He's right to be concerned. Iamobsessed. Iamdistracted. I'm letting a woman I've barely spoken to consume my thoughts, my time, my carefully constructed life.
But I can't stop.
And I'm not sure I want to.
That evening, I sit in my study with the lights off, watching the surveillance feed from outside her building. Her window is dark. She hasn't turned on a light in hours.
Is she sleeping? Sitting in the dark like I am, thinking about me the way I'm thinking about her?
Or is she planning something? Finding some courage I haven't anticipated, some move I haven't accounted for?
The thought should worry me. Instead, it excites me.
Fight back,I think, watching that dark window.Show me what you're made of.
Make this interesting.
I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts until I find the number for Harriet Vance, a society columnist who owes me several favors. A whisper in the right ear, a mention in the right column, and Poppy Rivers' reputation could be enhanced or destroyed with equal ease.
Not yet. It's too soon for that particular weapon.
But soon.
I set the phone aside and return to watching the dark window, letting the anticipation build.
She's almost ready. A few more turns of the screw, a few more pieces removed from the board, and she'll have nowhere left to go.
And then—finally—she'll come to me.
The serpent doesn't chase the flower. It simply waits, coiled and patient, until the flower has no choice but to fall.
She's falling now. She just doesn't know it yet.
But she will.
Soon.
Chapter 9 - Poppy
By Wednesday, I've run out of milk, bread, and excuses.
The apartment has become a cage of my own making—curtains drawn, door barricaded, the same four walls pressing closer every hour. I've been living on crackers and the last of the peanut butter, rationing my dwindling supplies like a survivalist preparing for the apocalypse.
But the apocalypse isn't coming. It's already here, and it wears a tuxedo and smiles like a saint.
My phone has been buzzing all morning. Bea, refusing to be ignored any longer.
I'm coming over. Don't argue.
Poppy, I'm serious. I'm leaving in 10 minutes.
If you don't answer the door, I'm calling the police for a wellness check.
The last message breaks through my paralysis. The police. Coming here, asking questions, poking into my life. And what would I tell them? That I'm hiding from a billionaire who left a flower on my doorstep? That I can't leave my apartment because I'm afraid of a man who, by all public accounts, is a paragon of civic virtue?
They'd think I was crazy. Or worse, they'd write a report, and somehow he'd find out I'd talked to them.
Fine,I type back.Come over. But I look like hell.
