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When I got back to my office, my phone finally buzzed after more than two hours of waiting.
Stella: Everything is fine. Going to work from home today.
I felt a modicum of relief that she wasn’t completely ignoring me, but not enough to make the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach go away. So I wrote back.
Hudson: Headache gone?
It seemed like a simple-enough question, yet I watched as the little dots started to move around, then stopped, then started again before completely stopping. Ten minutes later, a response finally came.
Stella: Yes, headache is gone. Thanks for checking in.
Thanks for checking in felt a hell of a lot like Now leave me alone.
Whatever. I had work to do. So rather than waste more hours than I already had overanalyzing shit, I tossed my phone on my desk. Maybe I just didn’t understand women.
***
The next day, I was happy as shit to see light streaming from Stella’s office when I arrived at seven o’clock.
“Hey. You’re in…”
Stella had her nose buried in her laptop. She looked up and smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Yeah. Sorry about not coming in yesterday.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. You don’t work for me. The space here is yours to use as you need. I was just worried maybe something more was going on than a headache…”
Stella shuffled some papers around on her desk and avoided eye contact. “No, nothing going on. Just a headache. I get them sometimes.”
A few days ago, I would have walked into her office, shut the door behind me, and taken her mouth in a kiss that left me with a raging hard-on. Yet at the moment, the vibe I felt kept me at her door. In other words, it wasn’t just a headache. But she was working, and I had a meeting I needed to prep for, so I wasn’t going to push it right now.
Nodding toward my office, I said, “I have an early meeting that’ll take up most of my morning. You want to get together this afternoon and go through the deliveries that haven’t come in yet? We can talk about whatever else is a priority that you might want me to jump in on.”
“I actually went through the deliveries yesterday. We’re on track as of now. I think I have a handle on things. I’m going to sit with Olivia and go through the final marketing stuff in a little while.”
“Oh…okay.” I shrugged. “Maybe lunch later, then?”
“I’m going to work through lunch with Olivia. And I have a meeting later this afternoon uptown at Fisher’s office.”
“Fisher’s office?”
“It’s nothing to do with Signature Scent.”
Clearly she was giving me the brush off, but I was thick…
“Dinner later?”
She frowned. “I’ll probably just get a bite to eat with Fisher afterward.”
I couldn’t get my lips to turn upward to pretend everything was fine, no matter how hard I tried. The best I could muster was a nod to feign understanding. “Let me know if there’s anything you need from me.”
“Thanks, Hudson.”
CHAPTER 28
Stella
Three nights ago
It had to be a coincidence.
I knew that wasn’t true, but I kept telling myself it was as the Uber pulled away from the curb. If I didn’t, I was pretty sure I was going to vomit all over the poor guy’s backseat. I was completely freaked out.
The minute we pulled up to my apartment, I flew out of the car and raced for the elevator. When it didn’t come in two seconds, I decided I’d rather keep busy running up eight flights of stairs than stand waiting while the inside of my chest felt like a ticking time bomb.
In my apartment, I ran straight for my bedroom and dropped to the floor to pull out the plastic bins I kept stowed under my bed. In my panic, I couldn’t remember what the outside of the diary I was searching for looked like, or even which storage bin had the most recent books. So I grabbed the first container and started to yank them out one by one.
The first bin had at least thirty different diaries packed into it that I’d collected over the years, but none that were recent. I didn’t bother to put anything back before ripping the top off the next plastic container. Just a few books into that one, I lifted a red, leather-bound volume that sent a jolt of electricity through my body. Ten seconds ago, I couldn’t have identified it in a lineup, but the minute I held it in my hand, I knew. I just knew it was the one.
Unlike every other book I picked up, I didn’t immediately flip it open and rush to read. Instead, I took a deep breath and steadied myself as the seriousness of the situation hit me all over again. If what I suspected was right… Oh God, I know I’m right.
