And now there was just this space where he should have been, and I didn’t know what to do with it.
It was quiet in the office, with empty desks everywhere.
From the other side of the floor, Gerald glanced at me, then quickly looked away. He’d been locked in rooms with Bonnie since the redundancies had been announced, apparently trying to ensure Novexia didn’t completely collapse with a third of the staff gone. Maybe he gave more of a shit about the place than I’d thought.
Monish’s favorite mug was still there, where he usually sat—Slay All Day—pushed against the monitor stand like he meant to come back for it. There was a Post-it stuck to the screen with a smiley face and a client code that I didn’t recognize.
Kelly’s desk was empty. No photos. No mouse. Just some grains of soil in a ring from where her spider plant used to sit.
Monish, Kelly, and everyone else who didn’t make it just… never came back.
Thanks for everything, but you’re not welcome anymore—you’re just too expensive to careabout.
I closed the email.
Could I explain all this to Liam? I imagined lining up the words and walking him through it carefully.
But I didn’t want to.
If he didn’t understand now, he wasn’t going to understand because I explained it better.And I didn’t want to see that look in his eyes, like he’d been with me in the boardroom that time…
Like he thought I was just… wrong.
I locked my screen and stood, pushing my chair in.
Everything seemed so gray and pointless now, like all the magic had gone. The gap between us felt huge.
He wouldn’t change what he was doing with Novexia. It was already too late.
And he couldn’t undo what he’d done with my painting. The auction was over.
It had sold, and that should have felt like something.
Instead, it felt like a thing that had happened to me, rather than something I’d done.
Chapter 46
Liam
It was 7a.m., and Hyde Park was already warm.
Andrea hadn’t answered my calls or returned my texts, apart from one last message two days ago:
LEAVE. ME. ALONE.
That was pretty clear.
It had been three days now, and while I’d seen her in the office briefly, she avoided eye contact. I wanted to be angry for how she’d shut me out without even giving me a chance, but instead, I was just… sad.
It was like we didn’t know each other.How was that possible, after how close we’dbeen?
Every time I saw her, I wanted to pull her into a room, to make her listen, to explain the mistake—that I hadn’t known about it, that although Roth Holdings had made the purchase, the decision was completely out of my hands.
But I couldn’t do that. Forcing her to talk to me, especially at the office, would feel like I was abusing my position.
I just wanted her in my armsagain.
She’d needed the sale of her artwork to be something real,I got that, and if she still believed I’d bought it intentionally, her anger made sense. That would have been a shit thing to do, especially since it would have sold anyway.
