Page 82 of Double or Nothing

Careless.

Obvious.

“Morning, Bryce,” Caroline says as I pass her by.

I give her my professional smile. The polished one. The mask I’ve worn so long it should come with its own pension plan. It would probably pay better than mine.

“Morning.”

My voice sounds almost normal. That’s a plus.

I make it to my office without being intercepted, and the second the door closes behind me I press both hands to my desk and lean over, sucking in air like a man rescued from drowning.

I haven’t had a panic attack in years. Not a proper one. Not even when Sylvia finally left for good and tossed her keys on the coffee table with a farewell and a scathing side eye.

I try to reassure myself with a string of affirmations.

This is fine. It’s all fine. It’s going to be ok. It has to be fine, because this is me. This is my universe. It’s where I belong.

No one knows anything. Bill doesn’t know anything. Alice won’t say anything. Jack might blab his mouth off for the world to hear, but Jack isn’t here, thank Christ, and hopefully even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to announce what happened to a room full of Parker Capital board members.

Or would he?

My stomach flips.

Yes. He absolutely bloody would if the mood took him.

Asshole.

I breathe in from the pit of my stomach. Breathing exercises work. I know them like the back of my hand.

This is fine. It’s all fine.

Nobody knows anything, and they’re not going to. Safe is good. Safe is safe. Boring is good. It’s great. It’s everything.

I drop into my chair and open my laptop. Emails flood the screen. Merger documents. Final amendments from last week’s briefing. Board circulation reports. Notes for the upcoming meeting. And then a message from Bill sent at 6:52 a.m.

Swing by. We need to talk.

My heart stops.

Not slows.

Stops.

Three seconds. Maybe four.

Then the panic kicks back in harder than before.

Swing by.

Two words, casual as anything, but they hit me like a noose tightening around my neck. Bill doesn’t use that terminology. Not ever.

He knows everything.

He can’t know.

He knows something.