And now a hunter—somewhere beyond Charleston’s soft winter—was arranging a path for me like he’d already wrapped a leash around my throat.
My breath came shallow.
I typed a response before I could lose nerve.
Thank you for the invitation. I’m honored. I can attend.
I hit send.
The second it left, my phone buzzed one more time.
Good girl. Pack tonight. I’ll tell you when to leave.
I dropped my phone on the counter like it burned.
Then I sat there, staring at the quiet, sunlit condo that suddenly felt too small for the woman I’d just become.
Because the moment I accepted, I understood something I hadn’t been ready to admit:
This wasn’t a fantasy anymore.
It was a trail.
And I had just stepped onto it.
And somewhere in upstate New York, a dangerous man was waiting.
4
Ipacked like I was trying to convince myself this was normal.
Not the way I usually packed for conferences—efficient, calm, the same neutral blouses I could wear on stage and at a cocktail reception without anyone noticing I was sweating.
This was different.
This was a man who had texted me like a commandment.
Pack tonight.
I like you in ivory.
My closet door stood open, and my condo—usually my controlled little glass box of calm—felt suddenly too bright, too exposed. Every surface reflected me back at myself: my hair still damp at the ends, my cheeks flushed in a way that had nothing to do with the warm January sun creeping through the windows, my mouth slightly parted like I’d been surprised.
I had been surprised.
Not by the summit. Not by the plausibility—because he’d made sure it was plausible. Perfectly plausible. It was the intimacy that rattled me. The way he’d reached into my life and moved the pieces without asking, like he’d been standing behindme for weeks with his hands on my shoulders, guiding, guiding, guiding.
“Don’t be dramatic,” I told myself, pulling a black suitcase from the hall closet and setting it on the bed.
The suitcase looked absurdly ordinary for what I was doing. A normal thing. A normal woman. A normal trip.
My phone buzzed.
I didn’t pick it up right away.
I stared at it like it was a snake.
The last three weeks had rewired me. Every vibration in my palm came with a rush of adrenaline, as if my nervous system had made a deal with itself: I would remain calm all day, and then I would become feral the moment someone touched my life from the outside.
