Page 164 of Say My Name

The change is so slight another person might miss it: he stops looking at the screen and straightens. For one second, the distance between us disappears, and I see the man who held me after making love to me, who said he loved me without asking me to return it, and who I made walk away because accepting him meant trusting he could stay.

His gaze drops to my raised hand.

All I have to do is turn my wrist and knock.

My hand moves on its own, a traitor to every part of me that wants to knock. I wave instead.

A small, professional acknowledgment between an executive and her CEO.

The openness in his eyes vanishes.

Dominic gives me a restrained nod, then waits. He doesn’t motion me inside or come after me. He honors the distance I insisted upon even while I stand there silently begging him to cross it.

I keep walking.

There is no destination ahead of me, so I circle past the conference rooms and return to my office from the opposite direction.

Maya is waiting beside my door.

“You didn’t talk to him.”

The lie sours in my mouth. “I changed my mind.”

Her gaze moves over my face, lingering on whatever I failed to hide. “You’re pale. You haven’t touched your coffee, and you just took a lap around the executive floor to avoid the man you said you needed to speak to.”

“I have a lot going on.”

“I can see that.”

For one dangerous second, the truth presses against my teeth.

I’m pregnant.

Maya would understand the rest without an explanation. She would know why I walked toward Dominic and why I couldn’t make myself open his door.

I look away.

I retreat behind the one thing that still makes sense. “I need to prepare for the Northstar call.”

Maya studies me, then steps aside. “Okay.”

Asking nothing and making no accusation, Maya lets me retreat into my office and closes the door behind me.

A minute later, she returns with a glass of water and leaves it on the corner of my desk without a word.

I stare through the glass toward Dominic’s office, my hand resting over the life we made together.

Then I turn back to the numbers.

At two minutes before the call, I’m seated at the conference table with the Project Northstar model open on my laptop. Our acquisition administrator sits to my right, with someone from legal and two members of my finance team across from us. Dominic isn’t here. He delegated the identity-release call to me on Monday because his schedule was full and there was no reason to add another executive to a preliminary discussion.

At the time, his absence felt like another consequence of what I’d done to us. Now I’m grateful I won’t have to sit beside him while the intermediary releases the target’s identity.

The main screen displays the project code as the last participants connect. I align the legal pad with the edge of my laptop and put my pen across the top because the small task gives my hands something to do.

“Rowe Holdings has completed its preliminary review,” the intermediary says. “The client has authorized us to disclose its identity and leadership for this stage of diligence. The target is Weller Strategic Holdings.”

My fingers stop against the edge of the legal pad.