Chapter 1

1: 1

A client had just thrown a cup of scalding tea in my face, and the moment I stepped out of the company reception room, I looked up straight into my boyfriend's eyes.

Swallowing the hurt, I tried to explain what had happened as calmly and objectively as I could.

Before I could finish, he cut me off.

"So? What exactly are you telling me all this for?"

"You want comfort? Sympathy?"

"At your age, you should know emotional validation is useless to you, shouldn't you?"

His tone was even, his face untroubled.

It made the hurt I'd just felt look like a joke.

Luckily his phone rang and spared me the humiliation.

But the moment he answered, he changed completely, suddenly agitated.

His voice even climbed a few notches higher than usual.

"Tell them not to give Claudia Mason a hard time. I'm coming right now. Whatever it is, deal with me!"

Claudia was his assistant.

An hour ago Jerome Henson had sent her out to meet a client.

My hand trembled, so slightly it was almost invisible.

I thought of yesterday, when a client had cornered me and I'd called him.

He'd said, "If you can't even handle getting yourself out of that, you might as well quit now."

I couldn't help it. I laughed until my eyes teared up.

So it turned out he did know how to care about someone. Just not me.

01

Seeing me cry, he stopped on his way to the elevator.

He turned back, pulled out a pack of tissues, and held it out to me.

I didn't take it.

So he threw it at me.

It landed right on my scalded arm.

The pain tore a hiss out of me.

His brows snapped together at once.

He grabbed my wrist and dragged me into his office.

"Beth Summers, a client says a few words to you and you come running to me in tears? This is a company, not home. I'm under no obligation to absorb your negative emotions."

"Do you have any idea how you're acting right now? Completely unprofessional, irrational, emotional!"

Three words, and all my effort was erased.

I should have known long ago.

Ever since Claudia became his assistant, he'd stopped being the Jerome who used to give me anything I wanted.

Now he was rational and cold, with the steady composure of a man on top.

Yet when I'd just been torn to shreds by a client, the first sight of him had still made my eyes sting.

Eight years. Some things had long since become habit.

Except this time I finally understood that some habits needed to change.

I didn't argue with him. I just quietly dug through the first-aid kit and found the burn cream.

Something flickered in his eyes, surprise, then smoothed back into calm.

"Don't think a sympathy act is going to make up for the fact that you lost a client today."

"If you've got time to put on a show for me, you'd be better off studying what the client actually wants."

My hand stopped, mid-motion, cream still on my fingers.

There was a time a paper cut on my hand would have had him half ready to call an ambulance.

Now my whole arm was raw and red, and all he cared about was the client.

I lifted my head. My voice came out unnervingly steady.

"What the client wants? For me to design a black that's somehow full of color?"

"For my team member to deliver the proposal in a hotel bed?"

"Clients like that, I'm done waiting on!"

"You—"

The uglier words never came.

Because Claudia's custom ringtone went off.

In the quiet office it was crystal clear.

"Mr. Henson, pick up the phone~ Claudie needs a favor!"

He quickly turned the volume down and glanced at my face.

Not because he was afraid of me.

Because he didn't want the hassle.

After all, I'd once had a huge fight with him over it.

Because I'd recorded a ringtone for him too, once.

But the moment he found it, he deleted it.

He'd said anyone who heard it would just think I was childish and silly.

Yet Claudia's voice had gone off in the conference room, in a client meeting, in our own home.

And he'd never once changed it.

Jerome's voice was gentle, even a little eager to please.

"Claudie, something came up and held me back. Are you okay?"

Once he learned she was fine, he let out an obvious breath of relief.

The next second his voice shot up sharply.

"They made you drink?"

"It's okay, don't cry. Find an excuse and slip out somewhere. I'll go talk to him myself in a bit!"

"Don't worry. I'm here."

On his way out he even reached over and switched off the office light.

In the dark, I sat on the couch, his firm "I'm here" looping over and over in my ears.

Only then did I realize that those three words were all I'd been hoping for this whole time.

He'd said them. Just not to me.

I got up and walked to the window, watching his car tear out of the lot.

And all at once it just felt utterly pointless.

I pulled the plain band ring off my finger and dropped it in the trash.

Then I turned and went downstairs, heading home.

Some things needed to be ended too.