The city was a welcome shock to the system.
The blare of horns and the relentless sea of anonymous faces was an anesthetic, dulling the sharp edges of my guilt.
I threw myself back into work with the desperation of a drowning woman clinging to a raft.
My office, with its clean lines, minimalist art, and panoramic view of the skyline, was my sanctuary.
Here, I was in control.
Here, there were spreadsheets and client briefs and legal documents—things that made sense, things that followed logical rules.
I worked until my eyes burned.
I subsisted on stale coffee and the adrenaline of looming deadlines.
I ignored the concerned looks from my assistant. Most of all, I ignored the three missed calls from Rhys.
Each time my phone had lit up with his name, my heart had tried to beat its way out of my chest.
After the third, I’d silenced it, shoving the phone into my desk drawer like a dirty secret.
Avoidance was a skill I had perfected over a lifetime. If I didn’t look at it, if I didn’t talk about it, eventually it would cease to exist.
That was the theory, anyway.
But he haunted the quiet moments.
The scent of a stranger’s cologne in the elevator would transport me back to the barn.
The sound of a low laugh from the next office would echo the sound he made deep in his chest. I’d be staring at a contract, and the black-and-white text would blur into the image of dark ink on tanned skin.
My body ached for him with a phantom longing that was constant and humiliating.
On Thursday afternoon, a delivery man arrived with a vase of flowers so large it required its own dolly.
My stomach plummeted. White lilies and pale pink roses, an elegant, extravagant display that filled my sterile office with a cloyingly sweet perfume.
It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t. Not after I’d called it “a mistake. ” This was a new kind of torture.