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"Yeah," I say. "It's real."

"Then you need to tell her what you're about to do. Before I do it. Because she's going to find out — these things always surface — and if she finds out from someone other than you, you'll lose more than Hargrove ever took."

I hate that he's right.

"I'll tell her," I say.

"Tonight, Danny."

"I'll tell her tonight."

He hangs up. I sit in my office. Phone in my hand. The city outside the window, bright and cold and full of people who don't know that a man in a penthouse just decided to end another man's professional existence because he couldn't leave a woman alone.

I open the text thread. Read it again from the top. The saxophone man on the subway. The falling asleep mid-sentence. The Wentworth joke. The trust she'd offered me.

Just don't do anything that would make me not trust you.

I put the phone down.

I have work to do.

Anna

The green dress is hanging on the back of my bathroom door and I keep looking at it like it owes me money.

It's been four hours since I got home. I've showered. I've eaten cereal standing over the sink in my underwear because all my bowls are dirty and I refuse to deal with that today. Store-brand cereal. It tastes like cardboard and ambition. I've checked my phone eleven times and typed four different replies to Danny and sent two of them, and both times I stared at the message for a full minute first because suddenly every word feels like it's going on my permanent record.

The journalist knew my name.

She knew my building. She knew where I work. She was standing outside at 6 a.m. with a business card and a question and the face of a woman who already knows the answer and just needs me to say it out loud.

And the answer is yes. I'm the waitress sleeping with the founder. That's the version of me that exists now, out there, in a stranger's notebook.

My phone buzzes. Danny.

Theo traced the journalist. Working on the source. You okay?

Fine. Just thinking.

About what?

About the fact that six hours ago I was lying on your chest making fun of your coffee, and now I'm eating cardboard cereal in my underwear trying to figure out if you're the best decision I've ever made or the worst one, and they look exactly the same from here.

Nothing important. Talk later?

Mom calls at noon.

"Tell me about the fancy club."

"It's good, Mom."

"You said there was a man. Give me details! The biggest scandal in this place is Mrs Jenkins raising her voice over fro-yo for dessert."

I'd forgotten I told her that. Texted it in a fit of giddiness, the night of the receipt, when I was so full of something I had to tell someone or pop.

"It's complicated."

"Complicated how?"