Page 36 of My CEO Neighbor
The drive home was a blur of traffic lights and self-recrimination.Monica had built her entire professional identity around being grounded, present, emotionally intelligent.She was the person who helped others find balance, who taught the importance of staying centered regardless of external circumstances.
One afternoon with Ted had shattered all of that.
Monica pulled into the parking garage and sat in her car for several minutes, dreading the return to her apartment and the oppressive silence that waited there.Through the concrete walls, she could hear the distant hum of traffic, the ordinary sounds of a city moving forward while she felt stuck in the space between yesterday and tomorrow.
Her phone buzzed with a text from her mother:Haven't heard from you lately.Hope you're not getting too caught up in that California nonsense to call your family.
Monica stared at the message, wondering what her mother would think of yesterday's events.Probably that Monica had finally proved her point about the impracticality of choosing feelings over reality.After all, what did Monica have to show for her encounter with Ted?A few hours of incredible connection followed by immediate abandonment, and the complete destruction of her professional composure.Maybe men like Ted always chose spreadsheets over human connection, and women like Monica were fools for expecting otherwise.
She deleted the text without responding and finally forced herself out of the car.The elevator was working perfectly now, humming between floors like yesterday had never happened.She rode to twelve in silence, hyperaware of the space where Ted had kissed her, where he'd made her forget every rule she'd ever made about complicated men.
Her hallway was quiet, no sounds coming from Ted's apartment.Monica stood outside his door for a moment, listening for any sign of life, the tap of keyboard keys, the murmur of conference calls, even the hum of his television.
Nothing.
Was he still at the office?Out celebrating a successful meeting?Or sitting in his apartment in the same silence that was driving her slowly insane?
Monica unlocked her door and stepped inside, immediately hit by the scent of her own space, sandalwood and lavender, the herbs from her windowsill, everything that usually made her feel peaceful and grounded.
Tonight, it all felt like loneliness.
She heated water for tea, going through the motions of her evening routine, but everything felt hollow.The green tea tasted bitter, the honey couldn't sweeten the disappointment sitting heavy in her, and even her favorite meditation cushion felt wrong when she tried to sit with her emotions.
She changed into pajamas and crawled into bed even though it was barely nine o'clock, pulling covers over her head like she could hide.Sleep felt impossible, but so did staying awake with her thoughts circling endlessly around questions that had no good answers.What had she expected?That a few hours of crisis-induced intimacy would fundamentally change a man who measured his worth in quarterly reports?That incredible sex could bridge the gap between their completely incompatible worldviews?
But maybe that was the problem.Maybe Monica had fallen for a fantasy, a stress-response version of Ted that had nothing to do with who he actually was when the world wasn't falling apart around him.
Maybe the real Ted was exactly what she'd always thought, a man who put business before everything else, who treated human connection like another item on his task list to be managed and optimized.
And maybe Monica needed to accept that and move on.
And then her phone rang. Ted? Her stupid heart leapt, but no. It was her landlord to her studio. Why was she calling at this hour?
Chapter Nine
Ted
