Chapter 8
It had been five days.
Five measured, deliberate days since the charity ball.
Five days since Creed had allowed himself to truly look at me.
Not a glance, or an assessment. Not even a look that lingered long enough to acknowledge what existed between us.
Time did not move forward so much as it pressed down, slow, and unyielding.
Each day bled into the next, marked by meetings, briefings, and the careful performance of normalcy.
Creed moved through it all with the same ruthless efficiency he always had.
He commanded rooms with surgical precision, his voice calm, authoritative, impossible to ignore.
People leaned toward him instinctively, drawn by the gravity he carried without effort.
But he never leaned toward me.
He did not avoid me in any obvious way. That would have been easier to endure.
Instead, he perfected distance. His gaze skimmed past me like glass, cool and unbroken.
When our paths crossed in the corridor, he nodded once.
Polite. Impersonal. As if nothing intimate had ever existed between us.
As if I had never been something he touched with intention.
It was worse than anger. Anger would have meant engagement. This felt like discipline.
I told myself he was choosing restraint. I told myself this was how he survived conflict, by tightening his grip on everything else. But the silence carved into me anyway, slow, and precise, until I was no longer sure where I ended and the ache began.
I buried myself in work. Reports. Forecasts. Deadlines. Anything that required numbers instead of memory. None of it held. The quiet followed me home, followed me to bed, followed me into sleep that never quite came.
He is not unaffected, I told myself.
I saw it in the way his shoulders stiffened when I entered a room. I saw it in the way his jaw tightened when he thought no one was watching. He held himself rigid, like a man bracing against a current he refused to step into.
Still, what if holding back was the point? What if this was him choosing control over us?
By Friday afternoon, the office hummed with pre-weekend energy. Laughter drifted down the halls. Plans were made. People exhaled. I moved through it all like a ghost, smiling when required, nodding when spoken to, until I heard him.
Creed’s voice.
Low. Decisive. Commanding.
It carried through the glass walls of the conference room and cut straight through me. My pulse stuttered before I could stop it. I looked up, and there he was.
He stood at the head of the table with his sleeves rolled and his tie loosened just enough to signal fatigue without surrender. His hands were braced against the table as he spoke, posture rigid, gaze sharp. He looked exactly as he always had.
And then I noticed what did not belong.
The faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. The tension etched deep around his eyes. The stillness he held too carefully, as if one wrong movement might fracture something he was barely containing.
He looked tired.
As if sensing my attention, he lifted his head. Our eyes met for a single second. Something passed between us, fast, unguarded, and dangerous. I felt it like a hitch in my breath, a moment where he almost stepped forward.
Then I looked away.
When I glanced back, he was already focused on someone else.
The rest of the day crawled. I packed up slowly and deliberately, hoping to avoid him and hating myself for it. Seeing him hurt. Not seeing him hurt even more.
Mavis and Dixie brushed past me, buzzing about HHC’s new member initiation plans. I managed a smile that never reached my eyes. Relinquishing my place in the club stung me more than I had expected. Another quiet consequence. Another door closing.
By the time I reached the main floor, my chest felt hollow, scraped clean by restraint I hadn’t chosen. I angled toward the small dry cleaner in the lobby to retrieve my black suit, but my steps slowed when I saw Creed standing near the entrance.
His phone was pressed to his ear.
He wasn’t speaking. He was listening.
Motionless. Contained. His posture held a tension so precise it bordered on violent. His grip tightened around the phone, knuckles whitening, as if every word on the other end demanded a decision he refused to make.
Restraint, not rage.
That had always been his discipline.
Then his eyes lifted. And they locked on mine.
The space between us collapsed into something sharp and breathless.
For a single suspended moment, desire flickered across his face—quick, unguarded, dangerous.
I felt it like a pull in my gut, a silent question hanging between us.
Would he cross the distance? Would he choose me over the rules that governed him?
I held my breath.
Creed didn’t move.
I watched the choice happen in real time. The tightening of his jaw. The subtle withdrawal behind his eyes. Desire acknowledged and immediately suppressed. Discipline reclaimed.
He turned away.
No hesitation. No backward glance. He ended the call, straightened his jacket, and stepped through the revolving doors with the same controlled precision he used to close negotiations and end wars.
The glass swallowed him whole.
He vanished into the evening, not because he didn’t want me, but because he did.
Because wanting me meant risk. Because proximity meant exposure. Because discipline demanded distance, even when desire burned hot enough to scorch the air between us.
I stood there long after he was gone, finally understanding the truth he hadn’t said aloud. Creed wasn’t retreating to punish me. He was retreating to survive himself.
* * *
MID-NOVEMBER ARRIVED with sharpened air and shorter days, the kind of cold that crept in quietly and stayed. By the time I reached the conference room, my coffee had gone lukewarm in my hand, forgotten while my mind ran three steps ahead of the agenda.
“Okay,” I said, setting my tablet on the table and tapping the screen. “Let’s lock the February issue today. I don’t want revisions bleeding into the holidays.”
A few heads nodded around the table. Laptops opened. Styluses clicked. My team leaned in—not deferential, but focused. That mattered more than they probably realized.
“What about the cover?” Jenna asked. “We’re still split between minimalist and editorial-heavy.”
“Minimalist,” I said without hesitation. “Negative space. Let the headline breathe. February doesn’t need noise.”
Mavis glanced up from her notes. “You’re sure? Don’t forget Valentine’s Day.”
“I am sure,” I said, calm and certain. “Noise is what everyone expects.”
That quiet clarity surfaced again. It had been showing up more often lately, settling into me like a decision that had been waiting for permission I was no longer seeking.
We moved quickly after that. Layouts finalized. Fonts approved. Deadlines assigned. When someone challenged a decision, I didn’t flinch. I explained once, and when they pushed again, I held the line. There was no second-guessing. No bracing. By the time we wrapped, the room buzzed with momentum.
“Damn,” Mavis said as she packed up. “You’re on fire lately.”
I smiled faintly. “I’m efficient.”
She snorted. “That’s not what this is.”
I didn’t ask her to explain. I already knew.
Lunch was at the café down the block, the one with mismatched chairs and chalkboard menus that changed daily. The three of us slid into a booth by the window, coats draped over chair backs, the city moving outside like it had somewhere better to be.
Dixie poked at her salad. “So. One full week.”
Mavis arched a brow. “No calls. No texts. No brooding billionaire sightings?”
“None,” I said, lifting my glass. “I checked.”
“That’s... intense,” Dixie said carefully.
“It’s intentional,” I replied, realizing I meant it.
Mavis studied me over the rim of her mug. “You’re not spiraling.”
“No.”
“You’re not defending him either.”
I paused. That one landed.
“I’m not,” I said slowly as I took a bite of spinach quiche. “I’m just done waiting for him to decide what he wants to do with me.”
“Meanwhile, she’s minimizing Valentine’s Day,” Mavis murmured while popping a cherry tomato into her mouth.
Dixie leaned back. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It sounds overdue,” I said. “I’m done waiting.”
“I was talking about Valentine’s Day,” Dixie said, and Mavis giggled.
I rolled my eyes. “Overrated.” Then I laughed despite myself. “Okay, Mavis, schedule a meeting and we can discuss the February issue again.”
She nodded, looking pleased.
Outside, a couple hurried past, scarves wrapped tight, shoulders hunched against the cold. Everyone moving forward. No one standing still.
“I don’t think he’s punishing you,” Mavis said. “I think he’s hiding.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. It was honest.
“So, what now?” Dixie asked between chews. “Because I know you, and you don’t sit in limbo well.”
I smiled, a real one this time. “Now I stop framing this as something that’s happening to me.”
Mavis’s gaze sharpened. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I decide whether I want to be with a man who disappears when wanting me scares him,” I said evenly, “and whether I’m willing to keep proving I can stand beside him while he avoids standing with me.”
Dixie whistled softly. “That’s a line.”
“Yes,” I said. “And I didn’t draw it for him.”
We paid and stepped back into the cold. The wind cut sharper now, tugging at my coat, but I didn’t pull it tighter. I let it hit me. Let it wake me up.
Back at the office, the afternoon passed cleanly. Emails answered. Decisions made. I didn’t hover over my phone or glance at the door like he might suddenly appear.
He didn’t.
By the time dusk settled in, the windows reflecting my own silhouette back at me, something inside had quieted. Not numbed. Resolved.
I packed up and headed out, the elevator ride down silent except for the soft hum of descent. In the parking garage, people came and went without drama.
I didn’t look over at his car.
I waited until I made it home and parked inside my garage before pulling my phone from my coat pocket. I scrolled once, deliberately.
Then I typed.
I’m done waiting in silence. If you want me, we talk. If you don’t, say that too. I won’t fill in the blanks anymore.
I stared at the screen.
I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t pleading. I was clear.
I didn’t send it. At least not yet. Instead, I saved it and let it sit there, ready, but not reactive. Because the decision wasn’t about whether Creed would respond. It was about whether I would keep letting his silence decide when I mattered.
And for the first time in weeks, I knew exactly what I would do if he didn’t reach out by the end of the week. I would act on my terms, not to chase him, but to choose myself.
As I climbed out of the car, mid-November pressed around me, cold, honest, and unforgiving.
And for the first time in days, I welcomed it.