Two weeks ago.
Two weeks since I’ve seen her. Two weeks since that conference room when she kissed me and sobbed, then ran for the door like she was escaping a fire. After that, the Northstar group headed back to New York, and negotiations have been continuing virtually—screens, emails, scheduled calls.
I haven’t had any contact with any of them.
Not Malcolm. Not David. Not Eleanor. And not Elsa.
My talents don’t translate to virtual. I’m good in rooms. I’m good when I can read the micro-shifts insomeone’s posture, so I can head off a ‘no’ before it comes out of someone’s mouth.
I’m good at making people feel understood and cornered at the same time. None of that works through a webcam and muted microphones.
So I sit on the sidelines while Roberto does what he does and Caterina does what she does, and I tell myself it’s better this way. Safer.
It doesn’t feel safe. It feels like I’m watching my life through glass.
I’ve been depressed. Moping. There’s no other way to say it. I get up every day, I go through the motions, I show up for meetings, I take calls, I do my job—and then I come home, and I’m empty.
Or worse, I’m full of her. Full of the memory of her mouth, her voice, the way she held on tight just before she broke away for good.
I’ve tried to snap out of it.
I’ve told myself it was one night. I’ve told myself I’ve had one-night stands before, and I didn’t care. I’ve told myself I have bigger problems—Bellandi, territory, family, a deal that can’t slip because the consequences aren’t just financial.
None of it works.
Because lying here, in this exact suite, I can still remember her pressing against me. And I hate how much I want to reach for my phone and do the one thing I’ve been refusing to dofor two weeks—break the silence first—when I don’t even know if she’d pick up. When I don’t even know if she wants me to.
My thumb hovers over her name anyway.
I lock the phone and toss it onto the bed beside me, harder than I need to. It bounces and falls off the mattress.
I stare at the ceiling again and force a breath through my nose slowly, as if that will do something.
My phone buzzes from the ground.
I ignore it.
It’s not her. I know it.
The buzzing stops.
Then it starts again—seemingly more insistent this time.
“Fuck,” I mutter, and swing my legs off the bed.
I scoop the phone off the floor and glance at the screen.
Roberto.
I answer before it can buzz a third time. “What?”
“Where are you?” he asks. No hello. No preamble.
I sit up and let my gaze flick over the room. Her dress isn’t in a pile on the floor. Her shoes aren’t tossed carelessly aside.
“Out,” I say.
He doesn’t even bother toacknowledge my lie.
