Then she moves.
Not dramatically. Not a panic response or a flight reaction. She simply picks up one of the hundred-dollar bills Marty left, places it deliberately on top of the check, and stands.
Leaves the other four hundred dollars sitting there.
Interesting.
She walks toward the exit with the same measured control she maintained while sitting—back straight, steps even, face carefully neutral. Someone who didn't know her might think she's perfectly composed.
But I know her.
I know the way her fingers flex at her sides means she's fighting the urge to ball them into fists. I know the slight tension in her jaw means she's clenching her teeth. I know the deliberate pace means she's forcing herself not to run.
She exits the pizzeria and turns left down the sidewalk.
Not toward her apartment—that's the opposite direction.
She's walking deeper into downtown, which means she hasn't decided where she's going yet. She's moving because staying still felt dangerous, but she hasn't formed a plan beyondget away from here.
I switch camera feeds, cycling through the network I have positioned throughout her regular routes. She appears on the next screen—different angle, same controlled stride. I watch her pass the bookstore she never enters, the wine bar she's been to twice with yoga dates who bored her.
Her phone is in her purse. I know because I saw her stuff it in there as she entered the pizzeria for her date.
She hasn't pulled it out yet.
Hasn't called anyone, hasn't texted anyone, hasn't opened her banking app to check if more money appeared like magic the way it did after Christmas. The way it has every week since Valentine's Day.
Scarletta Mae Desmond has several million dollars in a slew of bank accounts all across the Rocky Mountains. I doubt she has any idea what her net worth is at this moment.
She's got no sense of money at all. She didn't even file taxes.
It's fine, though. I did that for her. Just like I do everything for her. Unaware, unappreciated, don't care.
She's walking, and thinking, and probably spiraling. And I'm sitting in my Tahoe across the street from where she just was, watching her move through my city like she still believes she has privacy.
Like she still believes I'm not everywhere she goes outside her new apartment.
The arousal from watching this is different than what I felt watching her in the old apartment. Or with the attendants. Or any other time, actually. It's entirely different than any experience I've had with her so far.
This isn't about her body surrendering to physical stimulation she can't control.
This is about her mind.
Right now, Scarletta is realizing—truly, fully realizing—that six months of silence from me didn't mean I went away. It meant I was letting her think she could build a life without me while I watched every single attempt.
Every coffee shop writing session where she stared at blank documents.
Every gym workout where she went through motions without purpose.
Every yoga class where she met nice men with gentle hands who couldn't give her what she needs.
I watched all of it.
And now sheknowsI watched all of it.
She stops walking.
Middle of the sidewalk, no clear destination, just... stops.
