Chapter Eight
Nicole
When I went back to my place on Sunday I was overwhelmed with how impersonal my apartment was. I stared at the spotless surfaces, the carefully arranged throw pillows, the color-coordinated bookshelves. Everything was in its place. Everything was controlled.
Everything was all wrong.
My phone buzzed in my hand. Another email from David marked urgent. The third one in an hour. I'd been ignoring them all weekend, lost in Shawn's bed, in his arms, in the feeling of being someone other than VP-track Nicole Delaney who never missed an email.
I opened it.
Nicole - Carleton expressing serious concerns about campaign direction. Need to discuss strategy first thing Monday. This is critical.
My stomach dropped. I scrolled through my inbox. Fifteen unread messages. Three from David. Five from the Carleton team lead. Two from our creative director.
All sent Friday afternoon and Saturday morning while I'd been screaming Shawn's name into his pillow.
I walked further into my apartment, my heels clicking on the hardwood. I was still wearing yesterday's dress, wrinkled now, makeup smudged. My hair was a mess. I looked like exactly what I was - a woman who'd spent the entire weekend having sex instead of doing her job.
The contrast hit me like cold water.
This apartment. This life. This was who I really was. Not the woman who lost control in Shawn's bed. Not the woman who forgot about work emails and presentations and career goals. Not the woman who'd looked at him this morning and thought maybe, just maybe, I could be someone different.
I set my phone on the kitchen counter and stared at it.
Shawn had asked me to stay another night. "Just one more night," he'd said, his hands already sliding under my shirt. And I'd wanted to. God, I'd wanted to say yes and crawl back into his bed and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist.
But it did exist. My career existed. The Carleton account existed. The senior VP position I'd been chasing for eighteen months existed.
And Shawn's departure date existed.
Four months. That's all I had. Four months before Justin came back and Shawn moved on to whatever came next. Four months before this ended and I was left picking up the pieces of whatever this was turning into.
I pulled up my calendar on my phone. Every day color-coded. Every meeting blocked out. Every goal tracked and measured. This was my life. This was what mattered. Not some temporary fling with my neighbor who'd be gone before spring.
My chest ached.
I'd spent one weekend with him and I was already thinking about his departure date. Already calculating how much it would hurt when he left. Already feeling the loss of something I shouldn't have let myself have in the first place.
This was exactly what I'd been afraid of.
I opened my laptop and started responding to emails, forcing myself back into work mode. Back into the Nicole who had control. Who didn't need anyone. Who certainly didn't spend entire weekends in bed with a man who was going to leave.
By the time I finished, it was after midnight. My eyes were gritty with exhaustion, but I felt more like myself. Grounded. Focused.
Alone.
My phone lit up with a text from Shawn.
You okay? You left in a hurry.
I stared at the message. Three little dots appeared, then disappeared. Then appeared again.
Sleep well, beautiful. See you Monday for our session?
Monday. Our training session. Back to professional. Back to keeping boundaries.
Back to protecting myself before this went any further.
Yes. 6pm works, I typed back, then added, Thanks for the weekend.
Thanks for the weekend. Like he'd given me a nice dinner, not multiple orgasms and the first real intimacy I'd felt in years.
I hit send before I could overthink it.
His response came immediately. Just the weekend?
I turned off my phone without answering.
***
MONDAY'S TRAINING SESSION was torture.
I showed up in my workout clothes, hair pulled back, face carefully blank. Professional. Distant. Like I hadn't spent Saturday night with his face between my thighs.
"How was your weekend?" Shawn asked, his voice casual but his eyes searching my face.
"Fine. Productive." I set down my water bottle. "Should we start with stretching?"
Something flickered across his expression, but he nodded. "Sure. Let's stretch."
We went through the session in near silence. Every time his hands touched me to adjust my form, I felt my resolve weaken. Every time he looked at me like he was trying to figure out what had changed, I wanted to explain.
But I didn't. I couldn't.
Because if I started talking about it, I'd have to admit how much I already needed him. How much it was going to hurt when he left. How scared I was of feeling this much for someone who was temporary.
"Same time Wednesday?" he asked when we finished.
"Actually, I might need to reschedule. Work is crazy right now."
"Nicole—"
"I'll text you," I said, already heading for the door.
I didn't text him.
Tuesday night, he knocked on my door with food. I told him through the closed door that I wasn't feeling well. It wasn't entirely a lie. My stomach was twisted in knots, and I hadn't been able to eat all day.
Wednesday, I sent him a message canceling our session. Work emergency. Also not entirely a lie. The Carleton situation was getting worse by the hour.
By Thursday afternoon, I was hanging on by a thread.
David had called me into his office that morning. Told me I was being reassigned. Moved off the senior VP track. Said I needed to "find my passion again" before I could help brands find theirs.
I'd sat through the entire meeting with a frozen smile on my face, nodding at appropriate intervals, taking notes like my world wasn't crumbling around me.
Then I'd gone back to my office, closed the door, and stared at the wall for three hours.
Everything I'd worked for. Everything I'd sacrificed. Gone because I'd forgotten how to feel.
The irony wasn't lost on me. I'd spent the past week trying to shut down my feelings for Shawn, and now my career was ending because I'd shut down my feelings about everything else too.
When I got home, I walked into my apartment and finally let myself break.
I threw my laptop bag on the floor. Swept the papers off my coffee table. Knocked over a picture frame. Stood in the middle of my living room and felt everything I'd been holding back for days, months, years come pouring out.
I was crying. Actually crying. The woman who never cried was sobbing in her destroyed living room, and I couldn't stop.
That's when I heard the knock on my door.
***
SHAWN
I knew I was fucked the moment Nicole started pulling away from me.
It had been three days since our marathon Saturday, three days since I'd made her come so many times she'd been boneless and sated in my arms. Three days since she'd looked at me like I was her entire world.
And now she was back to treating me like a polite stranger.
She'd shown up for her Monday workout session like nothing had happened. Professional. Distant. Acting like she hadn't spent an entire weekend in my bed screaming my name.
"How was your weekend?" I'd asked, testing the waters.
"Fine. Productive." Her response had been clipped, businesslike. "Should we start with stretching?"
Stretching. Like I hadn't spent hours kissing every inch of her body. Like she hadn't begged me to fuck her harder, deeper, more.
But I'd played along, because I could see the panic in her eyes. The same panic that had sent her running after our first kiss, magnified by a hundred. She was scared of what had happened between us, scared of how good it had been.
Scared of needing me.
And I got it. Because I was scared too.
Sarah had looked at me the same way once. Right before she'd told me she couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't wait for a man who didn't know where he'd be in six months. Couldn't build a life with someone who lived out of duffle bags and had no real home.
"You're not stable, Shawn," she'd said. "You're not enough."
I'd spent five years proving her right. Moving from city to city, client to client, never staying anywhere long enough to put down roots. Keeping things casual. Keeping things safe.
And now here was Nicole. Driven, ambitious, with her whole life mapped out in careful detail. The same type as Sarah. The type who needed a man who could promise her forever.
The type I'd sworn off after Sarah nearly destroyed me.
So I'd kept it professional during our session, even though every accidental touch made me hard. Even though watching her bend and stretch in those tight leggings brought back vivid memories of how she'd looked spread out beneath me.
Even though I wanted to throw her down on the mat and remind her exactly who she belonged to.
But I was patient. I could wait for her to stop running from what we both knew was inevitable.
What I hadn't expected was for her to start avoiding me entirely.
It was Thursday now, and I'd barely seen her since Monday's workout. She'd canceled Wednesday's session with some excuse about a work emergency. When I'd knocked on her door Tuesday night with dinner, she'd claimed through the closed door that she wasn't feeling well.
She was hiding. From me. From what we'd shared.
And it was driving me out of my fucking mind because I knew exactly what she was doing. She was protecting herself. Building walls. Preparing for me to leave.
Because that's what I did. I left.
Sarah had been right about that too.
I was bench pressing more weight than I should have been, using the burn in my muscles to distract from the ache in my chest, when I heard her door slam. The sharp sound echoed through the thin walls, followed by what sounded like her throwing something.
I sat up, listening. Nicole didn't lose control. Ever. In all the weeks I'd known her, I'd never heard her so much as raise her voice.
Another crash, followed by what might have been a sob.
Fuck waiting for her to come to me.