Page 47 of The Love Clause

The subway car is crowded, forcing me to stand pressed between strangers, Barney's carrier clutched to my chest like a shield. My phone buzzes with a text from Mandy—something about the rent money—but I can't bring myself to look at it. Can't bear to think about the fifty thousand dollars sitting in my account, payment for a weekend that somehow became so much more and then, just as suddenly, nothing at all.

By the time I reach my stop, the hollow feeling has crystallized into something harder, sharper. If Elliot Carrington thinks he can dismiss me like some business transaction that's reached its conclusion, he's about to learn how very wrong he is. I may have been foolish enough to fall for him, but I'm not pathetic enough to let him treat me like this without consequences.

Once things become real, the money became secondary. But since it's apparently all he thinks I care about, maybe that's exactly what I should focus on. Get my life in order, pay my debts, make something of my art career.

And forget I ever met a blue-eyed lawyer with wounds he's too scared to acknowledge and feelings he's too cowardly to name.

EIGHTEEN

Elliot

The silencein my apartment is absolute. No dog nails clicking on hardwood floors, no off-key humming from the kitchen, no chaos disrupting my perfect order. Everything is precisely as it should be. Clean. Controlled.Empty.

I pour another two fingers of scotch—my third since returning from the office—and tell myself this hollow feeling will pass. That I made the rational decision. That protecting myself from inevitable disappointment was the only logical choice when I overheard her true motivations. The scotch burns going down, but not enough to cauterize the wound her absence has left.

Three days since Josie walked out of my apartment. Three days of impeccable productivity, of partners commenting on my renewed focus, of nights spent staring at the ceiling where I once watched her sleep. I function. I excel. I ignore the way my hand reaches for her in the night before I'm fully awake, before I remember she's gone. Before I remember I sent her away.

The memory of that morning replays with prosecutorial precision: returning early from my meeting, key in the lock, Josie's voice floating from the living room.

"That was always the point," she'd said, her tone matter-of-fact. "Get out of debt, stop the eviction, have a chance to actually focus on my art without constant financial panic. The fact that I accidentally fell for the guy who's making it possible is just…a really weird complication."

I'd frozen in the entryway, the words hitting like physical blows. Get out of debt. Stop the eviction. Focus on art. The money. Always about the money. The night before—the confessions, the connection I'd foolishly believed was genuine—reduced to a "weird complication" in her financial recovery plan.

The pain had been immediate, visceral. And in its wake, self-preservation. I'd closed the door deliberately louder than necessary, giving her time to end her call, compose herself. When I stepped fully into the apartment, I'd already rebuilt my walls, higher and thicker than before. Professional distance. Careful disengagement. Protection against the hurt that comes from believing you're something more than a means to an end.

I'd been a fool. Worse, I'd been a predictable fool—exactly the type of naive mark that con artists target. Successful, emotionally isolated, easily manipulated by unexpected vulnerability. The fact that she likely hadn't planned the con from the start was cold comfort. The fact that she may have genuinely developed some feelings along the way irrelevant. Her primary motivation was and always had been financial.

And why wouldn't it be? Her life was a precarious stack of overdue notices and missed payments. I represented security, stability—and a substantial cash infusion. Of course she'd do whatever necessary to secure that outcome. Including making me believe I was more than an ATM with a convenient professional connection.

My glass is empty again. I don't remember draining it. The apartment feels cavernous around me, every surface gleaming with the careful attention of my twice-weekly cleaning service. No smudges, no dust, no evidence that for a brief, chaotic moment, Josie Palmer had brought life into these sterile rooms.

I should be relieved. Should be celebrating my narrow escape from emotional entanglement with someone whose world is so fundamentally incompatible with mine. Instead, my hands are numb where they grip the empty glass, and I feel a warmth in my chest, an uncomfortable heat that I recognize as guilt.

Three days of silence. Three days of compartmentalizing, of burying myself in work, of pretending I made the right choice. Three days of ignoring Claire's concerned glances when I snap at junior associates, of canceling my usual lunch with Harrison, of returning to my empty apartment each night and pouring scotch until the edges blur.

My phone buzzes on the counter—a text from a partner about tomorrow's deposition prep. Work. Focus. Control. The only reliable constants in my life.

I shower and dress the next morning with military precision, the routine a comforting script, a barrier against the thoughts that threaten during unstructured time. My reflection in the bathroom mirror reveals nothing amiss—perfect Windsor knot, not a hair out of place, expression carefully neutral. The consummate professional, unaffected by personal distractions.

The lie would be almost convincing if not for the shadows beneath my eyes.

The offices of Blackwell & Reed represent another sanctuary—twenty-seven floors of expensive real estate dedicated to the pursuit of legal excellence and billable hours. Here, at least, I can lose myself in depositions and contract revisions, in the clean logic of legal precedent and carefully crafted arguments.

Until Claire knocks on my door at 4:17 PM, her expression unusually hesitant.

"Ms. Palmer is here to see you," she says, watching my reaction with more attention than I'm comfortable with. "She doesn't have an appointment."

Something lurches in my chest—hope or dread, I can't distinguish between them anymore. "Tell her I'm in meetings for the rest of the day."

"I already tried that," Claire replies, a hint of apology in her tone. "She said, and I quote, 'Tell him to stop being a coward or I'll make a scene that will give his stuffed-shirt colleagues something to gossip about for months.'"

Of course she would. Josie Palmer doesn't follow protocols or respect boundaries. She crashes through life like a force of nature, consequences be damned.

"Fine," I say, straightening papers that don't need straightening. "Send her in. And hold my calls."

Claire nods, disappearing momentarily before Josie strides into my office like she owns it, all righteous fury and crackling energy. She's wearing paint-splattered jeans and an oversized sweater that slips off one shoulder, her hair a wild tangle around her face. She looks like chaos personified against the ordered backdrop of my professional domain.

She also looks beautiful in a way that makes my chest physically ache.

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