“I know,” I whisper. “He won’t.”
But as I stare at the darkened tablet, one thought coils cold and tight in my chest, refusing to let go.
If Leo Ashford thinks this is helping…
What happens when Rex Chen decides it’s time to collect?
Chapter 20
Leo
I don’t remember sitting down.
One moment, I am standing in the middle of my apartment with my keys still clenched in my fist, jacket sliding off one shoulder, my body buzzing like I have just narrowly missed being hit by a car. Next, I am on the floor with my back against the couch, knees pulled to my chest, staring at the darkened television screen like it might explain what I just did to myself.
The silence is unbearable.
My apartment has always been quiet. Curated quiet. The kind of silence you pay for. Triple-paned glass. White noise disguised as luxury. A place designed so nothing ever intrudes unless you invite it in.
This silence is different. It presses. It crawls into my ears and down my spine and settles behind my ribs until I can hear my own heart beating, too loud, too fast, like it is trying to escape.
I close my eyes.
And there she is.
Not the version of Tess who yelled. Not the one who shoved me.
The moment after. The moment she stopped seeing me as someone worth arguing with.
The look on her face when she closed the tablet. When the door shut, not physically, but emotionally. When the trust did not just crack but calcified into something cold and unreachable.
You were protecting your version of me.
The words echo, over and over, each repetition peeling something else off me.
My certainty.
My justification.
My last excuse.
I was not protecting her. I was afraid. Afraid of waiting. Afraid of being unnecessary. Afraid of watching something extraordinary exist outside my control. Afraid she did not need me. That one lodges the deepest.
I have built an entire adult life on being needed. On being useful. On solving problems so efficiently that people forget what it was like before I arrived. I do not know who I am when I cannot optimize something into submission.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until sparks dance behind my lids.
I have lost deals before. Burned bridges. Walked away from partnerships that everyone said would define my career.
None of it has ever felt like this.
Money losses sting. Reputation hits bruise. This feels like I tore something out of my chest and handed it to someone who never asked for it.
I push myself to my feet abruptly, restless energy flooding my limbs. I pace the length of the apartment, then turn and pace it again. The walls feel too close. The ceiling is too high. Everything is wrong.
I pass the kitchen and let out a sharp, humorless laugh.
I do not even know how to cook.
