Page 44 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
The morning arrives like an executioner—quiet, inevitable, impossible to bargain with.
I've been awake since four, watching the darkness outside my window gradually give way to gray, then pale gold. My body is exhausted, but my mind won't stop racing, cycling through the same thoughts over and over. What to wear. What to say. How to sit across from a murderer and pretend I'm there to discuss flower arrangements.
By seven, I give up on the pretense of rest and drag myself to the shower. The hot water helps a little, loosening the tension in my shoulders, washing away some of the fog in my head. I stand under the spray until it runs cold, then force myself to step out and face the mirror.
The woman looking back at me is a stranger. Hollow eyes, sharp cheekbones, skin that's lost its color. I've lost weight this past week—too much, too fast. The kind of weight loss that makes people ask if you're sick, if you're okay, if there's something you want to talk about.
I am sick. I'm not okay. And there's nothing I can talk about, not without putting everyone I love in danger.
I apply makeup with hands that won't stop trembling. Foundation to even out the pallor. Concealer for the shadows under my eyes. Blush to fake the appearance of health. It's armor, I tell myself. A mask to hide behind.
The irony isn't lost on me. He wears masks, too.
The closet is next. I stand in front of it for twenty minutes, paralyzed by choices that shouldn't matter but somehow feel life-or-death. What do you wear to a business meeting with theman who's been systematically destroying your life? What outfit saysI'm a professionalandyou don't scare me,andplease don't kill me?
I settle on a navy blouse and black trousers. Simple. Professional. The kind of thing I'd wear to any client meeting, if this were any client meeting, if anything about this situation were normal.
It's not normal. Nothing about this is normal.
By ten-thirty, I'm dressed, made up, and standing in my kitchen staring at the dahlia on my table. It's still alive, somehow. Still beautiful, its dark petals catching the morning light like silk. I should have thrown it away days ago. Weeks ago. The moment I found it on my doorstep.
But I didn't. I kept it. Tended it. And now it's watching me prepare to walk into the serpent's den, a silent witness to my surrender.
"I'm not surrendering," I say out loud, my voice strange in the empty apartment. "I'm surviving. There's a difference."
The dahlia doesn't respond.
I consider not going. The thought has been surfacing all morning, rising like a bubble through deep water. I could just not show up. Block his number. Pack a bag and drive until I run out of road. Disappear the way my mother always seemed ready to disappear, with a bag by the door and a plan that never quite got spoken aloud.
But I know how that ends. He found my phone number. He found my clients. He found his way into my apartment while I slept. If I run, he'll find me. And the punishment for running will be worse than whatever awaits me at this lunch.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
The truth is more complicated. The truth is that some part of me doesn't want to run. Some part of me is tired of hiding, of cowering, of waiting for the next blow to fall. If I'm going to be destroyed, I'd rather see it coming. I'd rather face the monster head-on than spend the rest of my life jumping at shadows.
I grab my bag and head for the door before I can change my mind.
The restaurant is in the financial district, a part of the city I rarely visit. The buildings here are all glass and steel, monuments to wealth and power, their surfaces reflecting the pale autumn sky. People move along the sidewalks with purpose, their expensive shoes clicking against concrete, their eyes fixed on destinations I can't imagine.
I feel out of place. Conspicuous. Like everyone can see that I don't belong here, that I'm a florist from a cramped apartment playing dress-up in a world that could swallow me whole.
Ristorante Umberto occupies the ground floor of a building that looks like it was designed to intimidate. The entrance is understated—just a brass nameplate and a heavy wooden door—but the interior screams money. White tablecloths, crystal glassware, the soft murmur of conversations conducted in hushed, important tones.
A maître d' in a suit that probably cost more than my rent approaches me with a practiced smile.
"Welcome to Umberto's. Do you have a reservation?"
"I'm meeting someone. Gabriel Ambrose."
The name transforms his expression from polite to reverent. "Of course. Mr. Ambrose is expecting you. Right this way, please."
He leads me through the main dining room, past tables occupied by people who look like they make more money in a day than I make in a year. We stop at a door at the back of the restaurant—unmarked, unassuming—and the maître d' opens it with a small bow.
"Mr. Ambrose. Your guest has arrived."
And there he is.
He's sitting at a table set for two, positioned so that his back is to the wall and his face is to the door. A predator's instinct, I realize. He wanted to see me the moment I walked in.
