Chapter 9

The lobby of Cantrall & Co. had become familiar in the months since Malia had first waited here, nervous and invisible, a girl in a hoodie that didn’t belong to her yet. She knew the security guard’s name now—Eduardo, who kept hard candies in his pocket and offered them to anyone who looked like they needed sweetness. She knew which leather bench had the best view of the elevator banks. She knew the exact time the afternoon sun hit the crystal chandelier and scattered rainbows across the marble floor.

She knew, too, that Kylie would be down soon. Her girlfriend had texted ten minutes ago—meeting running late, dad being extra, come up?—and Malia had declined, as she always did. The executive floor held too many memories: Alex’s office, the shouting, the moment she’d become someone who shouted back. She preferred the lobby, neutral ground, Eduardo’s hard candies and the soft jazz that played from hidden speakers.

She was reading, some romance novel Kylie had pressed on her with the promise that “the love interest has my mullet but make it fantasy,” when she heard the laugh.

It wasn’t Alex’s laugh. She knew that sound now, the sharp performative bark that meant he was entertaining someone he wanted something from. This was different—lower, familiar in a way that made her stomach clench before her brain could catch up.

She looked up.

Alex Cantrall emerged from the private elevator near the east corridor, silver-haired and polished, his hand extended in the gesture of a man guiding a guest. And beside him, smiling that smile she’d spent two years trying to forget, was Finley.

He looked the same. That was the worst part—the same sandy hair styled with too much product, the same broad shoulders in a blazer that cost more than her mother’s monthly rent, the same easy confidence that had once felt like safety and later felt like a cage. He was laughing at something Alex had said, head thrown back, throat exposed, and the familiarity of the gesture hit Malia like a physical blow.

He used to laugh like that when I said something he found stupid. When I cried and he told me I was being dramatic. When he—

Her breath caught. Caught again. The book slipped from her fingers, hit the marble floor with a sound that didn’t carry, that disappeared into the lobby’s ambient hum.

No. No, no, no, Alex promised. He promised he’d handled it. He promised Finley wouldn’t contact me, wouldn’t come near me, wouldn’t—

But there he was. Walking toward her. Alex’s hand on his shoulder like they were old friends, like business associates, like men who understood each other in ways that didn’t require explanation.

Malia’s hands found her phone. Her thumbs moved automatically, muscle memory from months of practice, pulling up Kylie’s contact, pressing call. It rang once. Twice.

Pick up. Please pick up. Please—

“Hey, baby, I’m just wrapping up, Dad’s being a dick about quarterly projections, I’ll be down in—”

“Kylie.” Her voice came out wrong, high and thin and barely recognizable. “Kylie, he’s here. He’s—Alex brought him, he’s walking toward me, I can’t—”

“Who? Malia, who—”

But Finley had seen her.

His smile didn’t falter. If anything, it widened, became something more performative, more predatory. He said something to Alex—she couldn’t hear, her ears were ringing, her vision tunneling—and Alex’s expression shifted, became careful, became aware in a way that meant he knew exactly what he’d done.

He lied. He promised and he lied and he brought him here anyway.

“Malia?” Kylie’s voice, distant and tinny through the phone’s speaker. “Malia, I’m coming. I’m running. Hold on, I’m—”

Too late. Finley was crossing the lobby with that easy stride, that confidence that had once made her feel chosen, special, seen. She knew better now. She knew what came after the charm—the comments about her weight, her anxiety, her “drama.” The way he’d hold her wrist too tight and call it affection. The way he’d remind her, constantly, that no one else would want her, that she was too broken, too much, too little to deserve anything better.

She couldn’t move. Her body had locked down, the familiar paralysis of panic, her limbs heavy and distant and not hers to command. The book on the floor, her phone pressed to her ear, Kylie’s voice a thin thread of sound she couldn’t process.

Finley stopped in front of her. Close enough to smell his cologne, the same one, the one that had once meant date night and later meant I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, you’re just so sensitive.

He looked her up and down with the assessing gaze of a man who had once owned something and still believed he had rights to it.

“Malia…” he said, and his voice was warm, intimate, the voice he’d used in her ear when he told her she was his, only his, forever his. “There’s my girl. Looking good. Better than I remember, actually. That dyke must be treating you right.”

He reached out. Touched her cheek with fingers that were cold and familiar and wrong.

And Malia, frozen and shaking and barely breathing, could only stare as the lobby tilted around her, as Kylie’s voice screamed through the phone—I’m coming, I’m coming, hold on, I’m coming—as Finley’s smile widened and his thumb traced her jawline and the world narrowed to the point of his touch, his voice, his name hanging in the air between them like a threat.

“Malia…”

To be Continued…