I received a message from Theron that morning. He was leaving for a three-day business trip. By all accounts, I should’ve felt relieved. Three days without his presence should have granted me the mental clarity I so desperately needed time to breathe, to focus, to regroup. But instead, an unshakable sense of disappointment crept in, growing heavier as I stepped into the penthouse and was met with its suffocating silence.
“It’s for the best,” I told myself firmly.
“You don’t need distractions. And he’s a walking, talking distraction.”
But even with him miles away from New York, my thoughts betrayed me, looping over the scandalous, utterly shameless things he’d said. I couldn’t seem to shut his voice out, couldn’t silence the way his words echoed in my mind. I needed stronger defenses. A
