Chapter 41
The first time I waited outside her office, I didn't know what to expect.
I had spent the morning making breakfast, eggs the way she liked them, toast with a little butter, coffee with too much milk and one spoon of sugar.
I moved through the motions like a ghost, standing in the kitchen of the estate, and I thought about how natural this used to feel.
Waking up before her, slipping out of bed, having breakfast ready by the time she stumbled in with her hair a mess and her eyes half-closed.
The way she would smile at me like I was something she hadn't expected to find.
I had thrown that away. I had thrown her away.
The basket was heavy in my hands as I walked through the quiet morning streets. I left it outside her door, rang the bell, and walked away before she could open it. I didn't want to see her face. I didn't trust myself to see what was in her eyes when she looked at me now.
But I couldn't stop myself from hiding around the corner, watching from a distance. She opened the door, looked around, found the basket. She crouched down and read the note. I saw her hesitate, saw her look up and down the hallway. Then she picked it up and carried it inside.
She closed the door.
I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding.
She took it. That was something. That was not nothing.
The tulips were delivered to her office the same morning.
I had arranged it the night before, a florist, a fresh bouquet every day.
White tulips. Her favourite. She had mentioned it once, offhand, while we were walking through a market.
She had pointed at a bunch of white tulips and said, those are the ones I'd want if someone ever bought me flowers.
I had filed it away without thinking, the same way I filed away everything about her.
The card was simple.
I knew it was a gamble. She might throw them away, rip up the card, march down to the lobby and shove them back into my chest. But she didn't. She kept them on her desk. Luca had a contact in the building, she had pushed them to the corner, but she hadn't thrown them out.
She kept them.
The evenings had become a ritual.
I didn't know when it had started, the first night I followed her home, maybe, or the second, when I realized she wouldn't change her mind just because I asked nicely.
Every day, around the time her office emptied, I found myself in the same spot. Leaning against my car. Watching the glass doors. Waiting.
She never looked at me anymore.
Not really. She walked past with her bag over her shoulder and her headphones in, her eyes fixed straight ahead like I was made of air. Sometimes I said her name. She didn't flinch. Sometimes I stepped into her path. She stepped around me.
It hurt. I wasn't going to pretend it didn't.
But I deserved it. Every cold shoulder, every slammed door, every time she looked through me like I was made of glass.
I had lied to her. I had used her. I had left her with nothing but a note and three hundred dollars.
She had every right to hate me, and the fact that she hadn't called the police or thrown hot coffee at my face was more grace than I deserved.
She was worth fighting for. That was what I told myself every evening when she walked past without a word. She was worth the waiting, the silence, the slow erosion of my pride.
So I waited.
She used to leave around five. Now she worked past nine. I still came at five, in case today was different, in case she left early, in case she walked home alone in the dark and there was no one watching the doorways and the alley entrances the way I did.
Tonight was the same.
The sun had set hours ago. The office lights had dimmed floor by floor until only a few windows remained lit. I had been outside for forty-five minutes, hands in my pockets, breath fogging in the cold.
Then the doors opened.
She walked out, coat buttoned to her chin, bag on her shoulder, headphones already in. She didn't look at me. She didn't slow down. She turned and walked toward the subway, footsteps quick and purposeful.
I pushed off from the car and followed.
A block passed. Two. She didn't turn around. I kept my distance, close enough to see the tension in her shoulders, far enough to give her the space she clearly wanted. This was our dance now. She pretended I wasn't there. I pretended I didn't care.
But I did care. More than I had ever cared about anything.
She rounded a corner and I followed. The street was quieter here, fewer people, the buildings older and darker. I scanned the doorways, the alley entrances, the spaces between. Old habits. Her safety was the only thing that mattered right now.
And then someone stepped in front of me.
A woman. Young, pretty, with a careful smile and eyes that had been practicing innocence for years.
"Oh, I'm so sorry...!" she said, placing a hand on my arm like she had stumbled.
"I wasn't looking where I was going."
I looked at her hand. Then at her face.
She didn't remove it.
"It's fine," I said. My voice was flat enough to end conversations.
She didn't leave. She smiled wider, tilting her head, letting her hair fall across her shoulder in a way that was clearly practiced.
"You've been waiting out here, haven't you? The past few evenings." She glanced toward the office building, then back at me.
"I work there too. Marketing. I don't think I've seen you around before."
I said nothing.
She didn't seem to notice, or didn't care. "I'm Anne, by the way." She extended her hand, still smiling. "Anne Parker."
Anne.
The name hit me like ice water.
I had heard it before. Not in passing. Not in casual conversation.
I had heard it from Elera's lips, broken and tearful, in the dark of her apartment.
Anne was my best friend. She was like a sister to me.
I had heard it from Alex, in the file he had compiled, the woman who had climbed into bed with Oliver while Elera was cutting back on takeout to save for his birthday gift.
This was her.
I looked at her hand. At her face. That careful smile. Those practiced eyes. She didn't know who I was. She didn't know that I knew exactly what she had done.
I didn't take her hand.
"Anne." I said. Not a question. Just the word.
Her smile faltered for a fraction of a second before she recovered. "Yes. And you are?"
"Not interested."
Her smile froze. I watched her process it, watched her decide whether to push or retreat. She wasn't used to being dismissed. I could see it in the way her jaw tightened, in the way her fingers curled before she pulled her hand back.
"Right!" she said, voice cooler now. "I was just being friendly. Some people don't know how to appreciate that.
She turned and walked away, heels clicking on the pavement, shoulders stiff with offense.
I watched her go. Watched her disappear around the corner where Elera had turned moments before.
Something cold settled in my chest.
Anne Parker worked in the same building.
She had seen me waiting. She had decided to approach me, to see if I was worth her time. She didn't know I was connected to Elera. She didn't know that I knew exactly who she was.
But she would find out soon enough.
I pulled out my phone and typed a message to Alex.
Anne Parker. Marketing. Same building as Elera. Keep an eye on her.
Then I put my phone away and started walking. The subway entrance was just ahead. I could still catch up, still make sure she got home safe.
Anne Parker could wait.
She wasn't going anywhere.