Page 63 of Babies for the Big Shot

But Sara is the leverage. And Rebecca knows how to use it.

So I sit.

Still. Silent. Seething.

Playing the part of the man who never let anything touch him.

If I want to keep Sara safe, I have to let her go. At least until I can get Rebecca off her case and as far away from me as possible.

I have to let her believe none of it mattered.

That I was only ever one thing to her: her boss.

A name on her paycheck. A decision she regrets.

And nothing more.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sara

Laura slidesa glass of water into my hand and takes my phone out of the other like I’m a toddler who needs a distraction.

I don’t stop her.

“Okay,” she says, flopping onto the couch beside me. “You’re cut off. No more rereading the same texts like they’re tea leaves.”

“They kind of are,” I mumble. “If you squint, you can almost see the part where he cared.”

Laura gives me a look. “He did care. You’re not crazy.”

I stare down at my lap, at the tiny crack in the water glass that I’ve been running my finger over for the last ten minutes. The silence buzzes in my ears.

I don’t feel crazy.

I feel like someone abandoned in silence by a man who once looked at her as if touching her was the only thing keeping him alive.

One day, I was orbiting his world. Caught in the pull of his gravity, stolen glances, brushed fingertips, heat in every loaded silence.

The next day?

Nothing.

No texts.

No good mornings.

No more Nick at all.

Just a CEO in a suit, perfectly unreadable.

“I texted him Saturday night,” I admit, even though Laura already knows. “Just something casual. Asked if he made it home okay. No response. Then Monday after work, I sent him a link to that article on donor engagement. Thought maybe he’d… I don’t know. Reply to that.”

“Still nothing?”

I shake my head.

“And this week?” she presses. “At work?”