Page 38 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
I flinch. Can't help it. Every notification, every call, every unexpected sound has become a potential threat.
Bea notices. Of course she notices.
"You going to check that?"
I pick up the phone with a hand that trembles slightly. Not a call. An email.
I open it and read the first few lines.
Dear Ms. Rivers,
We regret to inform you that we will no longer be requiring your services for our weekly floral arrangements. We have decided to go in a different direction...
The Chengs. The restaurant that's been ordering from me every week for two years. Steady income, reliable work, a relationship I've built carefully over dozens of deliveries and hundreds of arrangements.
Gone.
I read the rest of the email in a daze. Professional regrets, appreciation for past work, best wishes for future endeavors. The same hollow phrases Mrs. Patterson used, the same polite dismissal that meansyou're not wanted here anymore.
"Poppy?" Bea's voice seems to come from far away. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Another client," I hear myself say. "They canceled."
"What? Why?"
"They didn't say. Just that they're 'going in a different direction.'"
Bea frowns. "That's weird. Two clients in one week?"
Three, I think. If you count the Morrison family, who sent a strangely formal email on Monday explaining that they wouldn't be recommending me for their daughter's friend's wedding after all.
Three clients in five days. Each one polite, apologetic, offering vague excuses that don't quite add up.
It's not a coincidence. It can't be a coincidence.
He's doing this. Systematically, methodically, he's dismantling everything I've built. Cutting off my income, my connections, my ability to survive independently.
And there's nothing I can do to stop him.
"Poppy." Bea reaches across the table and grabs my wrist. "Talk to me. This is connected, isn't it? To the person who's... interested in you?"
I look at her, at the fear and determination warring in her eyes, and I want so badly to tell her everything. To share this burden, to let someone else help me carry it.
But I can't. Ican't.
"I don't know," I lie. "It might just be bad luck."
"That's a lot of bad luck."
"Yeah." I pull my hand free and set the phone face-down on the table. "Yeah, it is."
Bea watches me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she stands.
"I'm going to clean up," she says. "And then I'm going to stay for a while. Watch a movie or something. Take your mind off things."
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to. I want to." She carries my plate to the sink and turns on the water. "That's what friends are for, Poppy. Showing up when things are hard."
