Page 80 of State of Ruin

P.P.S. I’ll write you one final letter on Friday, and then I’ll let you be. It’s a big one. A bad one. It makes everything else I’ve done—including hurting you—look innocent by comparison. I’m terrified to tell you. But I’m even more terrified of it eating me alive if I don’t. You’re my confessor: with one key difference. You don’t owe me your confidentiality. You don’t owe me anything.

The street outside my bedroom is dark, too. I sit on the bed and press my fist to my mouth. It’s too much, and I can feel he means it, every word. I can feel the emotion, the sincerity, pouring out of him as if he’s purging his soul through these letters. Frantically, I wipe my eyes, but the tears keep coming.

I made tarte tatin this afternoon—Maman’s favorite. This year, winter feels even bleaker and more brutal and endless, and God knows I need baked goods to get through it, especially French-style ones with sticky, caramelized apples and buttery pastry. In a couple hours, I’ll head into the city for my Alchemy shift. I’ve noticed that Sinclair has been timing his letters so that they reach me early evening, before I head out, and it makes me glad. His poor messenger, whose name I now know is A.J., doesn’t need to stand around all night waiting for me to come home and tell him there’s no reply.

I cut a slice of pie for A.J. and wrap it up.

Then I cut another. I wrap it in foil and put it in a snug Tupperware to keep it secure.

I go outside, Jambon trailing faithfully behind me, and hand A.J. his pie. Then I hold out the Tupperware. “I have a reply.”

CHAPTER 41

Elyse

As I take the PATH into the city for my meeting with Vanessa and her business associate, I’m filled with something that I think is hope. Something positive and openhearted, anyways. The letter Sinclair sent me yesterday evening was so full of—I dunno—vulnerability, and self-awareness, and humanity. I could literally feel him coming off the pages, but the version of him that I knew (or thought) was buried somewhere deep underneath all the assholery.

It’s the first time I’ve felt that from his letters. They’ve been encouraging—sweet and frank and courageous—but this was another level. And here’s the thing: when he said that he was truly sorry because he now truly understood what he had done, I believed him. I’d gotten the impression before that he was a kid who was apologizing just so he could get his candy, but without any real understanding of what he’d done wrong. Yesterday’s letter showed that he finally gets it, and that feels like a big deal. Surely, knowing why he’s acted the way he has is an epic first step?

I don’t know what this final letter will contain. Honestly, I’m a little freaked out. I have no idea what skeletons he and that dysfunctional fucking family of his have buried under the Fairwater patio. But the weird thing is that, for me, it’s less about what Sinclair has done and more about his attitude toward that. Like, he’s rich and powerful and has seriously dodgy business practices; that much is clearly true. I wouldn’t expect a guy like him to change overnight. But that he’s noticing his patterns and is getting curious about them feels… encouraging.

And he loves me. I could probably have guessed that he thought he loved me, from the way he’s been bombarding me, but I honestly figured that it was more about control and his bruised ego and having the last word than real love, and that was what devastated me. Now… I can feel it. I can feel the love and the respect wafting off that page when I re-read it. It’s like he sees me for the first time, and he sees himself, and he sees the kind of man he wants to be for me. And that’s exciting and terrifying and dangerous, because I’m not only thawing: I’m melting. And I’m hopeful again, hopeful that, this time, I truly understand the guy behind the suit… and that it might be safe to love that guy in a way that it wasn’t a few weeks ago.

God bless Elizabeth, is all I can say. The woman is a rock star.

Anyway, I didn’t overthink the pie thing. I only knew I couldn’t leave him on read, if that applies to letters. I couldn’t leave him hanging after he gave me those brave, beautiful words. But I wasn’t ready for words of my own just yet, so I gave him the next best thing.

I hope he enjoyed the pie. (I imagine him standing in his beautiful kitchen in The Lindens, with his big, bushy Unabomber beard, scarfing it down.)

I hope he saw it as the olive branch that I meant it to be.

And I hope I can handle whatever he’s gearing up to tell me in his next letter.

Bellamy, Inc. has its headquarters in a beautiful old building on Madison, its lobby dominated by screens showing videos of its bestselling LANE brand—the brand whose insane success I now know Vanessa is responsible for. It blows my mind that she was the brains behind it all, and it blows my mind even more that Sinclair poached a woman like her and then treated her like that.

“Is Sinclair still in the doghouse?” she asks as she escorts me upstairs in the elevator, looking epic in a white faux-fur coat.

“He is,” I tell her, allowing myself a private smile as I remember his comment at Fairwater about his parents building a kennel for a fifth child.

“Good. But also, he tore up that exit NDA last week. Fuck knows what’s going on in that head of his, but it was a classy move, I guess.”

I nod carefully, not wanting to let on that this is not news. “That’s fantastic. I’m glad.”

We are meeting with Jordan, who was apparently Vanessa’s number two and who stepped into her shoes when she went to Voss. I’m this weird mix of nervous and distracted and resigned. I put so much of my energy into wishing and hoping for that Voss job, and it got taken from me in the worst possible way. I don’t want to do that to myself again, but today feels so different. I’m not a number on a clipboard but, somehow, a girl that Vanessa wants to back, a girl she wants to introduce to a super-senior guy, one-on-one. It’s kind of crazy.

Honestly, I’m beginning to see why Sinclair’s family is so into its connections. It feels great, but it’s also frustrating. You can work for years and years and get nowhere, but when you have an insider backing you, everything changes.

“Just remember not to comment on the hair situation,” Vanessa murmurs as we exit the elevator, and, as soon as I meet Jordan, I understand why. He is wearing a black turtleneck and perfectly pressed gray slacks, and he’s bald—but the entire crown of his head is covered in tiny, evenly spaced dots.

Aha. He got follicular implants.

“Jordan Lovell,” he says as he shakes my hand. “We are not discussing the hair, FYI.”

Vanessa pulls a black cap out of her tote and hands it to him wordlessly. It reads Balenciaga across the front in white letters.

“You’re an evil witch, and I hate you,” he says, looking at it in disgust. “You know I think baseball caps are the devil’s spawn.”

“But it’s Balenci,” she says.