Cold dread prickles behind my ribs. “Anthony isn’t sinking.”
“Not yet,” Aidan says. “But he’s surrounded by people who would love to watch him drown.”
My pulse thuds hard. “I’m hanging up now.”
“Consider it,” he says quickly, urgency threading through the smoothness. “Because if you wait too long, you won’t have choices. Call me if you change your mind.”
“I won’t.” I end the call with shaking fingers.
For a few seconds, I just sit there staring at the black screen, my reflection warped faintly in it — pale face, wide eyes, glassesaskew, hair a mess. The apartment suddenly feels less like a sanctuary and more like a fortress under siege.
My mind races in ugly loops.How did he know? How did he get my number? How much does he know? What does he want?
I almost call Anthony immediately, but I stop myself. Not because I don’t trust him, but because I can’t stand the idea of sounding needy again, of sounding like I’m always the next problem he has to fix. But the phone call sits under my skin like a splinter. It doesn’t stop hurting just because I ignore it.
So I wait.
————
It’s dark outside when Anthony comes home.
The elevator opens and he steps into the penthouse like a man walking out of a storm, coat still on, hair slightly disordered, jaw set hard enough to cut glass. He looks up the moment he sees me on the sofa, and something in his face shifts. Relief, maybe. Or the kind of worry he hates admitting to.
He crosses the room in a straight line. “You ate?” he asks immediately, eyes scanning me like he’s checking for injuries.
“I had toast,” I say.
His gaze flicks to the mug on the table, the blanket around my legs, the remote in my lap. He exhales through his nose, controlled. “Good.” He loosens his tie with a sharp tug. “How are you?”
“I was okay.” My voice wavers. “Until I got a call.”
His posture stills. Like a predator catching scent. “From who?”
I swallow. “Aidan Snow.”
The temperature in the room drops so fast it’s almost physical. Anthony’s eyes narrow. “What did he say?”
“He said he had an urgent concern about you,” I tell him. “He wanted to meet. Offered me a job. Said I should consider an ‘exit.’”
Anthony’s mouth goes tight. He tosses his keys onto the console hard enough that they clatter. “That fucking bastard.”
“Do you know how he got my number?”
“I can guess,” he says, and the way he says it makes my stomach clench. He paces once, a tight, contained loop, then stops and looks at me. “I’ve seen Karen having lunch with him. Not a rumor. Not speculation. I saw it, with my own two eyes.”
My mind flashes back to the boardroom he walked into today. The photo. The cold faces. “Karen,” I repeat.
“She’s building support,” he says, voice controlled but edged. “Board meetings, little ‘concerns,’ questions about my conduct, my judgment. There was a picture of us, candid, in the press today, and she made it into the world’s largest problem. She’s been trying to fracture my position for months, and now she’s escalating.”
“So Aidan is part of it,” I whisper. “Wait, there’s a picture?”
Anthony’s gaze holds mine. “He’s opportunistic,” he says. “And she’s ambitious. Together, they’re a problem. And yes, princess, welcome to the tabloids.”
He sets the photo down beside me, and I stare at it for half a second before deciding to shelf that issue. “I said no. I told him I wasn’t meeting him. I hung up.”
“I know,” he says, and the words are immediate, certain, like he never doubted it.
That should feel good. But it feels like a tether tightening around my ribs. “I don’t want to be used,” I say quietly. “By anyone.”
