Page 25 of The Prime-Time Experiment

Dee held her gaze. “You are literally the person who stayed up all night in second year university just to prove you were right and that stupid lecturer was mis-utilising the research,” she said. “You do not, and have never, backed down.”

Riley didn’t know what to say, so she sat there, unblinking, in an attempt to process everything she was saying.

“This isn’t about you not wanting to continue,” Dee went on. “This is about Declan. I don’t know what it is about this man, but he has been able to get under your skin, and is pushing you into a situation where you couldn’t function. And now, you’re trying to remove yourself from the whole thing instead of fixing the part that broke.”

Riley’s felt her eyebrow twitch. “He disrupted the structure,” she said.

“Yeah,” Dee agreed. “So? Rebuild it.”

Riley frowned. “That requires his cooperation.”

“Then make it a requirement,” Dee said simply. That made Riley pause.

“He is within contractual limits,” she said. “I cannot—”

“You wrote that damn contract,” Dee cut in. “You’re telling me you can’t find a way, a loophole?”

Riley didn’t answer immediately. Dee’s expression softened slightly again, but her tone didn’t lose its certainty. “You are Riley Lorrent and you don’t quit,” she said. “You adapt, you out-think, and then you make it impossible for the other person to keep playing games.”

Riley’s focus sharpened, just slightly.

“You always have.”

A quiet beat settled between them. Riley didn’t respond. Her fingers resumed their movement through the wool, slower now, more deliberate, though the tension in them hadn’t fully eased.

Dee watched her for a second longer, then leaned forward slightly, her voice lowering.

“This is your chance,” she said. “You don’t walk away from this, you fix it. You make it so tight he can’t pull that shit again... You prove him wrong.”

Riley’s hands stilled. Before she could respond, her phone buzzed against the counter, the sound cutting cleanly through the space.

Both of them glanced down. The screen lit up.

Declan.

Dee’s brows lifted immediately, something almost delighted flashing through her expression. “Oh my god,” she said under her breath. “Speak of the devil.”

Riley didn’t move at first. She just looked at the name, her focus narrowing, sharpening into something far more clinical than it had been a moment ago.

Dee nudged the phone slightly toward her. “Well?” she said. “There’s your opportunity.”

Riley’s jaw set.

Dee leaned back just enough to give her space, but her voice didn’t soften. “Right now.”

Riley exhaled slowly, the breath more standard than the ones before it. Her fingers tightened once against the edge of the counter, grounding, before she leaned forward and picked up the phone.

There was a brief pause on the other end before the response came, easy and immediate.

“Riles.”

Her spine went rigid. The reaction was physical, automatic. Her grip tightened around the phone, the wool in her other hand pulling taut without her noticing.

“I told you not to call me that.” Riley’s shoulders tensed. “Why are you calling?” she asked, her tone flattening.

There was the faintest shift on the other end, like he hadn’t expected that to be her opening.

“You left our session.”