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Because they’d certainly given him no guidance. In anything. That much was clear.
She knew that he’d decided to end what had been happening between the two of them because of that day even though she’d thought they’d handled the situation about as well as it could have been handled.
The real truth, that she could admit only late, late at night when her heart ached for him, was that Annika persisted in believing that if she could just hold on, he would come back to her.
But as the long, cold fall wore on, Ranieri showed no signs of blinking.
It was coming on the middle of December when she caught up with one of her college friends one evening. It was a chilly night, though outside, the city was festive. She had become adept at avoiding the paparazzi these days, or perhaps they’d finally grown bored with her. Either way, she had no photographers on her tail when she slipped into a quiet booth in the sort of restaurant Ranieri would never frequent, looking forward to an evening of nostalgia and laughter in thankfully unpretentious surroundings.
But her friend was looking at her mobile phone when Annika sat down, and smiled oddly when she looked up again. “Congratulations, Annika. It looks like you won.”
“I won?” Annika shook her head, not understanding. “What did I win?”
Her friend swiveled the screen of her phone around and showed it to Annika. “It says it right here. Ranieri Furlan is leaving the Schuyler Corporation. Annika.You did it.”
And later, her friend would tell her that it was as if Annika had been hit in the head. She had stared back at that phone for far too long. She didn’t respond when her friend tried to speak to her.
Then she’d simply stood and walked out.
Annika wasn’t aware of any of that. She had a vague impression of running down a side street on the Upper West Side, then angrily hailing a taxi out on Columbus. Then she sat in the back of the cab and stared out blankly at storefronts and bodegas done up in holiday splendor, crowds on the street, and the usual outraged honking from too many vehicles trying to make their way around Manhattan.
She suffered through the slowest elevator in the history of the universe at Ranieri’s loft down in Tribeca, but when it finally opened on his floor, he wasn’t home. She even checked up on the roof, though she knew he rarely ventured there.
But he was nowhere to be found, so she headed to the only other place she knew he was likely to be, even in the wake of his announcement.
And just like the last time she’d marched into the Schuyler Corporation offices bearing a potted plant, the reception desk was no match for her.
“You can’t just walk back there,” the poor woman tried to tell her.
Annika smiled. “Do you know who I am?” she asked. Nicely, she thought.
Wide-eyed, the woman nodded.
“Wonderful, then you know my name.”
“Yes, Mrs. Furlan.” The woman bit the name off, not that Annika could blame her. “I know who you are and your name, but—”
“That’s AnnikaSchuylerFurlan,” Annika corrected her, jabbing her finger toward the logo on the wall behind the woman’s head. “That’s my name right there. I think I can go where I want, don’t you?”
She didn’t get the impression the woman did think that. But Annika knew she wouldn’t stop her. And it felt like déjà vu to march down these halls again, this time unencumbered by a pot of dahlias. But weighed down all the same, this time by what she wished was a righteous fury—but she was fairly certain it was fear.
Just sheer terror that he was really leaving the company, and therefore her.
He wasn’t in his office, so she turned and marched along the same hall he’d once escorted her down with his arm around her shoulders. And that silly plant held before him.
And it felt not only right, but good to throw open the doors of his conference room and march in once again.
This time, Ranieri was the only one inside. He sat at the head of the table, surrounded by what appeared to be even more stacks of paper, file folders, and not one but two laptops.
“Hello, Annika,” he said, with only a brief glance up her way. He managed to make that withering, too. “I take it you’ve heard the news.”
She only realized now that she’d been running around this whole time—through the city, through his loft, through this office—because it was difficult to catch her breath. But she made herself slow down and try, because she could tell by the way he was deliberately not looking at her that he was trying to get under her skin. He expected her to fly off the handle.
And she understood that though this felt like one more round of their same game, the stakes tonight were higher.
The stakes tonight were everything.
As if he hadn’t already conceded.
