The elevator doors slid shut, sealing the silence around me like a coffin.
For a second, I thought I might suffocate in there — not because there wasn't air, but because the air that existed had his scent. Expensive. Sharp. Masculine. Still clinging to my skin, my hair, my breath.
I didn't breathe until the numbers above the doors began to descend. Penthouse. Fifty-two. Forty-nine. Forty-seven. Each one a step further from him. My pulse beat in time with the lighted panel — fast, unsteady, like I'd sprinted a mile instead of walked out of his life.
Not a man.
Him.
Alexander Knight.
Even his name sounded untouchable — all edges and ice. He didn't chase. He didn't plead. He didn't want in the way people were supposed to want. Everything about him was control, precision, profit. Ruthless efficiency in a perfect suit.
So why did it ever feel like he wanted me?
The question burned deeper than the memory of his touch. Because I didn't have an answer.
Maybe he wanted the distraction. The release. The game. Maybe I'd been nothing more than the space he filled between meetings and mergers.
But sometimes — when his mouth found mine like he was starving, when his hands trembled for just a second before he'd steady them again — it felt like something else. Something dangerously close to need.
And that illusion… it was what ruined me.
I closed my eyes and pressed the back of my head against the elevator wall. The metal was cold, but it did nothing to quiet the fire under my skin. My lips still tingled from his kiss — hard, consuming, unapologetic. Like always. Like I still belonged to him, even when we both swore I didn't.
And I'd let him. God help me, I'd let him kiss me like that again.
Because part of me needed to believe he meant it.
Stupid.
Thirty-eight. Thirty-five. Thirty-two.
My knees wobbled, and I clenched my fists. I refused to fall apart. Not here. Not after I finally did the impossible — walked away from a man who never once asked me to stay.
But my body didn't know we were finished. It still ached for him, like muscle memory of something that was never real.
Twenty-nine. Twenty-six.
One breath. Two. Three.
The dress I wore — black, fitted, chosen for him — felt like a costume. Too tight. Too dishonest. It reeked of everything I was pretending not to want.
"How long will you keep pretending you're fine with this?"
I'd asked myself that a hundred times.
Apparently, the answer was until tonight.
Because tonight, I finally said it. The words that had been festering at the back of my throat.
I'm done.
My voice hadn't even shaken.
But everything inside me had.
Not because I wanted him to stop me — God, no. I just wanted him to care. To say something that would make me believe I wasn't just part of the deal.
The elevator slowed. Ten. Seven. Three.
I straightened my spine and wiped at the corner of my eye before any tear could escape. No crying. Not for him. Not for this.
When the doors opened, the lobby's brightness felt cruel. I crossed the marble like it was glass, trying not to crack with every step.
Outside, the night air hit hard — cold, cutting, almost welcome.
I hadn't brought a coat. I never did. No evidence. No trace. No questions.
But the cold helped. It numbed.
Three blocks. That's how far I got before the ache in my feet matched the one in my chest. City lights blurred into gold and red streaks, taxis hissing past. I kept walking, arms crossed tight over myself, pretending it was just the wind that made me shake.
I didn't look back.
I wanted to. God, I wanted to.
But Alexander didn't chase.
He watched.
And I hated myself for wishing I could feel his eyes on me one last time.
I didn't go home.
Home was too quiet, too honest.
So I went to the all-night laundromat near my building instead. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering like they might burn out at any second. The cracked vinyl chairs were cold. The hum of dryers filled the space.
It was ugly. Unforgiving. Real.
I needed real.
I sat in the corner and stared at the spinning dryers until the pounding in my chest began to dull.
I didn't cry.
I refused to.
My phone buzzed — Liana asking if I was still coming by tomorrow. I typed yes and tossed it aside.
No message from Alexander.
Good.
At least, that's what I told myself.
A man came in with a basket of uniforms, eyes heavy, shoulders bowed. He didn't look at me. Thank God. I didn't want to be seen. Not tonight.
I pulled my knees to my chest, the hem of my dress sliding up, but I didn't care. I was too tired to care.
And still, my mind betrayed me.
I could feel him — the way his hands knew my body like a map he didn't need to study, the way he looked at me like I was his vice, not his choice.
Maybe that's all I ever was.
A convenient sin.
A make-out arrangement dressed up like something forbidden.
No strings. No promises. No expectations. His words, not mine.
And I'd said yes.
I told myself I could handle it. That I was too strong, too smart to mistake desire for devotion. That I could walk away whenever I wanted.
But it turns out, it's hard to walk away when your heart learns how to crawl.
Because somewhere between his cold hands and colder rules, I fell for a man who never intended to catch me.
Alexander Knight was control — perfected, weaponized, terrifying.
And I was the exception he allowed himself to touch.
That's all.
So why did it still feel like I'd left something real behind?
Why did his silence hurt more than all the things he'd ever said?
I whispered into the hum of the dryers, needing to hear my own voice to remember I still had one.
"Did you ever want me, Alexander?"
The sound barely left my lips, but it filled the whole space — raw, desperate, almost shameful.
"Or did you just want… what I gave you?"
No answer. Just the steady whirl of machines, like the universe was too polite to respond.
I rested my forehead on my knees and let the quiet stretch.
No more waiting for his call.No more pretending I didn't care when he disappeared.No more letting him touch me like I was temporary.
Even if temporary was the only version of us that could exist.
Even if walking away meant bleeding.
My reflection in the dryer door looked like someone else. Someone weaker. Someone he'd built and broken without even noticing.
He'd tell himself this wasn't loss. Just another agreement expired.
And maybe he'd be right.
Because I was the one who signed up for less and prayed for more.
Maybe that's what this was all along — not love, not lust, just a transaction that went on too long.
But somewhere deep down, under all the reason and the ruin, I still wondered.
Did he feel anything when I left?
Would he miss me when he realized I wasn't coming back?
Or was I already replaced — filed neatly under unnecessary complications in the perfect order of his world?
I closed my eyes.
"He let me go," I whispered.
The words ached, but the ache was honest.
And the truth — the one I could never say out loud — was worse.
I didn't know if I really wanted him to.