I don’t let them.
I pace again, faster now, passing the office I barely use. Passing the hallway that leads to my bedroom, to the bathroom where the drops of water still cling to the glass from earlier, when my whole day had been simple—shower, meeting, dinner, her.
Her.
She’s supposed to be here right now. Not just in my bed, in my arms— and the rest of it too. The easy laugh after, late-night conversation on the couch, the slow, lazy kisses that turn into more. I was looking forward to it. The whole day.
I thought I’d found something.
I thought I’dfound someone.
It's insane to think of a woman I've known for one day, spent one night with, and feel… loss. Like I'm missing a limb. Like a part of my chest is empty.
And it's worse because I'm not just angry at her for thinking the worst of me.
I’m angry at myself for giving her the ammunition.
Northstar is in play. I’m pursuing it. That’s a fact.
She’s Elsa Nilsson. That’s also a fact.
And the fact that I didn't know who she was when I touched her doesn't erase the fact that I wanted her anyway. The problem is, she'll never believe that now.
She thinks last night was a strategy. She thinks tonight’s dinner was a move.
She thinks every word out of my mouth was designed to manipulate her.
The way she looked at me when she stood up from that chair. The scrape of it. The sharpness. The devastation she tried to hide under that beautiful cruelty.
“You didn’t have to use me.”
The words feel like a punch I didn’t brace for, just as painful now as they were coming out of her mouth.
Use her.
Christ.
I didn’t go looking for her because she was due diligence. I didn’t touch her because of Northstar. If I had known—if I’d had even an inkling—there is no universe where I would have taken that risk. Not because I wouldn’t have wanted her.
Because I would’ve known I couldn’t afford it.
I don’t even know if that’s true, and that’s the part that turns my stomach.
Because even now, with everything burning down, I can’t untangle the want from the damage. I can’t think about her without thinking about her mouth. The red gloss. The way her breath hitched when I said her name. The way she tilted her head back for me without even realizing she’d surrendered the most vulnerable part of herself.
And then I remember her turning away from me at the end—just walking out and leaving me there.
My chest tightens.
I don’t do this.
I don’t fall apart over women. I don’t sit in my own home and pace like a man waiting for a verdict. I’ve had one-night stands. Plenty. Easy ones. Clean ones. Nights that ended with a door closing and me not caring whether I ever saw the woman again.
“One-night stand.”
The phrase replays in my mind, and something in me rejects it so hard it’s almost nauseating.
Because it was never that. Not really. It wasn’t going to be some story I remember later with a shrug or a fond smile. It wasn’t disposable.