking the moment he saw me.
His gaze moved over me once and I saw him visibly swallow as he took in what I was wearing.
I saw the slight hardening in his jaw. I saw something dark and supremely satisfied moved through his expression before he locked it away and turned back to Dana as though the floor had not just opened beneath both of us.
Dana kept talking for another half sentence. Marcus glanced down at his phone. Benjamin, however, went completely still, which from him felt like someone had cut power to an entire city block.
Then I stepped out of the elevator.