Chapter 24 #2
My new building is nicer than my old one.
Objectively. It has a doorman, secure elevators, cameras, a package room that requires three separate codes and possibly a blood oath.
My apartment is higher up, with better windows and better locks and a view that should make me feel accomplished.
Instead, it feels like a very expensive hiding place.
When I step inside, the quiet greets me. Just boxes I still haven’t unpacked and the plant I rescued from my old apartment looking at me like it also has opinions about my life choices. I drop my bag on the counter and kick off my shoes. Then I open my laptop.
The Sex Activity Pro email is still there. Actually, there are three now. They haven’t withdrawn the offer, bur increased it. Because apparently nothing says marketable like surviving a scandal and still being good at your job.
The newest message is from their Chief Creative Officer.
We remain deeply impressed with your work and want to be clear that recent public attention has not changed our interest. In fact, your leadership under pressure only strengthens our belief that you are exactly the voice we need.
That line makes me sit back. Leadership under pressure. Is that what we’re calling crying in a lawyer’s office and ignoring internet strangers who think I should be burned at the stake?
The compensation number is obscene. It’s lifechanging. Debt-erasing. Future-building. There’s also a new signing bonus. And a clean title that has nothing to do with sleeping with the man whose name is on the building.
I read it again. Then I open the SINsual agreement.
Return to work. Same role, with title adjustment under review. Launch bonus protected. Legal support. Public credit for the Sins line. Separate reporting structure. No retaliation. No direct oversight from Mason Sinclair..
The agreements sit open side by side on my screen. Two futures. One familiar and burned around the edges. One bright and unfamiliar and maybe too good to trust.
If I stay at SINsual Adult Toys, am I choosing my work?
Or am I choosing him?
If I go to Sex Activity Pro, am I choosing myself?
Or am I running so I don’t have to find out whether love survives daylight?
I close the laptop.
“Great,” I tell my empty apartment. “No answers. Very helpful.”
I make tea and forget about it until it’s cold.
Then I open a box labeled KITCHEN and find books inside, because apparently past Laurel was either chaotic or actively malicious.
I sit on the floor surrounded by half-unpacked pieces of my life and try to imagine returning to the office.
Opal shrieking when she sees me. Tate pretending not to watch me too carefully.
Owen using the phrase conflict management plan with the grave seriousness of a man discussing international diplomacy.
And Sin.
At the far end of a hallway. In a conference room. Across a table. No longer allowed to be my boss. Maybe no longer allowed to be anything. Would he look at me? Would I look away? Would I spend the rest of my career measuring the distance between us in office doors and legal protocols?
Then I imagine Sex Activity Pro.
A new building. New faces. New title. No one knowing exactly how my laugh sounds in Sin’s bed. No one knowing I once loved the man whose company I left behind.
Except they would know. The difference is, they’d be paying me enough to pretend they don’t. My doorbell rings and I go completely still. The sound comes again.
I check the security app on my phone. A courier stands downstairs holding a flat envelope. Not flowers, thank god. I buzz him up because apparently I am still capable of poor decisions. By the time he reaches my door, I have shoes on, my phone in hand, and the deadbolt chain still in place.
“Delivery for Laurel Cross,” he says.
I make him slide the envelope through the gap like I’m accepting a ransom note in a thriller, which feels dramatic but also appropriate given my recent relationship with mail. After he leaves, I lock every lock again. Then I stand in the entryway and stare at the envelope.
No return address. But I know as soon as I see my name written in strong, precise letters.
Sin.
My knees weaken.
I carry the envelope to the kitchen counter like it might explode if handled incorrectly.
Maybe it will. Maybe whatever is inside will blow apart the careful little wall I’ve spent two weeks building.
Maybe it says he’s sorry. Maybe it says goodbye.
Maybe it says everything I have wanted to hear. Maybe that is worse.
I run one finger over my name. For one second, I almost open it. My thumb slips under the corner. Then I stop.
Not yet. Not while I’m standing in my kitchen with cold tea and shaking hands and a future I haven’t chosen. Not while a letter from Sin might make the choice for me if I let it.
I set it on the counter faceup. His handwriting staring back at me.
Then I turn off the kitchen light and walk away.
I do not open it.
Not tonight.
Maybe I never will.
Tate sits across from me in the restaurant, looking entirely too casual for a man who definitely has an agenda.
I’ve been working from home, but he wanted to meet for lunch to “check in on me,” which I’m pretty sure is corporate code for making sure I haven’t gone off the deep end since I haven’t been to the office in over three weeks.
The dust has settled, he’d said. But has it?
Because from where I’m sitting, the dust hasn’t settled.
It’s just found new and creative places to hide.
In my hair. In my inbox. In the part of my chest that still tightens every time I pass the unopened letter sitting on my kitchen counter.
The restaurant is busy enough that we have privacy without silence. Servers weave around tables. Glasses clink. Someone nearby laughs too loudly at something that probably isn’t that funny. Normal life happening all around me.
Tate opens his menu, but I can tell he isn’t reading it. “Everything looks good for the Pride launch. The board is happy. Retailer interest is strong. Marketing hasn’t done anything too stupid this week.”
“That’s suspicious.”
“I know. I’m worried.”
I smile despite myself, but it feels rusty. He notices but doesn’t comment, which is one of the reasons I like Tate. He knows when to press and when to let a person pretend they’re fine in public.
He sets the menu down. “I was thinking we should work on Wrath or Greed next. Not really sure how we can do Gluttony without it sounding gross.”
“Gross?” I arch a brow. “Is that an official design term?”
“It’s in my personal glossary.”
“Right between squishy and unfortunately moist?”
His face twists. “Please never say unfortunately moist at lunch again.”
“No promises.”
He smiles back, and for a second, it almost feels like before.
I take a sip of water, mostly to give my hands something to do. “I actually think there are a lot of options for Gluttony.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Did you know that in some interpretations, gluttony wasn’t only about food? It was more about the desire for pleasure overtaking self-control. Consumption becoming an idol. Want replacing devotion.”
Tate leans back, studying me. “Never thought about it like that.”
“That’s why I get paid the big bucks.”
“About that.”
I swallow a sigh. There it is. The agenda has entered the chat.
He wants to know if I’ve made a choice yet.
Heck, Sex Activity Pro is wondering the same thing.
They’ve been aggressively patient, which is just a very polished way of being terrifying.
More money. Better title. My own department.
A clean start wrapped in an offer letter that smells faintly like salvation and corporate perfume.
“I still don’t know,” I admit.
Tate doesn’t look surprised. “That’s fair.”
“Is it? Because everyone keeps saying that, but I feel like the clock is ticking.”
“It is.”
“Comforting.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t ticking. I said it’s fair that you don’t know.”
I push a fork around the edge of my napkin. “Sex Activity Pro increased the offer.”
His brows lift. “By a lot?”
“By a deeply disrespectful amount.”
He whistles low. “Damn.”
“Exactly.”
“You deserve it.”
It’s annoying how quickly those words can still hurt. Not because they’re cruel. Because they’re kind.
“I don’t know what I deserve anymore.”
Tate’s expression softens. “Laurel.”
“No, I know. I’m not asking you to give me a motivational speech.
I’m just saying, it’s weird. A month ago, I knew exactly who I was at SINsual Adult Toys.
I knew what I built. I knew what I wanted next.
” I let out a small laugh. “Now I have a lawyer, a secure building, and a comment section full of people who think I personally invented adultery.”
His mouth tightens. “Those people don’t know you.”
“Yeah, well, that has not stopped them from forming some very vivid opinions.”
“They’re wrong.”
“Some of them aren’t.”
He doesn’t argue immediately. That might be why I don’t get defensive.
“I made choices,” I say quietly. “I knew he was married. I knew it was wrong. I can dress it up however I want. Dead marriage. Complicated history. Mutual feelings. But I knew.”
Tate sits forward, lowering his voice. “You’re allowed to take responsibility without accepting every cruel thing people say about you.”
My throat tightens. I hate when Sinclairs make sense.
“I know,” I whisper.
“Do you?”
“No, but I’m pretending, and that’s a start.”
His smile is sad. “Fair.”
The server comes by to take our orders, saving me from emotions, which is exactly what servers should be tipped extra for. We order salads because, and once she leaves, Tate folds his hands on the table.
“Have you thought about talking to Sin?”
My body reacts before I can stop it. A small breath. A tightness in my chest. A stupid, immediate ache.
I look down at my water glass. “That might help.”
“It might.”
“It might also make everything worse.”
“That’s also possible.”
“Stop being balanced. I hate it.”
“I’m trying something new.”
“I don’t care for it.”