Chapter 14 Tessa
TESSA
The elevator ride down is a blur of chrome and humiliating silence.
I wrap my coat tighter around myself, trying to hide the evidence. My dress is wrinkled. My hair is a tangled bird’s nest. My lips feel swollen, bitten raw.
I look exactly like what I am: a woman who just got fucked on a desk and then discarded.
The doors slide open to the main lobby.
I keep my head down, walking fast toward the exit. I just need to get to the curb. I need to disappear.
“Tessa.”
The voice stops me dead.
I look up. They didn’t leave.
Owen and Asher are standing by the security desk. Owen is pacing, his jacket discarded on a chair. Asher is leaning against the turnstile.
Owen stops mid-stride. His face drains of color as he takes in my wrecked hair, the coat clutched to my chest, the mascara streaked on my cheeks.
“Jesus,” Owen breathes. He moves toward me instantly, guilt warring with panic in his eyes. “Tess? I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed him. Did he—”
“Don’t,” I choke out, stepping back.
I can’t let them be nice to me. If Owen touches me, if he looks at me with that worried expression, I’ll crumble right here.
“Tessa, wait,” Asher says. His voice is calm, but he’s moving fast, cutting off my path to the door. “You’re in distress. Let us drive you.”
“No!” The word rips out of my throat, harsh and jagged.
I flinch away as Owen reaches for my arm.
“Don’t touch me,” I whisper. “Just… don’t.”
Owen stops, his hand hovering in the air. He looks hurt. He looks terrified.
“Tessa, talk to us,” Owen pleads. “I knew he was angry, but I didn’t think he’d destroy you. What did he do?”
“He did exactly what you think he would,” I say, my voice breaking. “He cut me loose.”
I push past them. I shove through the revolving doors and stumble out into the humid night air.
“Tessa!” Owen yells after me.
Without looking back, I dive into the waiting Uber and lock the door before they can follow.
The Uber driver keeps looking at me in the rearview mirror.
I don’t blame him. I look like a wreck. I’m clutching my coat closed over a black dress that smells distinctly of sex and expensive whiskey.
And I’m crying.
Not the polite, single-tear bullshit from the movies. I’m ugly crying. Silent, heaving sobs that shake my shoulders and make my chest ache.
“You okay back there, miss?” The driver eyes me in the mirror.
“I’m fine,” I choke out, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “Just… a long night.”
“Long night,” he agrees, turning the radio up slightly. He’s drowning out the sound of my breakdown with soft jazz.
I lean my forehead against the cool glass of the window. The city lights blur into streaks of neon.
A lapse in judgment.
The words echo in my head, sharper than any knife.
He didn’t say “I regret it.” He didn’t say “We shouldn’t have done that.”
He called me a lapse in judgment. He called me a liability.
And the worst part? The part that makes me want to scream until my throat bleeds? He was right.
I was reckless. I let him take me on his desk, in his office, with the door unlocked. I let him tear my clothes. I let him claim me.
And I loved it.
For those few minutes, in the dark of that office, I felt seen. I felt wanted in a way that terrified and thrilled me.
I thought… God, I was stupid enough to think it meant something. I thought it was a breakthrough.
But it wasn’t a breakthrough. It was a breakdown.
The car pulls up to my apartment building. I fumble for the door handle, practically falling out onto the sidewalk.
“Thanks,” I mutter, slamming the door.
I run inside and take the stairs two at a time, ignoring the burn in my legs before fumbling with my keys, my hands shaking so hard I drop them twice.
Finally, the lock clicks. I push inside and slam the door, locking the deadbolt, the chain, and the handle.
I’m safe.
I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor.
Barnaby trots into the hallway, meowing a greeting. He sniffs my leg, then recoils, his ears flattening.
Even my cat can smell him on me.
“I know,” I whisper, pulling my knees to my chest. “I know, Barnaby. I’m an idiot.”
I sit there for a long time. Ten minutes. Twenty.
My eyes wander around the apartment. It’s small. It’s cluttered. And it’s painfully, expensively quiet.
I look down the short hallway to the second bedroom. The door is open. The room is dark and empty.
Three months ago, my roommate, Daniella, moved out to live with her boyfriend in Dallas.
She gave me two days’ notice. I remember the panic of staring at the lease renewal, realizing I couldn’t afford the rent on my own.
I was freelancing, scraping by on uneven paychecks, eating ramen three nights a week.
I was two weeks away from having to move back into my parents’ basement in Ohio.
Then the recruiter called.
It was life-changing. It was enough to wipe out the private student loan that was drowning me in 12% interest and cover the rent on the whole apartment.
I took the job because I needed the cash.
I dumped the entire bonus into that debt the day it cleared.
I walk into the living room and pick up a stack of mail from the coffee table.
The rent bill is on top. $2,400.
I stare at the number.
If I quit tomorrow, I have enough savings to last… maybe three weeks. Then I’m homeless. Or I’m calling my dad and admitting I failed.
Ethan knows this. He signed the offer letter and ran my background checks. He knows exactly how much leverage he has.
I drop the bill on the table.
“I hate him,” I whisper.
I walk to the bathroom. I strip off the ruined black dress and throw it in the trash. I don’t want to wash it. I never want to see it again.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror.
My neck is marked. Hickey. A dark, purple bruise is forming right over my pulse point where he sucked the skin. My chest is flushed.
I turn on the shower, cranking the heat up as high as it will go.
I step in. I scrub my skin until it’s raw and pink. I wash my hair three times, trying to scrub the scent of him out of me.
I scrub until I hurt, but the sensation of him persists. The bruise of his grip on my hips. The cold bite of the marble against my back.
He didn’t want me. He wanted to win. He wanted to prove that he could break me.
And maybe I wanted him to, a dark voice whispers in my head.
Maybe I didn’t just sleep with Owen because of the champagne. Maybe I didn’t just let Ethan take me on that desk because of the heat. Maybe I’m spiraling on purpose.
Maybe, deep down, I’m trying to light a fire big enough to burn this whole contract to the ground so they have to fire me.
Because if they fire me, I don’t have to choose. If they fire me, I’m free.
I turn off the water, shaking the thought away. It’s too twisted. Too desperate.
I step out, wrapping myself in a towel. I walk to my bedroom and pull out my laptop. I sit on the edge of my bed, water dripping from my hair onto the keyboard.
I open a new document.
To: Ethan Branson, CEO
From: Tessa Hartley
Subject: Resignation
I type the words. They blur through my tears.
Effective immediately, I am resigning from my position as Lead Brand Strategist at Mosaic. Please consider this my formal notice.
I stare at the cursor blinking.
I should send it. I should hit send, block his number, block Owen and Asher, and pack my boxes.
But then, I look at the rent bill on the table. I look at the empty room.
I can’t afford to quit.
But I also can’t afford to stay. If I stay, he breaks me. If I leave, I lose the money, but I keep myself.
“No,” I say to the empty room.
I’m not running away in an email.
I save the document. I’m going into that office on Monday. I’m going to look him in the eye.
And I’m going to make him watch me walk away.
Monday morning’s commute is a reality check.
My Uber winds through the streets of East Austin, past the food trucks and the graffiti-covered dive bars, crossing the bridge into downtown. The skyline rises up like a fortress of glass and steel.
Mosaic is on the top three floors of the tallest building. It’s a literal ivory tower.
I look perfect.
It took me an hour of contouring to hide the exhaustion under my eyes. I used a high-coverage concealer on the bruise on my neck, setting it with powder until it was invisible. I’m wearing a white pantsuit. It’s crisp, sharp, and leaves zero skin exposed.
I walk into the lobby.
The morning hum has started, but it feels muffled, like I’m moving underwater.
I don’t look at the reception desk. I don’t look for Owen. I don’t look at the server room for Asher.
I walk straight to the glass office at the end of the hall.
The blinds are open.
Ethan is sitting at his desk. He’s wearing a fresh suit, but he doesn’t look untouched.
His tie is knotted a little too tight, as if he tied it with shaking hands.
There are deep, dark circles carved under his eyes.
He’s typing, but his eyes aren’t tracking the cursor.
He’s staring blankly at the middle of the monitor, just hitting keys to make noise.
He’s trying to look like nothing happened. He’s failing.
Rage flares in my chest, hot and purifying.
I push the door open and walk in without knocking.
Ethan stops typing. He looks up.
For a second, just a fraction of a second, I see a crack in the mask. His eyes widen. His gaze drops to my neck, searching for the mark he left.
Then the wall slams back down.
“Ms. Hartley,” he says. His voice is cool, detached. “You’re late.”
“I took a detour,” I say, closing the door behind me. I stand in front of his desk, clutching my purse. “We need to talk.”
“I’m busy,” he says, but his voice sounds brittle. “The feedback is rolling in. We have bugs to fix.”
“I don’t care about the bugs,” I snap. “I care about the fact that on Friday night, you had me on this desk.”
Ethan flinches violently, squeezing his eyes shut for a second as if I shouted. He hits a key on his keyboard a little too hard.