Chapter 16

Author’s Note: We are moving into a new phase here, and it’s leading to the conclusion of Book Two. Thank you so much for reading and your feedback. There’s no sex here. But there is a strong theme of dominance, and it advances the trajectory of the plot substantially. Thanks for being patient.

It was Friday, February 28. I had slept like shit. The blackout curtains in my room at the Four Seasons didn’t betray whether it was night or day. I looked at my watch. It was 4:32 a.m. I picked up my phone and opened my bank app. I stared as it loaded, then the account screen came into view, and I blinked.

$20,248,964.19.

I blinked again.

My eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. The final bonus payment had hit. Adrenaline seized me. I sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. The empty half of the bed next to me brought the melancholy back again. There wasn’t anyone to celebrate this with right now. At least, not yet.

This was it. My last day of work. I hadn’t ever believed retirement by age forty would be a reality. But here it was. I grinned. Keep your eyes on the big issues, I told myself. The rest will sort itself out. Don’t let the emotions get to you. There are larger things at stake, and a little more discipline would put me where I wanted to be. I may not have realized it in the past, but I was a hair’s breadth away from a life I had always wanted.

I got up and opened the curtains. Houston was still asleep. The downtown buildings lit the night sky. I stepped out of my boxer-briefs and walked to the bathroom, turning the shower all the way on hot. As steam filled the room and covered the mirror, I rubbed my thighs. In the three days since I had walked out on Jess, when I wasn’t wrapping up loose ends at work, I went to the gym for long, intense exercise sessions.

The hot shower felt good, and I woke up, despite my physical and emotional fatigue. I let the water beat down on me and focused on meditative breathing. It didn’t seem real. But it was. The money didn’t lie. For the past year, my investment strategy with the principal I already had received was conservative yet had kicked off $5 million in returns. That was enough for me to live the high life for two years, if not more.

Fuck it, I told myself. No matter what happened, I had the best years of my life ahead of me. There was no doubt an endless trail of adventure in the years to come. The only question was whether it would include Kat, Jess, or both. Or neither.

I dried off, dressed, and picked up my phone.

“Final bonus hit,” I wrote in a text to Kat. “Today is my last day!”

I contemplated my next move when I was startled by my phone buzzing on the desk.

“Or the first day of forever,” Kat had replied immediately.

My heart skipped a beat. “Well, I didn’t expect you to respond, but if this is how forever is going to start, I would be very happy indeed,” I wrote.

“I couldn’t sleep because I knew today was the day,” she said. “And I knew you’d be up to check as soon as it hit your bank account.”

“When did you wake up?” I asked.

“3 a.m.,” she wrote.

“How’d you know I’d be up to check?” I asked.

“I know you,” she wrote. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I wrote back. “I miss you.”

“Soon,” she wrote. “Very soon. I’ve got to go.”

That was the happiest thing that had occurred in three days. I really believed Kat understood me. In our case, absence truly had made the heart grow fonder. Maybe it was just the blow-up with Jess shaping my thoughts, but I had an unshakable faith in my love for Kat that was different from any other relationship I’d had before.

It was barely after 5 a.m., which was too early for room service. I didn’t want to go to the office. Killing time would only reinforce the loneliness I felt. This should have been a moment of triumph, yet I felt empty and betrayed.

Perhaps it was that underlying loneliness that took over. I left the hotel and drove home. I don’t know what I expected to find. I think I just needed something familiar surrounding me.

The apartment was a mess. The lights in the living, dining room, and kitchen were on. There were at least three mirrors with cocaine on them scattered about, along with empty Champagne and wine bottles. The door to the master bedroom was open. Jess slept peacefully on my side of the bed. Beside her was a shock of brown hair. It was Brittany.

I felt a sense of longing as I looked at Jess. There was hurt and disappointment, but there was also love. I couldn’t help but love Jess. I thought about the whirlwind we had been through in the weeks leading up to the Johnny Burris incident. There were more drugs. She was burning the candle at both ends with her day job at Vivianno Plastic Surgery, which, as I had learned, was really substantively the same as her other job running the escort agency. She took on recruiting and appointments for her business. She managed everything. Maybe I should have seen how much the stress would take a toll on her.

But I’d been so busy myself that I didn’t pay as close attention to her as I should have. But was this really my fault? It was her choice. Guys like Johnny Burris were her weakness. If she hadn’t been overwhelmed with work, it would have happened anyway. It was the honesty aspect that grated at me the most. She could have sent a simple text message, and I probably would have told her to have fun. If she was hiding one secret from me, what others were buried elsewhere?

I watched her chest rise and fall while she slept. And in those moments, I knew that I loved her and that I couldn’t let her go. But at what cost? Before I left, slipping out of the apartment quietly, I wrote Jess a note and put it underneath her phone. I’d know soon enough if she read it.

I went to the office for the last time. I had packed most of my things the day before. I put in a half day, shaking hands and accumulating well-wishes, before heading off to a wine-soaked lunch. The morning went by in a flash, and the next thing I knew, I was basking on the patio at a bistro near downtown. It was a perfect, 75-degree day. A handful of my closest coworkers sent me off in style with Champagne, oysters, and uproarious tales of days gone by.