He left a note. He wouldn’t just leave. He wouldn’t just disappear after—
I step closer.
Three words:Carey says Congrats.
For a moment, my brain doesn’t compute.
Congrats?... on what?
My mind scrambles, trying to connect pieces that don’t fit together.
I grab my phone and pull the sticky note off it. The screen lights up instantly. It’s already open to Carey’s text.
Great work on the Popovich case. I knew you’d get him to crack. I don’t normally condone sleeping with the client toadvance your career, but it seems to have paid off. Gabriella is impressed. Congrats.
The words blur.
The floor feels like it tilts slightly beneath me.
"No," I whisper.
I swipe out of the message and my notifications flood the screen.
There’s a dozen or so breaking news alerts, and a handful of missed calls from Molly, and a dozen or more calls from Randolph.
The headlines are screaming about anonymous sources confirming VELVT misrepresentation.
My pulse pounds so violently I can hear it in my ears. The thought I can’t shake. He woke up to all of this… and then he saw Carey’s text.
There’s only one explanation for why he disappeared. I already know it. He thinks I did this. That I slept with him to get the information.
Last night, lying against his chest, he had asked me to try something new.
Trust.
And this morning, the universe handed him proof that trusting me was a mistake.
I hit his contact and pressed call, but it didn't go through. He turned it off, which means he’s already on his way to the airport or he’s already boarding.
Which means he made the decision to leave without speaking to me. The painful thought of that is almost unbearable. Because it confirms something I have been terrified of since the moment I let myself feel something real for him.
When things get hard, he runs. When he feels betrayed, he doesn’t wait for explanations. Instead, he protects himself.
I stare at Carey’s message again, and something hot replaces the panic because she did this.
I hit her contact before I could overthink it.
She answers quickly, too quickly.
"Well," she says, "I was wondering how long it would take you to call."
"What did you do?" My voice shakes, but I don’t try to hide it. "How could you use that information?"
"You weren’t going to use it," she replies evenly. "So I did."
"You promised me you’d stall for me. You told me that you’d give me forty-eight hours."
"Well, I changed my mind. I gave you twelve hours and that should have been enough. The opening to make this fix was deteriorating. I made the right call, and you know it. If you weren’t sleeping with him, you’d agree."
