Hunter slides my mug over, then kisses my hair. “Proud of you, Tara.”
I drink it in, the words and the heat. It’s always like this—he supports me in whatever I want. He treats me as his equal, even if he’s a powerful CEO and I’m a college student studying psychology. Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially bad, Isuggest playing professor and naughty student with Hunter. The man loves it.
Today though, I just want to pass my midterm.
I blow on my coffee, watching the swirl of steam, and wonder what the old Tara would think of me now. Or the old Daisy. Or the girl on the stage at Sanctum, the one who was auctioned off like a priceless treasure, not even knowing her real name.
I think she’d be proud.
Hunter sits across from me, thumbing through his inbox. I know every line of his face now, the faint scar above his eyebrow, the shadow at his jaw when he’s tired.
“Big day?” I ask, just to hear his voice.
“Always.” He glances at me over the rim of his mug. “But I cleared my afternoon.”
That catches me off guard. “You did?”
He shrugs and grins. “I figured we could spend some time together. I haven’t seen you that much lately, sweetheart. Or at least take a nap together.”
I smile into my coffee. “That’s very domestic of you.”
He gives me a look, half warning, half worship. “Don’t get used to it.”
I laugh, and the sound is sharp, real. I want to go to him, wrap myself around his big frame and feel his hands on my skin, but there’s no time. I have to leave in thirty minutes, and if I don’t get moving, I’ll miss my bus and end up sprinting through the sleet in a panic.
I polish off my coffee, rinse the mug, and grab my backpack from the hook by the door. The bag is heavy with books—abnormal psych, memory theory, a worn paperback ofThe Bell Jarthat I keep for emergencies.
Hunter stands, watching me with an intensity that still makes me shiver. “You good?” he says, voice low.
“Always,” I say, stealing a last look at the skyline. The city is awake now, traffic snaking over the river, the sidewalks full of tiny, bundled shapes.
He crosses the room and pulls me in, one arm a vise at my waist, the other cupping my jaw. “Don’t let anyone mess with you,” he whispers.
I tilt my chin up. “You know I won’t.”
He kisses me, and it’s not gentle, not at all. His tongue finds mine, slow and deliberate, and when he finally lets me go, I’m breathless.
“Text me when you get to campus,” he says, smoothing my hair.
I roll my eyes, but inside I love it. “Yes, Daddy.”
In the elevator, my cheeks are hot, my pulse wild. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to being wanted like this. I hope I never do.
Down in the lobby, the doorman nods at me, not even pretending to hide his curiosity. I get that a lot. Everyone wants to know what the hell I’m doing in this building, how a twenty-two-year-old undergrad ended up living with the city’s most eligible billionaire. I let them wonder because frankly, it’s not their business.
Outside, the wind cuts through my coat, sharp as memory. I breathe in, let the cold clear my head, and head toward the future. My future.
I don’t know what’s coming, but for the first time in my life, I want to find out.
The libraryat the university is freezing, and the silence ponderous. But I love it here: the thump of heavy textbooks closing, the glow of study lamps, the smell of paper and sanitizer. I stake out a spot by the window every Monday, overlooking the quad where the frost kills off the grass by October. I can see everything from here: the slow trudge of students, the bright red scarves, the way the sun never really thaws the cement.
My laptop is open to a case study on dissociative fugue. Page after page of people who walk out on their lives and become someone else—sometimes for years. The stories all sound the same, but every now and then I catch a phrase that cracks my chest open.
“Subject reports feeling like a passenger in her own body.”
“Transient amnesia; unfamiliar with familial ties.”
“On awakening, a persistent feeling of unreality. Yearning for connection.”