Alan's room smells like antiseptic and the particular staleness of bodies kept too still for too long. The blinds are half-drawn, slicing the morning light into bars across the floor. Machines hum steadily, the rhythm too calm for what’s happening inside me.
The flowers on the table are already dying—cheap lilies someone sent out of obligation. Their sweetness turns sour in the heat. I sit in the visitor's chair, watching him stare out the window at nothing, his casted leg propped on pillows like some grotesque trophy.
"They won't let me take you home," I tell him.
"The doctor said another day or two." He turns his head, and the bruising on his face has deepened to purple and yellow. "Remember when we used to play hospital? You'd wrap my arm in toilet paper and pretend to be the mean nurse."
"I wasn't pretending."
He laughs, then winces. "You used to boss me around so much. 'Alan, lie still. Alan, stop whining.'"
"You were a terrible patient then too."
"We'd steal cookies from Mom's hiding spot and eat them under the kitchen table." His voice goes soft, nostalgic. "You said they were our payment for surviving her cooking."
I don't remember it that way. I remember being hungry and angry, the taste of stale cookies mixed with resentment. But Alan's green eyes have that faraway look, polishing memories until they shine with a warmth they never had.
"Those were good times," he says.
"Were they?"
"Come on, Tess. Not everything was bad."
"Most things were." The words come out flat. "You're allowed to admit that."
He shifts in the bed, careful of his ribs. "You never let yourself remember the good parts."
"Maybe there weren't any good parts to remember."
Silence stretches between us. Outside, a nurse's shoes squeak down the hallway. Alan picks at the edge of his blanket, and I watch the guilt work across his face like a slow-moving tide.
"You look exhausted," he says finally. "When's the last time you slept?"
"I'm fine."
"Tess."
"What?"
"Go see Emily. Go do something that isn't sitting here watching me heal." His voice cracks slightly. "You're making yourself sick trying to fix this, and I can't…I can't watch you destroy yourself for me."
Something twists in my chest. "I'm not destroying myself."
"You are. I can see it." He reaches out, and I take his hand because refusing would hurt him more. "Please. Just go live your life for a few hours. Emily's been texting me asking about you."
"You told her?"
"I told her you were stressed. Not why." He squeezes my fingers. "Go. I'm not going anywhere."
***
I leave the hospital with the taste of antiseptic still clinging to the back of my throat. The city looks the same, but it feels thinner, like something essential has been peeled away.
Emily's club doesn't advertise. Just a brick building with an unmarked door, the kind of place you only find if you already know where to look. She buzzes me in, and the interior steals my breath.
Velvet and leather everywhere. Low lighting even in the afternoon. Private rooms line the hallway, doors closed on spaces designed for negotiations that happen in whispers and touch. The main area has couches that look expensive and sinful, a bar with crystal decanters, mirrors positioned to reflect desire back on itself.
"You like it?" Emily appears from a back room, grinning. "It's finally mine. All mine."
"It's incredible." And it is. The space hums with potential even empty, with the promise of what happens here when the lights go lower and people shed their daily masks.
"Took everything I had, but worth it." She pulls me into a hug. "God, you look terrible. Alan wasn't kidding."
"I'm just tired."
"Sure. And I'm just a businesswoman." She leads me to a corner couch. "Sit. Talk. Tell me what's eating you."
"Work stress. Family stuff. The usual."
"Liar." Her gaze is direct, knowing. "But I'll let you keep your secrets. For now."
Then I ask: “You ever feel like your life’s a balance sheet? One side labeled control, the other collapse?”
Emily grins. “Always. Control is foreplay.”
“I’m serious.”
She laughs. “So am I. You hold on until it hurts, then you call it discipline.”
Relief and guilt tangle in my chest. I want to tell her everything, but the words stick in my throat.
"So," she says, settling beside me. "How's our favorite CEO? Still making you flustered?"
Heat crawls up my neck. "I don't get flustered."
"You're flustered right now."
"I'm not… "
"Please. You're thinking about him." Her smile turns wicked. "Probably thinking about him in one of these rooms."
The image hits me before I can stop it. James, in the dim light, his control stripped away. His hands on my skin, his mouth at my throat. Me pressed against velvet walls or on my knees on expensive carpet, boundaries negotiated with touch, power exchanged like breath. His voice in my ear, telling me exactly what he wants, what he's going to do, what he needs me to give him.
My body responds, heat pooling low and insistent, and I hate how transparent I am.
"There it is," Emily says. "That look."
"Stop."
"Why? It's healthy. He's gorgeous, you're attracted to him, and you spend half your life pretending you're not." She leans back. "When are you going to do something about it?"
"Never. He's my boss."
"So? People fuck their bosses all the time."
"I'm not going to…" My phone buzzes, cutting me off.
Unknown number. My stomach drops.
I open the message, and the world narrows to a pinpoint. Another photograph. Alan being wheeled through the hospital garden, the angle close enough to see the fear in his eyes. Whoever took this was standing right there. Right beside him.
Three days.
"Tess?" Emily's voice sounds distant. "Everything okay?"
I shove the phone in my pocket, force my face into something resembling calm. "Fine. Just work."
"At four in the afternoon?"
"Finance never sleeps." I stand, my legs unsteady. "I should go. I have some things to handle before my shift."
Her dark brown eyes narrow, but she doesn't push. "Call me if you need anything. I mean it."
"I will."
Outside, the afternoon light feels too bright, too normal for the terror clawing through me. Three days. They're watching Alan. They're close enough to touch him, and I can't protect him. Can't fix this with willpower or competence or any of the tools I've spent my life perfecting.
I need a solution. Any solution.