I close the app.
I look out the window at the highway sliding past, the flat sprawl of Houston giving way to overpasses and toll-road and the particular grey-brown landscape of a city that never decided what it wanted to be.
Two months, I tell myself.
CHAPTER FIVE
BLAIRE
Mom: Colt just told us that you're going to Los Angeles for two months, Blaire?! What are you thinking taking off like this? You need to be home fixing your marriage! We raised you better than this.
Colt: Your parents are so disappointed in you, Blaire. You're risking their livelihoods for what? To try and be an 'independent woman?' Just come home. I miss you, baby.
My hands are shaking by the time I finish reading. I've just walked into the Sullivan building and had to stop in the lobby and sit because my legs stopped cooperating somewhere between the revolving door and the reception desk.
I probably look like a crazy woman with how fast my fingers are moving, but I can't stay silent anymore. I've been staying silent for ten years and look where it got me.
I start a group chat with my parents, so I only have to say this once.
Blaire:Mom. Dad. At this point, I'm starting to feel like you care more about the luxuries you could potentially lose with this divorce than the fact that I just left a ten year toxic and intensely abusive marriage. I've told you both over and over the things that Colt has done to me, but you have blinders on when it comes to him. Unless you can learn to support methrough this, which I really wish you would, I literally have no one. Don't contact me again.
I stare at it for a moment.
Then I send it.
Then I text Colt.
Blaire:Don’t contact me again. We speak through our attorneys, or we don’t speak at all. This will be your only warning.
Blaire:Camille, change my mobile number and update all stationery and professional contacts with the new one.
I put my phone in my bag, stand up, straighten my blazer, and walk to the reception desk.
The woman behind it looks up with the practiced warmth of someone extremely well trained.
"Blaire Monroe for Sullivan & Associates."
The name sits in my mouth the way it always does now; slightly wrong, slightly borrowed. I know I need to go back to Alexander at some point. The paperwork is coming. My attorney keeps flagging it gently, like a reminder I've been swiping away on my phone. It's just that changing it back feels like its own admission, that I gave ten years to a name that was never really mine to keep.
I push the thought down. File it underlater.I cannot afford the distraction, not today, not walking into a first meeting with a client whose board is already watching for cracks.
"Of course, Ms. Monroe." The receptionist smiles and produces a badge. "Here is your temporary access card. Full building access for the duration of your stay." She slides a slim welcome card across the desk alongside it. "The gym is on level six. Our restaurant, Verona, is on level eight — Chef Marcos does dinner service Tuesday through Saturday. The rooftop poolis on level thirty-two, keycard access only." She pauses. "Your apartment is on level sixteen, with butler service included."
I look at the card.
Then at her.
"My apartment?"
"Yes, Ms. Monroe. The board had one of the guest residences prepared for you.”
Well. Fuck.
I knew my travels had been upgraded — Camille mentioned it on my way through security, something about a change of plans, the firm insisting I stay in their guest suites, she'd handle the details. I had half-listened because I was reading the Meridian section of the file, and Camille handles details better than anyone I know.
Camille did not mention that the new location wasinside the Sullivan building.
I am going to be living in my client's building. I glance at the directory on the desk and find the penthouse notation — sixteen floors below Bennet Sullivan himself.
