Addiction & Surrender

Let Me Know When You're Done Pretending

Val’s POV

The next few weeks I filled my time with everything but him.

Work. Friends. New people. New men.

Flirting, laughing, playing the part of someone who had moved on.

I let a coworker take me to dinner. I let him think he had a chance. I let him hold my hand.

I even let him kiss me.

But I didn’t feel it.

His mouth didn’t taste like Dante.

His hands didn’t know me.

His touch didn’t burn.

I told myself I was fine.

I told myself I was in control.

I told myself I didn’t need him.

But when I got home, I’d close the door and slide down the wall, clutching my phone like maybe it would buzz, maybe he’d break again and come back to me, maybe I’d let him.

I’d replay his voicemails until I could recite them in my sleep.

I’d scroll through our old messages and feel my throat tighten.

I’d dress up, go out, dance with strangers, drink just enough to feel powerful but not enough to forget him.

I didn’t want to forget him.

I wanted to manage him.

But the truth was—I was unraveling.

Piece by piece.

Thread by thread.

Wearing new perfume. Trying new lipstick. Pretending to like someone else’s playlist.

All to prove I could survive without him.

All to prove I wasn’t waiting for him.

But when the nights got quiet, when the music stopped, when the drinks wore off—I knew the truth.

I was still his.

Even if I made him beg.

Even if I made him crawl.

I never really shut the door.

I kept my distance.

I played the part.

I returned his texts late.

I let his calls ring out.

I left him waiting, hungry, hollow.

I went out more—loud bars, crowded rooms, men whose names I didn’t bother to remember.

I smiled, laughed, flirted like I had moved on, like I didn’t ache for him when the nights got quiet.

Sometimes I’d let a man buy me a drink just to feel the weight of someone else’s attention.

Sometimes I’d let him touch my waist just to pretend it didn’t burn where Dante’s hands used to be.

Sometimes I let them kiss me, but it never landed. It never stuck.

Because none of them could ruin me like he could.

None of them made me feel like I was dangling over the edge, teeth bared, nails digging in, starving.

I went home with one of them once.

Let him press me against his sheets.

Let him undress me.

But I couldn't f**k him.

I stopped myself, all I could think of was Dante’s mouth, Dante’s hands, Dante’s broken begging in my ear. But it wasn't him. So I left.

I’d lie awake in my own apartment, clutching my phone like it could tether me back to Dante’s gravity.

Replaying his voicemails until I hated myself.

Staring at our old messages, reading the spaces between his words where the truth lived.

I didn’t reach out.

I just unraveled quietly.

Thread by thread.

Piece by piece.

Pretending I had power.

Pretending I had control.

Pretending I wasn’t his.

But I was.

I always was.

⸻

Boss’s POV

Watching Her Slip

She thought I didn’t notice.

The way she filled her calendar with noise—happy hours, new projects, men whose names she probably couldn’t remember the next morning.

I noticed.

I noticed everything.

Especially when she let that coworker take her to dinner.

When she let him hold her hand like he had a shot in hell at keeping her.

It almost amused me.

Almost.

I watched her walk into work the next day like nothing happened, wearing new lipstick, laughing a little too loud in the breakroom, pretending like she’d moved on.

But I saw through it.

I always saw through it.

Her smiles didn’t reach her eyes.

Her touch never lingered.

She was trying to convince herself she didn’t need him.

Trying to convince me that I wasn’t still on her skin.

But the thing about games like this?

There are always witnesses.

And I had front-row seats to her unraveling.

I watched her flirt. I watched her play.

But when that coworker kissed her—

When I saw it, across the street outside that overpriced restaurant—

Something twisted in me.

She wanted me to see.

Or maybe she didn’t.

Maybe she thought she was being discreet.

But I saw the way she pulled back too quickly.

The way her body didn’t lean in.

She let him kiss her.

But she didn’t feel it.

She couldn’t.

Because no one burns her like I do.

No one holds her the way I hold her—in places she doesn’t show to anyone else.

I let her play.

I let her think she was winning.

I even let her walk into meetings with that same coworker like nothing was out of place.

But every time I passed her desk, every time I caught her scrolling too long on her phone, every time I heard the edge in her voice when she thought she was steady—

I knew.

She was waiting for him.

She wanted me to believe she wasn’t.

But when the drinks wore off, when the nights got too quiet, when the weight of pretending settled heavy on her chest—

She was still his.

And that made me angry.

Not because I wanted her to be mine—

No.

Because I wanted her to suffer for thinking she could control this.

For thinking she could parade other men in front of me like I wouldn’t notice.

Like I wouldn’t punish her for it.

When I passed her in the hall, I made sure to lean in close, to murmur just enough so her pulse would spike.

“Careful who you let touch you,” I whispered once, when no one else was around.

“Some fires don’t put themselves out.”

She stiffened.

But she didn’t argue.

She never does.

Because she knows—

I see everything.

And I don’t forget when someone thinks they can play me.

She’s unraveling.

Thread by thread.

But I’ll decide when she snaps.

And when she does—

I’ll be there to pick up the pieces.

Or maybe I’ll let her bleed.

⸻

Fractures and Leverage

Dante’s Text Still Glows on My Screen.

Miss me yet?

The old me would’ve answered in seconds.

Would’ve been halfway to his place by now, all excuses and burned resolve.

But this time, I lock my phone.

Drop it face-down on the desk.

Walk away like the ache isn’t there.

I’m not doing this.

I tell myself that all day.

Repeat it like a prayer.

Or maybe a dare.

But the problem with resisting Dante is that I don’t really want to.

I just need to win this time.

I need to prove to myself I can walk away, even if I’m crawling on the inside.

By the time I see my boss again, I’ve almost convinced myself I’m steady.

But he looks at me like he knows.

Like he already heard the echo of Dante’s name in my chest.

“You’re quieter today,” he says, the edge of something sharp in his voice.

Something he’s trying to sheath but can’t.

“Long day,” I lie.

His eyes don’t leave mine. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t believe me.

“Dante,” he says, just his name. Flat. Acidic.

I flinch. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But enough for him.

“You didn’t answer him, did you?” His voice dips lower, dangerous now.

But it’s not a question. It’s a pressure point.

I try to walk past him, but he shifts—subtle, deliberate—blocking my path like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“You want to know how I knew?” he murmurs, stepping closer, that same suffocating control bleeding into the air between us.

“You haven’t needed to prove you’re in charge these last few weeks. You’ve been…steady. You’ve been with me. But now—”

His thumb grazes the inside of my wrist again, a cruel echo of his earlier games.

“Now you’re fighting ghosts again.”

I tilt my chin, steel-willed, lips twitching into something almost smug.

“I didn’t text him back.”

“That’s not the victory you think it is.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Because you wanted to. Because you still want to.”

His thumb presses harder, right against the vein betraying my pulse.

“You’ve been trying to use me to forget him. But now that he’s back in your head…”

His jaw tenses, and for the first time, the mask of control slips.

“You think I’m going to let you go that easily?”

There’s a crack in him now.

Not the clean, curated lines he likes to show the world.

A fracture.

Jealousy sits ugly on him.

But God, it’s beautiful on me.

“I thought you didn’t chase,” I whisper.

His grip tightens—just enough to make me feel it, just enough to burn.

“I thought you didn’t beg,” he shoots back.

And then—

He lets me go.

Steps back.

Withdraws like he’s surrendering. Like he’s choosing to let me win.

But I know better.

It’s a setup. A dare. A hook baited in silence.

He leaves me standing there with my heartbeat still caught in his fist.

But as he walks away, his parting words coil around me like a promise I can’t outrun:

“Let me know when you’re done pretending.”

⸻

The Spiral and the Leverage

I tell myself I’m in control.

That I can walk the edge without falling this time.

But I’m already slipping.

Already craving things I shouldn’t.

Dante is chaos.

The boss is order.

Dante burns.

The boss smolders.

I want both.

I can’t have both.

And God, I hate that I want either.

It’s not just that I miss Dante’s hands.

It’s not just the way my body remembers the press of his weight, the sting of his grip.

It’s him knowing me.

Owning me.

Without asking.

But then Julian—he’s something else.

He’s steadier. More precise.

Or at least, he used to be.

Lately, he’s slipping.

I see it in the way he watches me now.

The way his jaw clenches when I mention other names in passing conversations.

The way his control falters when I lean just a little too close.

I start testing it.

Testing him.

I don’t answer his texts right away.

I let my gaze linger a little too long on other men in the office.

I “accidentally” leave my phone face-up when Dante’s name lights the screen.

I should feel guilty.

But all I feel is the rush.

The rush of being wanted. Of being fought for.

Of pulling the strings for once.

I see it when I pass him in the hallway—the flicker of something raw, something sharp, something his.

So I push harder.