Page 47 of So Close to You
“I’m starting to suspect that Helena enjoys watching people suffer. But yes.”
“We both knew that already,” Nerissa replies almost instantly. “How did the meeting go?”
Seraphina hesitates for a second before typing.
“I’ve been going over the investment fund’s terms and conditions since eight this morning. My head hurts just thinking about more numbers.”
“That can be cured with a decent dinner. No sad vending-machine salads.”
“I need to sleep for two weeks straight, actually.”
Seraphina stares at the screen for a few seconds, her thumb hovering over the keyboard, and then continues typing.
“I miss you.”
“And I miss you.”
Seraphina rereads the last message for a few more seconds. She feels that ache intensify, because in Chester she promised she was going to change her life, and now the panic returns once again.
She puts her phone away and begins organizing the documents scattered across her desk. The computer screen remains open, displaying the share distribution tables for the merger. The percentages dance before her tired eyes as she rearranges the papers.
The silence in the office feels strange after spending hours immersed in a space filled with raised voices and executive debates. Then she hears the door, and Seraphina’s body tenses immediately, even before she looks up.
Adrian Beckett stands by the door, a cup of coffee in one hand and a relaxed expression that sends an instant chill down her spine. His gray coat is perfectly draped over his shoulders, and his tie is slightly loosened, as if he had just stepped out of an unimportant meeting and weren’t invading the CFO’s private space after hours.
“I thought you’d already left,” Seraphina says.
“I wanted to talk to you without any interruptions,” he replies, stepping inside with a smile.
The atmosphere in the office changes immediately. Seraphina can physically feel it. Adrian moves around the room, observing everything with a familiarity that is unbearable. He behaves like someone who already considers the place his own.
“The meeting was productive…” he remarks as he takes a sip of coffee. “Although I think Helena continues to underestimate the reputational impact of certain variables.”
Something in Adrian’s tone makes the skin on Seraphina’s arms prickle beneath the silk of her blouse.
“If you’re here to argue about the fund’s percentages again, we can pick that up on Monday. I’m done for today.”
Adrian lets out a laugh, not a pleasant one, laced with condescension.
“No. This can’t wait until Monday.”
She feels the first stab of anxiety pierce her chest, slight but enough to quicken her pulse. Adrian walks over to the desk and sets the cup down next to the financial reports. Then he reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a tablet, which he places in front of her with deliberate slowness.
Seraphina looks down. For a second, her brain refuses to process what she sees. Then it does, and her stomach drops violently. The photograph fills the entire screen: her and Nerissa in Chester, their hands clasped on the Roman wall. Then another image appears of the two of them leaving the underground restaurant. And another of Nerissa brushing a strand of hair from her face beneath a streetlamp. The blood drains from Seraphina’s face so quickly that her hands feel cold.
She isn’t breathing. She can’t. The images keep scrolling beneath Adrian’s steady fingers, perfectly in focus, taken from a distance.
“Nice city, Chester,” he murmurs. “Very discreet. Though not as much as you thought.”
Seraphina slowly looks up. And suddenly she understands every comment, every glance, every poisonous remark from the past few weeks.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Adrian,” she manages to say, though it’s clear she has no way out.
He smiles with that expression that turns her stomach.
“Don’t do that. You’re too smart to play dumb with me.”
Seraphina struggles to her feet. She needs to regain her height, her space, her control. But her legs start to tremble.
