I finally open my eyes and sit up, running my fingers throughmy hair. As I start to shimmy out of bed, I suddenly remember the cameras.
Don’t acknowledge them. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Just move like you would if you weren’t starring in his private sex documentary.
Although, really, what more can he see? He literally had a flashlight aimed between my legs last night.
I stand up and stretch my body, my arms aching in the best way from where he had me pinned to my sheets, then head to the shower.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s watching me in here too.
Jesus, I really hope he’s not because that would cross another line. Not that we haven’t already lit all the lines on fire, pissed on them, and called it foreplay.
It’s easier said than done to pretend you’re not aware that your every move is being watched.I can feel his eyes on me. It’s like an invisible pressure crawling over my skin, something I can’t see but know is there, like a fucking ghost with a hard-on.
I close my eyes, tilt my head back under the water, and try to let it rinse him out of me—it doesn’t work.
Fuck it. I’m not doing this.
I’m not going to be the woman who stands in the shower, spiraling over a man who’s already proven he doesn’t play by normal rules. He plays by psycho rules. I just have to pull up my big-girl panties and get on with it until he finally realizes that he and I are never going to work out the way he thinks.
Maybe don’t open your legs for him next time, my inner demon says, smug as fuck.
If she could crawl out of me, she’d be the first one on her knees for Phoenix.
I slip into a pencil skirt and button my shirt, getting myself office-ready and attempting to look like a woman who has her shittogether—at least on the outside. Inside, I’m wondering whether he’s hacked into the elevator cameras too.
When I finally step onto the curb, my driver’s already there waiting for me—engine running, heated seats, hot coffee in the console. Yeah, I’m that asshole now. But it’s November, and I think I’ve earned some heat.
I make this journey every day, and I don’t take for granted what my life has become. I’m privileged now, but I scraped this life out of the fucking dirt.
Nothing was handed to me.
Well, that’s not entirely true. What was handed to me every week—literally placed in my small eight-year-old palm—was a sandwich bag full of white powder I didn’t have a name for yet.
Cocaine.
I’d learn that word much later, right alongside others like “overdose” and “withdrawal,” and the difference between blackout drunk and just regular old drunk. I didn’t grow up with bedtime stories. I didn’t get hugs or kisses on scraped knees, or someone to tell me the monsters under the bed weren’t real. Because they were real, and they slept in the next room.
What I got was the crinkle of plastic against my sweating palm and my mother’s whiskey-soaked breath against my ear as she whispered, “Hold this ’til I get back.” Then she’d disappear into some gas station bathroom with whatever greasy piece of shit was feeding her for the day.
I didn’t know what she was doing in there. Not really. Not in a way that would’ve made it make sense. I actually didn’t know much back then, but I knew I was cold. I knew the rain was soaking straight through my hoodie, making the fabric heavy and suffocating against my small arms. I knew my fingers were going numb around that plastic bag. And I knew I wanted her to hurryup—not because I missed her, but because I needed to lock myself back in my shitbox bedroom, shut the world out, and pretend I didn’t exist.
That little girl’s still in there somewhere. I feel her sometimes, when I least expect it—knees pulled to her chest, rain in her hair, certain she’ll die before she ever makes a real friend—she’s just gotten better at hiding.
Once I reach the office, I head up to my floor, and Betty greets me with a huge smile that stretches across her face. Betty’s in her sixties, with silver hair always pinned back in a neat twist, and the most beautiful laugh lines carved deep around her eyes from decades of actually having things to smile about. I’ve offered to set her up with a retirement package three times now—the kind of money that would let her live out her days doing whatever the hell she wants—but she turns me down every single time.
“Morning, Shannen. How was your trip?” She beams, handing me my coffee like always.
“It was great, thank you.”
Great, my ass. I’d rather chew glass than ever do that again.
I toss my bag on my desk and glance at the glowing screen. “I haven’t had a chance to look at my schedule for today. Do I have any meetings?”
“None today, but tomorrow morning, you’ve got James Lawson coming in.”
My hand freezes halfway to my mouth. “Tomorrow?”
“He emailed over the weekend. He’s interested in talking to you about the rebrand.”
