Page 35 of Based on You

I dressed quickly in the off-white pleated dress I'd worn the day before. It was the only clean thing I had. Wearing the same dress two days running was its own kind of professional faux pas, the sort that announces itself to anyone paying attention, but there was nothing to be done about it. I smoothed the pleats over my hips, checked the top buttons, and headed downstairs.

He was already at the kitchen island, dressed and waiting.

Black suit, black inner shirt. He stood with his phone pressed to his ear, and when I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at him, the stark black of his shirt sat against the off-white of my dress like the two outfits had been chosen to go side by side. I looked at him. I looked down at my dress. I looked at him again.

He was doing it on purpose.

He ended the call and tucked his phone into his pocket. "You're ready?"

I nodded.

He looked at my dress, then down at his own dark outfit. A satisfied little smile played on his face.

"I can see you went out of your way to complement my outfit today," I said, dry.

He looked down at himself, innocent. "It wasn't out of my way. It was directly in my path."

My heart did one clean, terrifying skip, and I ordered it to settle down.

"I just called my lawyer and told him to track down your landlord," he said.

I frowned, caught off guard. "How do you even know my address?"

He lifted both eyebrows at me. "Violet, I have full access to internal employee information. Your home address is on file."

The realization landed a beat late. Of course it was. I nodded and said okay.

"He's located your landlord and is bringing him to the building," Simon added. "We just need to get there now."

We made our way out to the town car, and Manuel drove us toward the city. In the backseat, I kept my eyes glued to my phone, not reading anything, just gripping it to give my shaking hands something to do. His eyes were on his glowing tablet. Neither of us said a word, which was strange for us.

We talked in cars. We talked in private elevators and long hallways, and at the end of the day when the floor was empty and one of us had a passing question that grew into a conversation and bled into another thirty minutes before either of us noticed the time. We talked about nothing and everything, and the silence between us was usually comfortable, an easy quiet that never needed filling.

But this silence was different. It had a heavy texture, like something volatile had been pumped into the air that neither of us was brave enough to name. I didn't look at him. He didn't look at me. Manuel drove on, and whatever sat between us on the leather backseat stayed unspoken all the way to my building.

A sleek black car was already parked in the lot when we arrived. Two men stood waiting in front of it. One wore a sharply pressed suit with a silk tie. The other wore a wrinkled collared shirt and slacks, more casual, a cell phone clutched in his hand.

Simon's hand came up to rest at the small of my back as we walked toward them, a light, brief pressure. He'd done it before in professional contexts, a small, polite steering gesture, but in the open air of the parking lot, my shoulders drew up before I willed them to relax. I kept my face level.

"Ms. Paige," my landlord greeted me, nervous. He held up his phone. On the screen was a saved contact, my name with a different phone number. "This is what I had on file. This is the number I was texting all week."

I looked at his screen, then pulled up my own phone, opened my text messages, and showed him the number I'd been texting. The last three digits on his end were transposed. I looked at him. He looked at me.

"I changed my business number last year," he confessed, rubbing the back of his neck. "There were some messy issues with a previous tenant.

"I sent out a mass notice asking for updated contact information from everyone in the building. Whoever updated your file must have entered the wrong number." He held up his screen, defensive. "The relocation notices went to that same dead number, and the posted ones went up in the lobby on weekdays, when you'd already left for the office. I figured the silence meant you'd found a place and moved on." He spread his hands. "I had no way of knowing it wasn't reaching you."

"So the renewal notices," I said, tight.

"All went to this dead number," he admitted. His eyes dropped to the pavement, then came back up to mine. "Ms. Paige, I apologize. This wasn't your fault. There was a system error, and it fell through a gap that shouldn't exist. I'm sorry for what happened to you last night."

I studied him a long moment and gave a stiff nod.

"The building," I pressed. "What's actually happening with the building?"

He let out a long breath. "I've sold it. The new corporate owners are converting it into a boutique hotel. I've been trying to get everyone relocated with proper legal notice, but the communication failure with you—" He stopped, wincing. "Internal construction begins on Wednesday. I need you out as soon as possible. I'm sorry. I know this is abrupt."

Simon spoke up from just behind my shoulder, his voice like ice. "You'll extend her access through tomorrow evening at six." It was not a question.