He pulls out his phone and types quickly, then my phone buzzes with a new message.
Derek Pierce: You’re home.
I stare at the screen.
At the simplicity of it. At the ownership of nothing. The care of everything.
I look up. “I’m home,” I echo.
Derek’s gaze holds mine. “Good.”
For a second, neither of us moves.
Then I step back, closing the door halfway, leaving it cracked just enough to feel like a choice, not a wall.
“Thank you,” I say again.
Derek’s mouth curves faintly—barely there, but real. “Anytime, Ms. Sullivan.”
The old title, used like a promise instead of a threat.
I swallow. “Goodnight, Mr. Pierce.”
“Goodnight,” he replies.
And as the door clicks shut, the house-quiet wraps around me again.
Not silence.
Permission.
But this time, it's mine.
Chapter Seventeen
DEREK
DP Enterprises isquiet in a way it only is on the weekends.
It’s Sunday. The building hums instead of roars. No assistants, no back-to-back meetings, no polished urgency echoing down the halls. Just the soft whir of HVAC, the muted glow of screens, and the smell of coffee that’s been sitting too long on a warming plate.
I wasn't planning on working today. I closed the priority deal yesterday while Audra slept. I don't need to be here.
I know that. I knew it when I left the house this morning, keys in hand, jacket pulled on like armor. I told myself it was about clearing my head, about getting ahead on Monday. About not wasting a day.
That was a lie.
The truth is simpler and more irritating.
Everywhere I looked at home, I saw her.
The couch where she’d slept. The blanket folded too neatly afterward. The faint citrus scent she’d left behind in the guest bathroom. Even the kitchen — usually my territory, controlled and impersonal — felt altered, like it remembered her presence and refused to let it go.
So I came here.
My office is exactly as I left it. Desk pristine. Papers aligned.Screens dark until I wake them with a touch. This space doesn’t ask anything of me. It doesn’t look back.
I loosen my tie anyway.
