Page 171 of Sin

The Sex Activity Pro email is still there. Actually, there are three now. They haven’t withdrawn the offer, bur increased it. Because apparently nothing says marketable like surviving a scandal and still being good at your job.

The newest message is from their Chief Creative Officer.

We remain deeply impressed with your work and want to be clear that recent public attention has not changed our interest. In fact, your leadership under pressure only strengthens our belief that you are exactly the voice we need.

That line makes me sit back. Leadership under pressure. Is that what we’re calling crying in a lawyer’s office and ignoring internet strangers who think I should be burned at the stake?

The compensation number is obscene. It’s lifechanging. Debt-erasing. Future-building. There’s also a new signing bonus. And a clean title that has nothing to do with sleeping with the man whose name is on the building.

I read it again. Then I open the SINsual agreement.

Return to work. Same role, with title adjustment under review. Launch bonus protected. Legal support. Public credit for the Sins line. Separate reporting structure. No retaliation. No direct oversight from Mason Sinclair..

The agreements sit open side by side on my screen. Two futures. One familiar and burned around the edges. One bright and unfamiliar and maybe too good to trust.

If I stay at SINsual Adult Toys, am I choosing my work?

Or am I choosing him?

If I go to Sex Activity Pro, am I choosing myself?

Or am I running so I don’t have to find out whether love survives daylight?

I close the laptop.

“Great,” I tell my empty apartment. “No answers. Very helpful.”

I make tea and forget about it until it’s cold. Then I open a box labeled KITCHEN and find books inside, because apparently past Laurel was either chaotic or actively malicious. I sit on the floor surrounded by half-unpacked pieces of my life and try to imagine returning to the office. Opal shrieking when she sees me. Tate pretending not to watch me too carefully. Owen using the phrase conflict management plan with the grave seriousness of a man discussing international diplomacy.

And Sin.

At the far end of a hallway. In a conference room. Across a table. No longer allowed to be my boss. Maybe no longer allowed to be anything. Would he look at me? Would I look away? Would I spend the rest of my career measuring the distance between us in office doors and legal protocols?

Then I imagine Sex Activity Pro.

A new building. New faces. New title. No one knowing exactly how my laugh sounds in Sin’s bed. No one knowing I once loved the man whose company I left behind.

Except they would know. The difference is, they’d be paying me enough to pretend they don’t. My doorbell rings and I go completely still. The sound comes again.

I check the security app on my phone. A courier stands downstairs holding a flat envelope. Not flowers, thank god. I buzz him up because apparently I am still capable of poor decisions. By the time he reaches my door, I have shoes on, my phone in hand, and the deadbolt chain still in place.

“Delivery for Laurel Cross,” he says.

I make him slide the envelope through the gap like I’m accepting a ransom note in a thriller, which feels dramatic but also appropriate given my recent relationship with mail. After he leaves, I lock every lock again. Then I stand in the entryway and stare at the envelope.

No return address. But I know as soon as I see my name written in strong, precise letters.

Sin.

My knees weaken.

I carry the envelope to the kitchen counter like it might explode if handled incorrectly. Maybe it will. Maybe whatever is inside will blow apart the careful little wall I’ve spent two weeks building. Maybe it says he’s sorry. Maybe it says goodbye. Maybe it says everything I have wanted to hear. Maybe that is worse.

I run one finger over my name. For one second, I almost open it. My thumb slips under the corner. Then I stop.

Not yet. Not while I’m standing in my kitchen with cold tea and shaking hands and a future I haven’t chosen. Not while a letter from Sin might make the choice for me if I let it.

I set it on the counter faceup. His handwriting staring back at me.