Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AUbrEY
Ihid in my room the rest of the weekend until Monday morning.
Not because I couldn’t leave, but because I didn’t know what was waiting for me on the other side of the door.
The Dean who had barely looked at me for an entire week?
Or the Dean who had stood in the kitchen at eleven o’clock at night, demanding I text him when I went on a date?
At this point, I honestly have no idea which one is real.
I curl my legs beneath me on top of my comforter, coffee mug warming my hands as I stare out the bedroom window.
New York is already awake.
People are rushing to work. Taxi horns echo somewhere below. The city keeps moving while my brain seems determined to replay the same forty-eight hours on an endless loop.
I let out a slow breath.
The worst part? Jeremy is wonderful. He is exactly the kind of man every woman hopes she’ll meet.
Funny without trying too hard. Confident without being arrogant.
He asked questions—and actually listened to the answers. He told me about moving to New York after graduate school, about buying his condo in the building three years ago, about how he’d somehow become the designated dog sitter for half the residents on his floor because he worked from home.
By the end of dinner, I’d laughed more than I had all week.
He walked me back to the building without once making me feel uncomfortable.
He didn’t try to kiss me or push for anything. Just smiled and said he’d had a really nice time before asking if maybe we could do it again sometime.
He was … nice.
So, why couldn’t I stop comparing him to Dean?
I close my eyes and groan into my coffee mug. This is exactly why dating is such a disaster.
Instead of paying attention to the man sitting across from me, I spent half the dinner replaying what had happened in the lobby.
Dean walking between us without so much as a hello.
The clipped way he’d introduced me.
“I employ Aubrey.”
Not, This is my friend Aubrey.
Not, She’s our wonderful nanny.
Just, “I employ Aubrey,” like I was another business asset he’d acquired.
The memory still stings.
What made it worse was that I’d spent the entire previous week mourning the loss of the Dean I actually liked.
The one who laughed with me over breakfast. Who asked about my family. Who lingered after work just to hear about something ridiculous Liana had done that day.
He disappeared without explanation. One morning, he was Dean. The next morning, he was Mr. Ledger.
And just when I had finally accepted that maybe I’d imagined our friendship … there he was. Walking straight into the middle of my conversation with Jeremy as though he had every right to be there.
I still don’t understand it.
If he’d simply been jealous, that would almost make sense. Maybe not logical sense, but emotional sense. Except jealousy doesn’t explain the week before.
If he wanted distance, why interrupt my date?
I rub my temples. Nothing about Dean makes sense anymore.
Then there’s Friday night.
I honestly don’t know what to do with that. The image of him standing in the dark kitchen flashes into my mind with startling clarity.
His bare feet, in nothing but his briefs, and one hand wrapped around a whiskey glass.
He looked … unsettled. Like someone who’d spent hours fighting a battle entirely inside his own head.
He’d been waiting for me—that much was obvious.
But not because he wanted to know how the date had gone. Because he’d been worried. He admitted he wanted me to text him whenever I was out late so he’d know I was safe.
At the time, I was too angry to really think about what he was saying.
I only heard the demand and the control within it. The implication that, somehow, I needed permission to live my own life.
But the more I replay the conversation, the more I remember his face. He didn’t look controlling … he looked terrified.
As though every horrible possibility his mind could invent had already played out before I walked through the front door.
It doesn’t excuse how he spoke to me, but it also doesn’t feel like something a man says to a woman he doesn’t care about.
Which leaves me right back where I started—confused. Hopelessly, unbelievably confused.
Then my thoughts drift somewhere even more dangerous.
The way the space between us seemed to disappear until I couldn’t tell where my breathing ended and his began.
My stomach twists.
I’ve been kissed before. Enough times to know what almost happened.
Or at least, I think I do.
He was leaning toward me. I swear I wasn’t imagining that.
I know I wasn’t.
Because … God help me … I didn’t move.
I should have. Every rational part of my brain knows I should have stepped back the second he cornered me.
Instead, I stood there, watching him. Wondering what would happen if neither one of us looked away.
Then Liana cried, and everything shattered.
I wonder what would’ve happened if she’d slept another thirty seconds.
Would he have kissed me?
Would I have let him?
Would I have kissed him back?
Let’s be serious here. Of course I would have. This is Dean we are talking about.
I wrap both hands around my coffee mug again, letting the warmth ground me.
For the rest of the weekend, I stayed in my room whenever Dean was home. I waited until I heard his office door close before sneaking into the kitchen.
I timed showers around Liana’s naps because I knew he’d usually be working then.
It was ridiculous.
We live in the same apartment, yet somehow, it felt easier to avoid him than risk running into him.
Because I don’t know who he’ll be the next time I see him.
The warm, attentive man who made New York feel less lonely. Or the distant employer who answered every question with a single word.
Would he be the man who looked at me on Friday night like the thought of kissing me was the only thing keeping him rooted to the floor?
And somehow not knowing which version of Dean I’ll meet scares me far more than knowing I’ll eventually have to face him.
I glance over at the digital clock on my nightstand, which reads 5:02 a.m.
Sitting in bed, staring at the wall, clearly isn’t accomplishing anything. Monday has arrived whether I’m ready for it or not.
Liana will be awake soon, which means Dean will be too. And after successfully hiding in my bedroom for most of the weekend, I can’t exactly avoid him forever.
Nope, this isn’t going to cut it. I need someone who isn’t living in this apartment. Someone who isn’t making me question my own sanity.
Before I can second-guess myself, I grab my phone and scroll until I find Sydney’s name.
I hit Call, and she answers on the third ring.
“Someone had better be dead.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “I’m sorry.”
A yawn crackles through the speaker. “Aubrey?”
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
“What time is it?”
“Five.”
“Five?” She sits up so quickly that I can hear the rustle of blankets. “Aubrey, it’s five in the morning.”
“I know.”
“Are you okay?” The concern in her voice instantly dissolves the composure I clung to all weekend.
“I … don’t know.”
Sydney is quiet for a moment. “Start talking.”
I take a deep breath. “So … remember how I told you Dean basically stopped speaking to me?”
“The emotionally constipated billionaire? Yes.”
I smile despite myself. “That’s the one.”
“What happened?”
“He ignored me all week.”
I tell her everything. How different he’s been. How every conversation suddenly feels formal. How I’ve finally accepted that whatever friendship we’d been building was over.
Then I tell her about Jeremy in the lobby and our date. Dean waiting up for me and his insistence that I text him whenever I was out.
By the time I reach the almost kiss, Sydney hasn’t interrupted once.
“And then Liana started crying.”
“Holy”—another pause— “crap.”
“That’s your professional opinion?”
“I’m trying really hard not to say what I actually want to say.”
I rub my forehead. “Please don’t.”
“Aubrey …”
“No.”
“You realize that man has feelings for you, right?”
“I don’t know that.”
“He waited up until eleven o’clock at night.”
“I know.”
“He was worried sick.”
“I know.”
“He nearly kissed you.”
“I know.” I let my head fall back. “But he’d also spent an entire week pretending I didn’t exist.”
Sydney sighs. “And that’s the part that bothers you.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to act around him anymore.”
Sydney is quiet again. When she speaks this time, her tone is decisive. “What are you doing this weekend?”
I let out a long breath. “I don’t know.”
“Now you do. You’re hanging out with me.”
I blink. “What?”
“I’m driving to New York after work on Friday. I can leave early and be there by dinner.”
“Syd …”
“Nope. You’ve been trapped inside that penthouse for a month.”
“I have gone places.”
“Work doesn’t count.”
“I’ve gone downstairs and on that date.”
She snorts. “One date doesn’t count.”
I laugh for the first time in what feels like forever.
“I’m serious,” she says. “We’re getting dinner. We’re walking around the city. Maybe we’ll do some shopping. Maybe we’ll find something ridiculous to make fun of in Times Square.”
“I don’t know …”
“I do.” Her voice softens. “You need one weekend where your entire world doesn’t revolve around wondering which version of Dean Ledger is going to walk through the front door.”
Emotion catches unexpectedly in my throat. “I miss you.”
“I know. I miss you too.”
A smile finally spreads across my face. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Come to New York.”
“I’ll text you when I leave on Friday.”
We say goodbye a minute later.
As I lower my phone onto the bed, I feel something I haven’t felt since Friday night.
Relief.
Not because anything between Dean and me is any less complicated, but because for the first time in days, I don’t feel like I’m carrying the confusion alone.
The apartment remains quiet around me.
In another hour, Liana will wake up, and Dean will walk into this kitchen.
Whatever version of him greets me this morning … at least now I know I have something to look forward to at the end of the week.