He shrugs. “I mean, I did it with your best interests in mind, Ivy.”
Blood rushes to my temples. “That wasn’t your decision to make, Soren!”
He looks down.
“And to pretend to be there for me? To support me through something thatyou fucking caused?” Rage courses through me. My hands are shaking, which only serves to make me more furious. As if he’s taken away just another semblance of my own agency. “That’s the biggest betrayal of all!”
He sighs. “Listen, Ivy. You have to trust me. Besides, didn’t things work out for the better?”
I let out a primal scream. I don’t give a flying fuck if this apartment is soundproof or not. I hope someone hears. I hopeeveryonehears.
Cart my ass off to jail for making too much noise, because I’d rather beanywherethan here. With this man. This betrayer. This ruiner of my fucking life and all I worked so hard for.
“I can’t believe the audacity. You think it’s okay to—what—manipulate me into thinking that these things are happening naturally? That you’re not a sick puppet master behind thescenes?” My stomach drops. “Next thing you’re going to tell me that my client doesn’t actually exist! That they’re fake. An AI-generated voice on the other end of the phone!”
He lets out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “No, Ivy. She’s not AI. She’s very real.”
My stomach twinges, and my eyes narrow. “How do you know her? Is she in on this? Are youpaying herto be my client? To take pity on me?!”
He shakes his head again, his eyes locking with mine. “She had a fling with my mentor many years ago,” he says. “Luckily for her, she got out of that arrangement, but she was always kind to me. We stayed in touch. She trusts me—the closest thing I have to a mother figure, actually. And when I recommended you, she treated that as a solid reference. She’s legit, I promise.”
My eyes narrow further, to the point I almost can’t see. Trying to block him out as his words roll around in my mind. “What else are you keeping from me, Soren? What else are you making seem like something it isn’t? Do you actually even care about me, or is this some cruel joke—some sick experiment—to you?”
He looks down again, frowning deeply. “Ivy. I’d never do anything to hurt you, and everything I do is for you—for us. You’re all I care about. I just thought this was the right move to make sure you could really let your nervous system settle. To work through your trauma in a sustainable way. Those clients weren’t good for you.”
I roar. “Are you telling me to heal?!” He’s hit a nerve, the same one that Adrian used topoke, poke, pokewith his little scalpel-like words. It’s a trigger, and I am a volcano, erupting with no way to shove it all back in. “Howdareyou?”
“No, no,” he puts his hands up in defense, palms facing me. “Ivy, it’s not like that. I just wanted you to be supported and in an environment conducive to?—.”
“Healing?!”
“No! To getting back to being yourself.”
I fight the urge to spit on him. “Semantics,” I huff.
He’s right, in a perverse way. I have felt more calm since those clients fired me. Just having one, who is a reasonable person, has allowed me focus I haven’t felt since starting the business.
I’m more productive, more certain of my strategy. I’m producing a better product as the result.
But that’s not the point!
Heliedto me. Got me canceled on the internet. Made me a laughing stock amongst my peers.
Sure, coverage of the situation was short-lived, but the internet has a long memory.
He altered my life, from behind the scenes, and was the one who was there to pick up the pieces when he caused the damn thing in the first place.
Rage, like nothing I’ve ever felt before, takes over my body. My skin burns as blood roars through my temples, blurring my vision and making my body tingle with energy.
I glance down at the phone in my hand—now a symbol for everything wrong—and hurl it at the wall. It hits with a crack, the screen splintering, and with a thud, lands face-down on the floor like something dead.
Soren glances at me, then back at the phone. He’s silent, his mouth slightly open.
I stand there, breathing hard, just staring at it.
My voice drops, dull. “How could I possibly ever trust you again? Afterthis? You’ve taken everything from me.”
“Because when have I ever done anything that wasn’t ultimately right for you in the end, Ivy?”