Chapter 32
Evelyn
Monday Morning
Grace is already at the front desk when I arrive.
She’s dressed like money. The kind of money that doesn’t have to try—just exists, gleaming and untouchable.
Her heels are sharp enough to carve the air.
Her silk blouse flows like it was steamed by angels.
Her lipstick is that kind of red—the expensive kind, the kind that stays on through sins and threats.
She gives me a slow, deliberate once-over. A dissection. “You’re late,” she says coolly.
I blink. I check my phone. I am ten minutes early. “I’m not.”
She lifts a hand. A slice of dismissal sharper than a blade. “When you represent a man like Alexander, you need to be sharper than that. Appearance matters, dear. Timeliness matters. Presence matters.”
It’s not advice. It’s a wound.
She turns on her heel—each step a declaration of superiority—and glides down the lobby like she owns the marble, the windows, the air, the damn building.
I stand frozen, breath caught between my teeth. Who is she? Other than someone who ruined his life and broke his heart. She is a disease. Not just someone who knows him. Someone who thinks her orbit has been restored.
I glance toward Alexander’s office. Door closed.
Of course it is. And there it is again—the quiet crack in my chest. The fracture between us widening.
The distance I told myself was temporary…
now feeling like deliberate absence. I swallow the sting, sit at my desk, and straighten the papers that don’t need straightening.
If I’m just an employee now—fine. I can play that role. I’ve played harsher ones. But Grace? She’s not just an ex. She’s a warning. And I think I’ve just stepped into a battlefield I didn’t realize existed.