Page 78 of Their Arrangement
But just before he left, he paused.
“Cloe.”
I looked up.
Met his eyes.
Stillness. Steel.
Then, low?—
“Wear your hair up tomorrow.”
The doors closed before I could reply.
The elevator moved.
But the space didn’t shift.
Not really.
His breath was still in the air.
His command still pressed to the back of my neck.
Wear your hair up tomorrow.
I didn’t know what that meant.
But I knew I’d do it.
And that answer came far too easily.
I stepped off on five. Walked through the corridor with the kind of posture that wasn’t quite mine.
Not yet.
The hallway was quiet—glass doors, closed offices, everything sterile and untouched. But then I saw it. The mirrored wall between the two corner suites. Floor to ceiling.
I hadn’t looked at myself all day.
Not since the corset.
Not since the Post-it.
Not since him.
I paused.
Turned toward the reflection.
And looked.
It didn’t feel like spying anymore.
It felt like surveillance.
I studied the way the blouse clung across my chest—satin molded to skin. The way the pencil skirt cupped my hips. The faint shimmer of stocking where the split moved when I breathed.
