Chapter 3. Morning After

Diana woke to sunlight and an empty bed.

For one confused second she didn’t know where she was. Then she saw the wall of windows, the city glittering far below, and her dress lying where it had fallen by the glass. Every memory of last night came back at once, along with a pleasant ache in places she hadn’t known could ache.

And one word. Diana.

She lay still for a moment, checking. Her skin felt ordinary. The sunlight didn’t hurt, and the city below was only the city, its sounds softened by the glass. She remembered the washroom with an embarrassment that would have been easier if she could explain it.

Breathe. Easy. She could recall the voice more clearly than the last lines of Leo’s vows. It had sounded like somebody waiting for her to listen. Now there was nothing, however hard she listened.

She sat up, clutching the duvet. “Hello?”

Silence. Then a knock, and an older woman in a gray uniform came in with a stack of towels. She stopped when she saw Diana and smiled the calm, unbothered smile of someone who had worked for wealthy people for a long time.

“Good morning, miss. I can come back.”

“No, it’s—sorry. Is he…?”

“Mr. V left early. He asked me to tell you the coffee is fresh and there’s a note in the kitchen.”

Mr. V. So much for no names. Diana waited until the door closed, then scrambled for her underwear and pulled on the dress, wincing at the zipper.

The note sat on the marble kitchen island beside a cup that was still warm. The handwriting was sharp and deliberate.

There’s a driver downstairs. He’s yours if you want him. You don’t owe me a ride or a phone call, or a thing. — G.

She read it twice. It was a good note, considerate and polite. And it was signed by a man who had promised her no names and then used hers, but not for the note.

Diana drank half the coffee because she wasn’t a monster, rinsed the cup, and took the elevator down.

The driver was waiting by a polished black car. He opened the rear door. “Where can I take you, miss?”

“Nowhere, thank you.” She smiled so he’d know it wasn’t personal. “I’ve got a bus.”

The bus ride cost her two dollars and a little dignity. She sat by the window in last night’s dress, ignoring the looks, and felt oddly proud of herself.

At home, she checked her temperature. Normal. A brief flush returned while she was hanging the dress on the wardrobe door, but it passed before she had filled a glass of water. By evening she felt entirely herself.

She still caught herself smiling at the memory of him nearly hitting the doorframe. Then she remembered the name, and the smile went. Wanting to see him again was apparently going to be complicated.

***

Monday arrived with a problem: her neck.

The marks hadn’t faded over the weekend. They had bloomed. Diana tried three shades of concealer, gave up, and dug out the only turtleneck she owned. It itched, and Leo had bought it for her. She was thirty-eight years old, and she was hiding a weekend under a sweater like a teenager.

She slipped into the office at 9:04.

“Bennett.” Her manager’s voice cracked across the open floor. Helena Wells had run the sales and accounts team at Hans Interior and Designs for eleven years and hadn’t smiled once in any of them. “Conference room. Now. Bring the Valenti deck.”

Diana’s stomach dropped. She grabbed her laptop.

Eva caught her arm on the way past. Her best friend wore a pencil skirt, a terrible cardigan, and the expression of a woman who had already noticed everything. “Turtleneck,” Eva murmured. “You hate turtlenecks. That’s the turtleneck Leo bought you.”

“Later.”

“Oh, absolutely later. I want the full report.”

In the conference room, Helena sat with Trevor Finch, the team’s senior account manager. Trevor was forty-seven, golf-tanned, and had never met a credit he didn’t think belonged to him.

“Valenti Development moved the pitch,” Helena said without preamble. “Thursday, not next Monday.”

Diana sat down slowly. “That’s three days.”

“I can count.” Helena slid a printout across the table. “Their flagship tower. Forty floors, lobbies, residential amenities, hospitality. If we get the interiors contract, it’s the biggest account this firm has had in a decade. Trevor will co-present.”

Trevor smiled. “Just to add some seniority, Diana. Big room, big names.”

Diana had spent three weeks on that deck. She had built the mood boards at midnight and called suppliers on her lunch breaks. She had made every slide.

She opened her laptop instead of arguing. “Then let’s make sure the numbers hold. Trevor, I went through your materials budget this weekend.”

His smile thinned. “And?”

“Two suppliers raised their rates in the spring. You used last year’s sheet.” She brought up the current quotes beside his figures. “I reran it. We’re about one point two million under. If their team checks, we look like we can’t count, or we’re lowballing to win.”

The room went quiet.

Helena studied the spreadsheet for a long moment. “When did you do this?”

“Sunday night.” Technically it had been one in the morning on Monday, after she’d finished staring at her ceiling thinking about a man with a serpent tattoo. Helena didn’t need that level of detail.

“Fix the deck,” Helena said finally. “Both of you. Trevor, use her numbers.”

That was Helena’s way to say Thank you.

***

At lunch, in a clothing shop two blocks away, Eva held a blouse against Diana’s chest and demanded the story.

Diana gave her the short version: the wedding, the cousin thing, the stranger with the tattoo, the penthouse.

“And I nearly passed out during the ceremony,” Diana added. “Ten minutes in the washroom, then I was fine. Mostly.”

Eva lowered the blouse. “You’re fine now?”

“Yes. I checked.”

“If it happens again, you get it checked by someone who isn’t you.” Eva held the blouse against Diana again, but her attention had moved elsewhere. “I’m still trying to get past the part where you left your ex’s wedding with a stranger.”

“So am I.”

Eva looked torn between horror and pride. “Who are you?”

“I don’t know. A woman with a turtleneck problem.”

“Does this stranger have a name?”

“We didn’t do names.” Diana hesitated. “But he knew mine.”

Eva stopped adjusting the sleeve. “Diana.”

“I know.”

“No, Diana. How did he know your name?”

“Maybe he heard Leo say it.”

Eva looked skeptical. She was also leaving that afternoon for two weeks of compliance training at the northern office, so she had to keep the lecture short. “If you see him again, you text me his full name before you get in a car with him. Promise me.”

“I’m not going to see him again.”

“Promise.”

“Fine. I promise.”

***

At six, the sidewalk outside the office was the usual crush: commuters, a hot-dog cart, a man selling phone chargers off a folding table. Diana was halfway to the bus shelter, mentally rearranging slides, when she noticed the car.

It was long and black, and it was moving at walking pace about twenty yards behind her.

She sped up. The car sped up.

She stopped beside the charger table. The car stopped.

Her heart was pounding, but something hot and stubborn rose under the fear. There were thirty people within shouting distance, a traffic cop at the corner, and she had spent two years letting things happen to her. She turned, walked straight back to the car in full view of the entire bus line, and rapped her knuckles on the tinted window.

The glass slid down.

Dark eyes. A mouth that remembered exactly how she tasted. The serpent’s tail curled under his jaw.

“You,” she said.

He looked pleased to see her. Diana kept one hand on the window frame and held up the other, stopping him before he could say anything that might make this feel like a date.

“How did you know where I work?”

His gaze moved over her face, then to the people waiting for the bus behind her. “Diana—”

“No. We agreed to no names. You knew mine anyway. Now you’re outside my office.”

A bus pulled in at the curb. Someone behind her complained that it was late.

“How did you find me?” she asked again.

He looked back at her.

“I knew where you worked before Saturday.”