We don't say another word for the rest of the drive.
We just sit in the dark, holding hands like two people standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to see who pulls the other one over first.
CHAPTER 11
AUDREY
I am sitting cross-legged on the massive charcoal sofa, staring at a carton of Kung Pao chicken, trying to figure out how I got here.
Not just geographically. I understand the geography. I took a terrifying ride to the South Loop, interrupted a blackmail transaction, and rode back to the Gold Coast holding hands with the Devil of Chicago.
I meanhere. Emotionally.
I look down at my left hand. The vintage diamond catches the soft light of the floor lamp next to the sofa. I haven't taken it off. Even when I washed my hands after getting back to the penthouse, I left it on. It feels less like a prop now and more like a permanent fixture.
The heavy oak door of the home office clicks open, the sound cutting through the quiet of the apartment.
I freeze, the wooden chopsticks hovering halfway to my mouth.
Malcolm steps out into the hallway. He has lost the suit jacket and the tie. The top three buttons of his white dress shirt are undone, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He looks exhausted. It’s a subtle exhaustion—the kind that sits behind the eyes and tightens the line of the jaw—but after spending the last forty-eight hours studying his face, I can see it.
He stops at the edge of the living room, his gaze immediately finding me on the sofa.
"You're eating out of a cardboard box," he says. His voice is quiet, lacking the sharp, commanding edge it had in the parking lot this afternoon.
"It’s efficient," I reply, lowering the chopsticks. "And it saves me from trying to figure out which of your eighty-four identical white plates I’m allowed to use."
Malcolm walks toward the kitchen island, dropping his keys and his phone onto the marble. "You can use all of them, Audrey. I don't have a plate hierarchy."
"Good to know." I set the carton down on the glass coffee table. "Are you hungry? I over-ordered. Apparently, stress makes me crave sodium."
He turns around, leaning his lower back against the counter. He looks at the carton of food, then at me. The physical distance between the kitchen and the living room starts to feel very small.
We haven't spoken since the car. We walked out of the elevator together, and he immediately went into his office and shut the door. I went to the guest suite. We spent the last four hours separated by drywall and a terrifying amount of unsaid words.
"I'll take the noodles," he says.
I blink. I was half-expecting him to refuse, to retreat back into his sterile, untouchable routine.
I grab the second carton and a clean pair of chopsticks, standing up from the sofa. I walk over to the kitchen island and slide the food across the marble toward him.
He doesn't sit down. He stays leaning against the counter, opening the carton. He takes a bite, his expression completely unreadable.
"Is it acceptable?" I ask, leaning against the opposite side of the island.
"It is aggressively salty," he murmurs. "And entirely lacking in nutritional value."
"So, it’s perfect."
A tiny, almost imperceptible smile touches the corner of his mouth. It’s gone a second later, but the sight of it does something dangerous to my heart rate.
We eat in silence for a few minutes. It isn't the heavy, suffocating silence from yesterday. It’s quiet. Domestic. It feels like we are two normal people coming home after a long day at work, instead of two people orchestrating a massive corporate revenge plot.
"Did Grant tell you what he did with the laptop?" I ask, unable to let the quiet settle for too long. My brain needs a problem to solve.
Malcolm swallows, setting the chopsticks down. "Grant wiped the hard drive. He physically destroyed the internal memory components, and the casing was incinerated."
"Oh." I look down at my hands. "That’s thorough."
