Page 44 of So Close

“I don’t care. It won’t change anything.”

“What if I was a prostitute?” It stabs deep to feel you flinch. “What if I sold illegal weapons or drugs? Robbed? Killed? Who the fuck knows.”

“Who the fuck cares,” you rejoin with a renewed flare of temper. “I told you, it doesn’t matter to me. You were someone else then. You were Ivy York.”

“But Ivy York is in me. She’s not an abstract. She existed. She exists. If I have to be perfect for you to love me, we’re finished already.” I look away to see the Range Rover pull to the curb. “Is that what you want? To end this and be free?”

“You don’t have to be perfect, and I don’t want to be free.” You grip my chin to turn my gaze back to you. “That you’d think for even a moment that I don’t want you proves I’ve seriously screwed this up.”

Taking my hand, you set us on a path to the car.

Witte waits with the door open, his gaze watchful, searching up and down the street with expert vigilance. His jacket’s cut is so precise only a trained eye would notice the firearm in a shoulder holster.

The sky is intensely blue. The climbing sun reflects blindingly off miles of vertical glass walls encasing iron skeleton towers. The day is too beautiful, too perfect, to last.

My heart is fluttering, my breath quick and shallow. You wereyoufor a moment. I saw you. Heard you. Felt you touch me.

It’s not sex I want, although I don’tnotwant it. It’s your tenderness I need. Your affection. I’ll do anything to bring you to me. Even this.

“If we find someone I can trust, I’ll go,” I offer, unable to fight the hope for more. There may be nothing left for you to give me but your lust and the trappings of your success. Bereavement is a hammer, shattering the self to remake one anew. No one is ever the same once grief has transformed them. Does Lily hold your heart so tightly it can never belong to me? Perhaps I will always be a source of pain, and she the remembered source of joy.

Can I live with having everything but your love? Do I have a choice? I’m unanchored without you.

You face me when we reach the car. “Thank you.”

“Would you like to return to the penthouse first?” Witte asks you.

“That’s not necessary. We’ll have everything we need when we arrive.”

I want to ask what you have in mind, where we’re going, but you’ll tell me if you want me to know. The thought of residential treatment scurries through my mind, but I refuse to entertain it. You couldn’t do that to me. You wouldn’t. Would you?

You watch me with a faint smile as I slide onto the back seat. “Before we go … would you like to see Baharan’s headquarters?”

If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s to seize the brief flashes of happiness when they find you. “I’d love to see what you’ve built.”

“Whatwebuilt,” you correct, the tinted windows dimming the sunlight when you close the door.

28

AMY

As I approachthe entrance of the Crossfire Building, I catch my reflection in the mirrored sapphire glass and smile. I’m about to spin through the copper-framed revolving doors and take charge of my company and life.

I’m humming “Into You” by Ariana Grande. It’s already been one of the best days of my life. I woke up face down on my bed, with Darius’s cock stroking inside me. Two orgasms later, he was back in his room taking a shower, and I was nursing my first cup of coffee. Then, Tovah stopped by. Now, it’s time to start making those moves Darius discussed. I need to do my share and support him. And get his goddamn assistant fired.

My ice-pick-thin stilettos click a commanding rhythm across the gold-veined marble floor. I’m getting a ton of second glances. My chin lifts. Why don’t I come to work more often? I feel like a goddess. A goddamn queen. All the drones milling around the lobby have no idea what it’s like to actually move the needle in this world, while Social Creamery is the reason Baharan is the profitable company it is today, helping fat people get skinny and old guys get a hard-on.

Through me, Social Creamery crafted a caring, forward-thinking, accessible public image for Baharan that no other pharmaceutical company had. Big Pharma tended to lean into their research for marketing, promoting the idea that they were hard at work developing cures. People don’t want to hear about whatmightcome to market years from now. They want help today, and they want to believe someone gives a shit about them.

Although a relatively recent addition to the Manhattan skyscape, the sapphire spire that is the Crossfire is already a landmark favored by films and television series that shoot in the city. To headquarter your business here means something, and it’s the one thing I can be grudgingly grateful to Aliyah for.

I give the black-suited guards a wave as I pass the security desk. One of them stands with a slight frown as if he doesn’t recognize me.

Well, I don’t recognize that idiot either. It’s hisjobto know who I am. I don’t have to give him the time of day. Which just happens to be close to lunch, hence the number of bodies in the lobby.

Swiping through the turnstiles with my badge, I strut toward the bank of elevators. I hit the button for the tenth floor, tapping my foot as I wait. The doors to the car on my left open, and – wouldn’t you know it – Gideon and Eva Cross step out, his hand at the small of her back as they exit an otherwise empty elevator. One of the many perks of owning the building is making the elevators go from top to bottom without stopping to pick up lesser mortals.

I shimmy my shoulders to shrug on my Lily guise and flash them a smile. “Hi! Off to lunch?”

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