Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Damage Control
Catalina
My hands rest on the keyboard, unmoving, while my mind plays a greatest hits reel of every single moment that led here.
Nine months of cataloguing his jaw ticks, of mapping the heat behind his glasses when I “accidentally” brush close, of watching the stubborn geometry of his mouth as he refuses to laugh at my jokes.
Nine months of deliberate chaos, of rearranging his desk pens just enough to trigger his OCD but never enough to tip him over.
Nine months of knowing exactly what my skirt does to his day and pretending not to notice.
Nine months of actively trying to fuck my boss.
And then the black box. It showed up on my desk out of nowhere, plain as a ransom demand, addressed to “Catalina.” Inside, the red ropes, fine as silk, and a card signed by the Weaver.
Just an invitation, an opportunity and a heat in my gut that wouldn’t shut up for days.
I kept the ropes, hidden at the back of my closet, and told myself it was curiosity.
I told myself I could handle it. I told myself I could compartmentalize.
I couldn’t, and I let the tension build until I thought I’d rupture from the inside out.
Now the fantasy is dead and the secret is out, and I’m left staring at a glowing spreadsheet while the man himself is locked in a boardroom with people who likely have the power to erase both of us from the company’s future.
I picture him at the head of the table, face carved from basalt, every word calculated to buy one more hour of oxygen.
I know he hasn’t eaten because he fought me on it this morning.
Then again he never does before a meeting like this.
That’s another thing I’ve learned, his patterns of self-destruction, the way he sharpens himself for battle by denying himself anything soft or sweet.
I want to say I’m angry at him, or at myself, or at the universe that made him my boss and me the kind of girl who wants to see what happens when you pull the fire alarm. But I’m not. The only thing I feel is inevitability, like this is the ending we were always going to get.
Did I want him because he was my boss, because it’s forbidden, secret and taboo?
Or did I want him because I wanted to destroy something beautiful?
Did I want him because of the mask, the Weaver mythos, the fantasy of being unraveled by someone who sees every thread?
Or was it just that I liked the way his hands looked when he was angry, white-knuckled, barely leashed, vibrating with all the things he’d never say out loud?
The answer is yes. Yes to all of it. And now that the forbidden part is gone, the only thing left is the aftermath.
I glance at my reflection in the monitor, the way the blue-white light flattens me into two dimensions.
Hair pulled back tight, not a flyaway in sight.
Makeup in full armor, red lip the same shade as the ropes I never gave back.
Shirt buttoned to the throat, skirt charcoal, knee-length, corporate to the bone.
The uniform of someone who knows how to pass for normal, right up until the second she doesn’t.
I’m not going to cry. The worst is over.
I survived the leaks, the photos, the way every single person on the floor looked at me this morning as if I was about to detonate.
I survived watching Aiden, Mr. St. James, take a bullet for me in the form of a savage, public self-immolation. He didn’t flinch. He just burned.
What’s left is simple. I can’t keep working here, not after what happened. But I can’t walk away without leaving him something. Even if it’s just the empty desk and the knowledge that, in the end, I chose him over the job.
The decision arrives in my head fully formed, a fat black period at the end of a run-on sentence. I close the expense report, open a new document, and type:
To: Aiden St. James
Effective immediately, I resign my position at Precision Dynamics International.
Thank you for the opportunity to work with you.
I wish you all the best.
Catalina Vaquer
Four lines. No explanation, no apology, no visible blood.
I print it on letterhead, the one with the subtle watermark you only get if you have executive access to the supply closet. I sign it with my contract pen, the same one I used to initial every expense form he ever handed me. The act of signing is not dramatic, it feels almost weightless.
I walk it into his office while he’s still behind the closed boardroom door. The light is off, the space chilled by overzealous AC, his chair perfectly centered as always. I set the envelope on his blotter, dead center, and rest my hand on it for a heartbeat before letting go.
That’s it. I do not look back.
The box is lighter than I expect. I lift it with one hand from the supply closet shelf, even though it’s big enough to hold a week’s worth of office memories.
I’ve moved other people out before, downsizing, culling the slow herd, transferring an assistant who’d gotten too handsy at the Christmas party.
Always the same ritual, cardboard, silence, never enough time to process what you’re actually losing.
Now the box is mine, and the supply closet echoes with a kind of vindictive symmetry.
My desk is already staged for extraction.
The second pair of heels, the ones I wear for boardroom days, comes out from under the credenza.
The framed photo of my sister Beatrice and I, in matching fuck-you-red lipstick, arms around each other’s necks, her eyes laughing even when her mouth is set in a smirk, gets wrapped in a spare blazer.
I reach for the ceramic sugar skull I use for a paperweight in the inbox, and my tiny framed print of La Virgen de Guadalupe from behind my monitors.
The mug is the last thing to go. It’s ugly, a freebie from an insurance conference, but I like the weight of it and the hairline crack that zigzags down the side.
I dump out the pens and colorful sticky notes and drop it on top of the heels.
The succulent is an afterthought. I almost leave it behind, convinced it will die without me.
Almost a full year of Tuesday waterings and exactly three exposures to sunlight, and it still looks like a survivor.
The label on the pot says “office hardy” and I wish someone would print that on my forehead.
I pack it last, nestling it against the photo, and close the lid. It fits perfectly, which I did not plan but will absolutely claim as a flex. I push my chair in, log out of the computer, and tape my building pass to the monitor with a piece of rainbow-striped washi tape.
I do not allow myself to look around. If I pause, I’ll lose momentum, and if I lose momentum, I’ll start to feel.
I am not ready to feel. There will be time for that later, in the back of a cab or in the first minute after I unlock my apartment.
For now, there’s only the short walk to the elevator, the measured swing of the box against my hip, and the weight of all the conversations I am not having.
I hit the call button with my elbow. The doors open with a sigh, as if the building is trying to apologize. I step inside, box balanced on one thigh, bag over my shoulder, and hit L for Lobby. I keep my eyes on the numbers as they tick downward, each floor a neat subtraction from my past.
Ten floors down, I finally breathe. The walls of the elevator are stainless, mirrored, and I can’t help but check myself in the reflection.
Hair still tight, lipstick still unbroken, eyes a little glassy but unbowed.
I look like someone who just closed a deal, not someone who just detonated her entire career. The contrast is almost funny.
The car stops twice on the way down. Ken from compliance steps on without looking up from his phone, rides three floors, and steps off still reading.
Then two floors after, two women from legal get on mid-conversation and off again at the next floor down, their voices cutting out as the doors close.
No one looks at the box. No one looks at me.
For once in my life, I am grateful to not be noticed.
Another stop. There’s a hiss, then the doors peel back just far enough to admit a man in a suit.
Aiden. He steps inside, fills the elevator with his presence, and lets the doors slide closed behind him.
He’s still in boardroom mode, jacket sharp, tie military-straight, the lines of his face as clean as if he’d just gotten back from a commercial shoot for GQ’s hottest nerds.
His hair is perfectly in place, but there is a storm in his eyes that the rest of him can’t quite contain.
He doesn’t look at me right away. His gaze drops to the box, then up to my face.
There’s a flicker there, an emotion so raw and unfiltered that I almost don’t recognize him.
For a second I think he might punch the wall or break something, but his hand shoots out, pressing the “hold” button so hard the panel clicks.
The car shudders, then goes still.
We are alone, suspended in the metal shaft, two bodies and a box of artifacts.
I’m trapped between him and the closing walls, clutching the cardboard box like armor.
He steps forward, every inch shrinking the space around me until the only thing I see is him.
He takes one step closer, just enough to fill my periphery and block out the rest of the world.
He does not ask what I am doing, because the evidence is in my arms and in my posture and in the way I don’t bother to square my shoulders. There is nothing left to say.
Without a word, he reaches out, his fingers brushing mine as he lifts the box from my arms. It’s heavy, but he doesn’t hesitate, setting it gently on the floor at our feet. My heart speeds up, and the air feels too thick.
He closes the distance and takes both my hands in one of his. His thumbs press circles into my palms, and the warmth of him is sudden and insistent.
“I can’t do this without you,” he murmurs, voice low and raw. “Not at work, and not…anything else.”
My breath catches. I want to laugh, defuse the moment with a joke, but my mouth won’t cooperate. I only nod, though my chin trembles.
He slides a step closer, pushing me against the glass walls. “You can walk away if you want,” he says softly, “but this is my company, and I need you here.”
I look at his lips, the way they part when he’s about to say more. Then I lean up, closing the final gap, and kiss him. It starts gentle, his hands cradle my face, mine curl into his shirt, but it grows urgent when I realize how much I’ve missed this, missed him.
He kisses back like it matters, like everything depends on this moment. The elevator hums around us, but inside it feels like the world outside has paused.
When we finally break apart, his breath hitches. I rest my forehead against his. “You don’t get to make all the decisions,” I whisper.
He smiles, a real, shaky grin, and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Only the important ones,” he says. Then he takes a step back, lifts the box again, and sets it by the control panel. His eyes never leave mine.
I tug my hands free and press “36.” The elevator lurches before the numbers start to climb again.
I don’t turn to look at him, but I can feel his relief, his hope. The doors open on the executive suite, and I step forward, knowing I’m staying, because he asked.