18. Kate
Kate
I needed air. And not the kind that came from Michael’s luxury HVAC system or his damn lake house view. I needed to feel like myself again.
That’s how I ended up slipping out dressed in jogging gear. My ball cap pulled low, hair tucked in a bun underneath I grabbed Amber and her leash. I was just taking my dog on a walk. Totally normal.
I wore a nondescript plain hoodie, pretended not to notice the gut who got out of a SUV and started walking.
Michael thinks I’m na?ve. He forgets I was raised in this town. I know every back alley, every side door, every person worth trusting.
And tonight, I trusted Claire.
I walked briskly down Main Street, the early fall chill sliding under my jacket. Most of the town had turned in by now, but the light over the back door of Toy Cove still glowed warm. I punched in the code. Three-seven-two-eight. The keypad clicked open.
Claire didn’t look up from the shelves when I slipped in. Just handed me a scanner and a clipboard.
Inventory. Sunday night ritual. See I hadn’t totally lied. There was a ritual.
In silence, we stacked, sorted, scanned until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I kicked a diplomat’s mistress off a yacht last night.”
Claire blinked slowly. “You wanna rewind that?”
I sank onto a stool and spilled everything—Michael’s unrelenting presence, the bodyguards, the mind-blowing sex, the tangled feelings, the danger, the dominance, the dizzying intensity of it all.
The way he made me feel like both a queen and a possession.
The way I both wanted to run—and never leave his side again.
She listened. Silent. Sharp-eyed. Like always.
When I finally looked up, her face was unreadable.
“You’re either in the middle of a fairytale,” she said, “or a Greek tragedy.”
“Or both.”
Claire set down the clipboard and poured us each a finger of whiskey from the flask she kept in the art supply cabinet.
“To surviving men like Michael,” she said.
I lifted my glass.
“To not losing ourselves in them.”
And we drank.
We work in silence for a while, stacking puzzles and sorting plushies into bins marked by age and gender. The quiet hum of the store’s old radio fills the space with vintage jazz. But the longer I’m here, the heavier everything gets.
Finally, I sit down hard on the step stool between the bins and just say it. “I’m falling for him.”
Claire stops mid-stack and slowly sets the wooden toys down. She says nothing.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” I whisper. “It was just supposed to be one night. Scratch the itch. Get him out of my system.”
“But?” Claire prompts.
“But he’s not leaving my system. If anything, he’s burrowing in deeper. And I’m lying to him. Every night. Every time he kisses me like he means it, I just... sink deeper.”
Claire raises a brow. “You haven’t told him.”
“How could I? He’d never forgive me.”
She waits.
“I’m the reason half his development deals are crumbling.
I’m the buyer. My Cayman Islands shell company—the one I swore I set up just to shield my real estate deals from gender bias?
It’s me. I’m the one sweeping up the land he wants.
Every lot, every parcel that doesn’t fold to his charm or cash? It’s me. And if he finds out?—”
“He will,” Claire interrupts gently. “Eventually.”
I nod. “He will. And he’ll feel betrayed. Like I played him. Like all of this—us—was just a game.”
Claire softens. “Was it?”
I meet her eyes. “No. That’s the problem. None of this was a game to me. Not the way he touches me. Not the way he looks at me. And last night on that yacht…”
She smiles faintly. “You kicked out a made man in front of half the international criminal elite.”
“I did,” I breathe out, still stunned by my own boldness. “And Michael didn’t blink. He just watched me like I’d hung the moon.”
Claire sets the bin aside and sits next to me. “You’re in it now. And when the truth comes out—and it will—you’ll have to decide what matters more: saving face or saving what’s real.”
I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. I already know the answer.
But that doesn’t make what comes next any easier.
My phone buzzes where I’d left it on the wood shelf, the vibrations loud in the quiet backroom. I flip it over. The screen lights up with a string of clipped, direct texts from Michael:
Where are you.
You left your house.. not at tapas night.
Not funny, Kate.
Answer me.
Claire’s in the middle of unpacking a box of Squishmallows when she glances over. “Is that him?”
I nod, sighing as the wine dulls the edge of my nerves. Half the bottle's gone—maybe more. I feel warm. Loose. But not careless.
Another message flashes across the screen:
Drop a pin. Now. Or I come find you myself.
Then:
Go home, Kate.
I squint at the phone and text back:
Why? Jealous you’re sleeping alone tonight and I’m with this chic?
Claire snorts. I lean in beside her, hold up the phone, and snap a selfie of the two of us surrounded by plush pastel Squishmallows. Claire’s holding a pink unicorn, and I smirk—just tipsy enough to send it.
I hit send.
Silence.
Claire side-eyes me. “You just poked the dragon, didn’t you?”
I let out a slow exhale, heart ticking a little too fast now. “Yeah. But I needed to remind him—I’m not a pet. He doesn’t own me.”
Claire doesn’t answer. She just hands me another Squishmallow and shoots me a look that says you better figure this out fast, girl.