Novels by Foxy

Darius povI found her when the room had thinned to the last thirty or so, the committed professionals who stayed until the end of these things and the people who had nowhere better to be, and the staff beginning the quiet work of clearing, and the particular quality of a party in its final hour, the energy lower, the conversations more honest.She was near the exit, saying goodbye to someone, and I waited until the goodbye was finished and then I crossed the room.I had been telling myself all evening that I was not going to do this.I had watched her and Seth at the bar, the laugh, the ease of them together, the way she turned toward him the way she used to turn toward—I had been telling myself all evening that I was not going to do this and I was doing it anyway, which told me something about the gap between my intentions and my actual state that I was going to have to examine later.She saw me coming and waited, with the composure she always had in public, and she said the standa

Brynn PovI had not put him on the guest list.I want to be clear about that. The event was mine, I had curated every name on that list with the focused attention I brought to things that mattered professionally, and his name was not on it, and I had felt the particular satisfaction of a woman who had successfully managed her environment when I signed off on the final version three days ago.He arrived through a partner company's invitation, which was legitimate, which I could not challenge without a conversation I did not want to have in front of two hundred industry professionals, and so I saw him come through the door at eight-fifteen and I noted his presence and I returned to the conversation I was having about distribution rights in the Nordic market and I was completely fine about it.I monitored his position in the room for the next forty minutes.This was not something I did intentionally. It was more that I became aware, periodically and against my will, of where he was and w

Darius's POVThe photo arrived on a Monday morning, appearing in my inbox with a subject line that made my stomach drop before I'd even opened it."Press Flag - Potential Story Re: Brynn Haverton"My assistant Marcus had forwarded it with his usual efficiency, a brief note explaining that a gossip column was planning to run it in tomorrow's edition unless we wanted to intervene.I opened the attachment and felt something twist sharply in my chest.The photo was professionally shot, clearly taken by someone with a decent camera and an eye for composition.Brynn and Seth at what looked like an upscale restaurant, sitting close across a small table in a way that suggested intimacy and familiarity.They were both laughing at something, genuine joy written across their faces, Brynn's head tilted toward Seth in a way that was unmistakable even to someone who didn't know their history.The angle of her body, the warmth in her expression, the way Seth was looking at her like she'd hung the mo

Seth showed up at my hotel room the evening after Darius's office visit, takeout in hand and a determined expression on his face."We need to talk," he announced, settling onto the couch without waiting for an invitation."Hello to you too," I replied, but I took the container he offered me anyway because arguing with Seth when he was in this mood was pointless."Darius came to your office yesterday," Seth said without preamble.I paused with my chopsticks halfway to my mouth. "How do you know that?""Lena told me," he admitted, referencing my assistant who'd apparently decided my personal life was fair game for gossip with my best friend. "She said he looked devastated when he left.""Good," I said, trying to mean it."Brynn," Seth sighed, setting down his food. "I think you should hear him out."I stared at him. "That's easy for you to say. You're not the one who spent three years being destroyed by him.""You're right," Seth agreed. "It is easy for me to say because I'm not emotion

Darius povI asked her to dinner again three days after the school event, timing my call for early evening when I knew she'd be back at the hotel with the twins.The phone rang four times before she answered, her voice already holding a note of wariness."Darius.""Brynn," I replied, suddenly feeling like a teenager asking someone out for the first time. "I was hoping you might have dinner with me tomorrow night. Just the two of us."The pause stretched long enough that I thought she might have hung up."I can't," she said finally. "I'm busy tomorrow.""What about Thursday then?" I pressed."Busy then too," she replied, her tone polite but final.I looked down at the copy of her calendar I'd pulled up on my computer, the one our assistants shared for coordinating business meetings and merger logistics.Thursday evening was completely empty, blocked off with nothing but her standing reminder to have dinner with the twins."Brynn," I said carefully. "Why don't you want to have dinner wi

The drawer stuck, which it had always done, and when he forced it the envelopes slid forward and stopped against the lip of the desk.He looked at them.He had put them there the night before the surgery with the intention of never needing to open them, which had been the entire point of the exercise, the preparation that was designed to be unnecessary, the accounting made in advance of an event that did not occur. The surgery had been clean. Jake had recovered. The envelopes had been sitting in the drawer for weeks, sealed and undisturbed, waiting for him to deal with them or not deal with them or simply go on leaving them there the way he left things he was not yet ready to address.He sat down slowly.He opened Jake's first.He read it through once quickly, the way he read things when he was not sure he wanted to read them but had committed to doing it, and then he sat with it and read it again more slowly, the way he read things that required his full attention.The words were his