“Who was that woman who came in earlier?” she asked suddenly. “The one you asked me to leave the floor for…”
Billie blinked. “Excuse me?”
“She looked familiar. Isn’t she that client?”
Billie straightened in her seat. “You’re aware of our policy on client discretion.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Billie glared back at Nina. She didn’t know why her assistant thought she had the right to discuss clients with her, Nina was never usually that vocal, but Billie wouldn’t tolerate it. “You’reveryclose to overstepping, Nina.”
Nina flinched but held her ground. “You used to trust me with more than numbers and invoices. Lately, I can’t tell if I’m your assistant or a stranger you tolerate.”
Billie’s pulse kicked up a little. A warning. “Be careful.”
“Careful?” Nina laughed. “You called out someone else’s name while I was fucking you, butI’mthe one who should be careful?”
Those words hit Billie with the force of a thousand bricks. She remained silent, watching Nina across the room, trying todecide whether her attitude was jealousy or simply defiance for not being the centre of Billie’s attention lately. She cleared her throat, rose to her feet, and pressed her palms to the desk. “I think you’re forgetting who you’re speaking to.”
Nina cast her gaze to the rug between them. “I just want to know what she is to you.”
Billie scoffed. She wasn’t putting up with this. No way. “What she is…is none of your concern.”
“It obviously is.”
Billie pushed off her desk abruptly. “That’senough.”
The authority in her tone worked this time. Nina’s mouth closed as she retreated towards the door. But the damage was already done. The atmosphere between them was different now. It was no longer charged with anticipation. It was just heavy with disappointment.
Billie shook her head and turned away. “Take the afternoon off.”
“Miss Brown, I?—”
“That’s an instruction,nota discussion.”
Nina sighed. “Yes, Miss Brown.”
When the door closed behind her, Billie dropped into her chair and exhaled a deep, calming breath. Nina’s words looped through her head until she pressed her palms against her temples.
Everything she’d built, every relationship she’d defined, every emotion she’d boxed away neatly…and one woman had walked in and ripped apart the whole system by simply existing.
She wasn’t angry with Nina, not really. She was angry with herself for letting it get that far. For allowing her body to betray what her mind had spent years protecting.
She glanced at the clock again.
One hour and forty minutes.
The faintest smile ghosted at the corner of her mouth. She knew she should feel guilt. She also knew she should feel chaos. But instead, she felt…anticipation.
For the first time in years, Billie was almost certain that she was done pretending that the life she’d built still fit. And in just under two hours, she washopefullygoing to see the reason why.
Tapping her foot against the floor, she realised that she couldn’t stay in her office for a second longer. She needed to walk off this nervous energy and inhale some fresh air. It usually did the trick when she was stuck in her own mind, and right now, she was taking whatever she could get if it meant she didn’t either back out of lunch or turn up there looking like a woman who didn’t know her own name.
Billie quickly tidied up her desk. Pens aligned and invoices sitting neatly. The order of it should have been calming, but it wasn’t. She was finding it remarkably hard to grasp any semblance of calm since Debra had walked out of the shop this morning.
As she lifted her overcoat from the hook next to the mirror, she stared back at her reflection. She looked composed and professional, she even looked unshaken to those around her, but there was a looseness around her collar and a crease in her shirt. Even the smallest deviation was proof enough. She wasn’t in control. Not today.
As she reached for the door handle, the door suddenly opened.
