Page 154 of Say My Name

My throat burns. “I know.”

Then he leaves.

At three in the morning, I’m still awake.

The sheets have gone cold beside me. My phone glows in the dark as I open the notes app and scroll past the entries where I’d tried to define him into a box: The Arrangement. Temporary. A Complication.

I start a new note.

The ending was up to me.

I chose wrong.

CHAPTER 20

Dominic

Exactly two weeks after I leave Elena’s condo, Evan walks into my office, closes the report on my desk, and takes it with him.

I stare at the empty space it left behind. “Put that back.”

“No.”

“I was reading it.”

“You’ve read it twice.”

“I was reviewing it.”

“You changed one comma during the second review.”

It’s Monday morning, and I’ve already been here for more than three hours. The executive floor is filling outside my glass walls, but no one has come near my office since I arrived. Evan appears to have volunteered for the assignment.

He slips the report beneath his arm, the crisp edge of the paper a final, deliberate sound in the quiet office. He looks at me with the patience of a man who knows I’m unlikely to fire the only person willing to tell me when I’m being an asshole.

“You cleared my weekend,” I say.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“You also didn’t ask me to schedule four additional meetings for Saturday.”

“I need the meetings.”

“You don’t. Two were status updates you could’ve handled by email. One was with an executive who has been avoiding you since you requested a Sunday forecast call last week, and the fourth was with me.”

“That sounds useful.”

“I declined.”

I lean back, the leather of my chair groaning in protest as I try to find a position of authority he’ll actually respect. “You can’t decline a meeting with your boss.”

“I can when the purpose is helping my boss pretend fourteen-hour workdays are a strategic necessity.”

There it is.

Evan has worked with me long enough to recognize when the pace is deliberate. He knew something had changed when I started leaving the office earlier seven months ago. He noticed the protected evenings on my calendar and the weekend blocks that appeared without explanations.