She understands that this was a one-time thing. A mistake. A glitch in the system.
And I let her believe it.
Because it's easier.
Safer.
For both of us.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I say, my voice a dismissive,impersonal line.
I see her flinch, a subtle, almost imperceptible movement, but I feel it like a physical blow.
I'm a bastard.
A cold, heartless bastard.
"Goodnight, Roberto," she says, her voice a quiet, controlled whisper.
She hitches her bag higher over her shoulder, turns, and walks away, her back straight, her head held high. She doesn't look back.
I watch her go, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.
I want to call her back.
I want to pull her into my arms and kiss her until she forgets all about the cold, heartless bastard she was stuck in an elevator with.
But I don't.
I just stand there and watch her walk away, a solitary figure in the long, empty hallway, and I wonder what the hell I've just done.
And what I'm supposed to do now.
Chapter Eleven
Olivia
I stand in front of the mirror and try to look at myself like I’m a stranger.
Bathroom light is too honest. No flattering angles, no mercy. Just me, damp hair pushed back from the shower, water tracking down my spine, steam curling off the glass where my breath hits it. I wipe a circle clear with the heel of my hand, and there I am.
The mark sits where my neck meets my shoulder, high enough that I have to think about my neckline until it goes away. Purple deepening to plum, a crescent with heat blooming under it. I touch it gently and feel a bright, electric echo.
Not pain. Memory.
There are other spots. A thumbprint bloom near my hipbone. Another on my breast. A smudge along my thigh where carpet pressed and friction did the rest. Knees a little scuffed. I tilt, turn. A faint red track where stubblescratched me when he—
I stop the sentence in my head before it turns into a reel I can’t stop watching.
He’s wearing some of me, too. I know it. The thin lines my nails carved down his back, the ones I felt break skin in that second where nothing on earth could have made me gentler.
The bite mark draws my eyes again. God.
I brace both hands on the counter and breathe.
I can catalog the night like it’s a project plan. Step one: panic. The dark swallowing the car. The way my breath turned small and dumb in my chest. Step two: his voice. Calm, counting, steady. Sit with me. Breathe with me. The jacket folded twice, slid to the corner. The way his hands sat heavy and warm on my shoulders until the worst passed, and then left me cold.
Step three: the small things that were not small. His palm turned up. The question in it. The way my hand fit his, how that single choice unspooled fifty others. The first touch against my cheek. The first yes.
