Page 108 of Keep Your Friends Close and Your… Work Enemy Closer?

"With who? Anyone I know?" she asked.

Interesting question. Very interesting question. "Why do you want to know?"

She twirled a lock of hair around her fingers. "Oh, uh, just curious."

Something about the way she was acting was highly suspicious, and I could only hope that it might be jealousy. Was she wondering if there were other women involved?

A slow smile spread across my face. "Why, Annalise," I began, "are you asking because you're... worried?"

"Worried about what?" she shot back. "Like I said, I was curious. But forget it. I'm not anymore."

I cracked up laughing. This girl was an absolute hoot.

Standing up, it was time to make my exit before Plan A completely backfired on me. After all, I had no Plan B at this point.

"All right, babe. I've got to run. Have a great time tonight. And be safe."

I didn't like walking away from her like this, but she'd made it abundantly clear we couldn't continue our relationship. So the only thing left to do was leave her wanting more.

Twenty-Eight

Annalise

Empty. Hollow. Strange.

Those were the only words I could think of to describe how I felt. Our big celebration Friday night had been a blast. And then, I'd spent the weekend with my sisters, well, mostly Astrid. But Aria had joined us Sunday afternoon for a girls' day of shopping and dinner out.

But with all of that, with everyone around me then and now at work, something was missing. And I hated to even think it.

Seeing the empty desk beside me was so weird.

An email had gone out first thing Monday morning from Nina in HR, explaining that Jared had to take a personal leave and wasn't sure when he'd be back. Of course, everyone asked me about it, and I hated lying to them. But I kept it as simple as possible, saying that I didn't know any more than Nina did.

And eventually, things quieted down.

I had a ton of work to do now that Venus had agreed. So I put my head down and got busy, determined to enjoy the silence next to me.

And I worked. And worked. And worked, sent out emails, made phone calls, talked to an author, reviewed some edits, approved a cover.

I knocked out the work all fucking day. The peace and quiet was incredible.

Until suddenly it wasn't.

At the end of the day, I looked to my left to find... nothing. Just absolute silence.

And it hit me like a freight train. I hated it.

A wave of emotion washed through me. And I hated that even more.

I hadn't heard from Max all weekend. When I'd arrived home on Friday night, beyond exhausted, I'd searched online to see if I could figure out where he'd been. He wasn't active on social media beyond Echelon stuff. But I knew who his friends were, so I'd checked out their pages.

But I came away completely empty.

For a split second, I even entertained the idea of asking Ethan to do his magic and cyber stalk the man. But... that was probably taking it too far.

Of course, I could just text him. But something held me back.

Whatever it was, it stuck around for almost two whole weeks. Nothing from Max. Nothing. Not a single word. I could hardly believe it.

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