Chapter 4:Professional Distance

Arielle’s POV

I managed to get to my car before the tremors started.

Hands gripping the steering wheel. Knuckles white. Breathing as if Id just run a marathon instead of walking calmly—professionally, goddammit—out of his building.

His building.

Dominic had a building now. Glass and steel and his name in sleek letters across the lobby. HaleAI Technologies. A billion, dollar company hed built from nothing.

From the man who used to stress about making rent.

I still couldnt start the car. I couldnt risk it. I was not capable of driving.

Because if I closed my eyes, I was there again. In his kitchen. His hands on my hips. His mouth on my neck. The way hed whisper youre so fucking beautiful like it was a prayer and a curse at the same time.

Stop.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to get rid of the memory.

It didnt help. It never helped.

* * *

Three years earlier

The playlist was ours. Usher bleeding into Alicia Keys bleeding into something that made him pull me close and sway even though neither of us could dance.

What are you doing? Id laughed against his chest.

Dancing with my girl.

Like I belonged to him. Like he’d fight anyone who said otherwise.

I tilted my head back to look at him. “You hate dancing.”

“I hate a lot of things.” His hand slid down my spine, possessive and sure. “But I love you.”

The first time he’d said it.

Standing in his kitchen at midnight, both of us in our pajamas, the noodles long forgotten.

I’d kissed him. Pulled him down to me and kissed him like my life depended on it.

He’d lifted me onto the counter—the same counter where we’d cooked, argued about music, existed in our own perfect bubble—and made love to me so slowly I’d cried.

Not from pain.

From the overwhelming certainty that this man, this beautiful broken man who let me see all his sharp edges, was mine.

And I was his.

Completely.

* * *

My phone went rang and interrupted the memory.

Ashley.

I didn't answer it, but the moment she called again, I was regretting it.

I picked up. "Hey."

"Don't 'hey' me." She sounded barbed. She was scared. "How was the pitch?"

I looked at the skyscraper that was reflected in my rearview mirror. Forty, three floors of glass that mirrored the sky.

He was up there somewhere in his office. Maybe he was thinking about me. Maybe not. Maybe I was just another meeting to him now.

"Ari?" Ashley sounded worried. "You're really frightening me. Is it that bad?"

"I got the job."

Silence.

Then: "Alright, that's very good. So why do you sound like you've lost someone?"

I laughed. But it didn't sound right.

"It was Dominic's company."

"What?"

"HaleAI. It's his. He's the CEO. The client I've been getting ready for all weekend." I was almost crying. "It's him, Ash."

“Oh, fuck. Arielle—”

“I didn’t know. The brief just said HaleAI Technologies, and I didn’t… I was so busy with the Henderson project, I didn’t G****e it, I didn’t—”

“Breathe,” Ashley commanded. “Just breathe. Did you see him?”

See him.

Like that covered it.

Like “seeing” him was just a visual experience and not a full-body assault of every memory I’d tried to bury.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I saw him.”

“And?”

And he looked expensive. Successful. Like the man he always wanted to be.

And he looked at me like I was the only thing in that room.

And I wanted to run to him and scream at him in equal measure.

And I’m terrified because my body still knows his and my heart still breaks when I think about how he left.

“And I was professional,” I said instead. “Did my pitch. Got the contract. Left.”

“Ari.”

“I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

She was right. Of course she was right.

I wasn’t fine. I was the opposite of fine.

Because seeing Dominic again—older, sharper, wearing a suit that probably cost more than my monthly rent—didn’t make me angry.

It made me remember.

* * *

327 Steinway Street, Apartment 4C, Astoria, Queens

I’d found the messages by accident.

His phone on the counter. A notification lighting up the screen.

Lara: “Jerad asked about you today. He misses his daddy. I miss you too.”

My stomach had dropped.

Then another.

Lara: “Remember that night in Cabo? I think about it sometimes. About us.”

I’d picked up his phone. Unlocked it—I knew his passcode, he knew mine, we didn’t have secrets—and scrolled.

Days of messages. Her flirting. Him… not shutting it down fast enough.

Not reciprocating exactly. But not stopping it either.

And then I saw it.

Dominic: “Lara, we can’t. I’m with someone.”

Lara: “But are you happy? Really happy? Or are you just playing house because you’re scared of being like your father?”

Dominic: “That’s not fair.”

Lara: “Life isn’t fair, baby. But Jerad deserves a real family. Don’t you think?”

Baby.

She’d called him baby.

And he hadn’t corrected her.

I’d confronted him that night. Calmly at first. Then not so calmly.

“Are you getting back with her?”

“What? No. Arielle—”

“Then what the fuck is this?” I’d shoved the phone at him.

He’d looked sick. Guilty.

“She’s manipulating me. Using Jerad to—”

“And you’re letting her!”

“I don’t know how to handle this!” He’d run his hands through his hair, pacing. “My kid is asking about his mom. She’s saying she wants to try again, be a family. I don’t know what to do.”

“You tell her no. You tell her you’re with me.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple!” I’d been crying by then. “You either want to be with me or you don’t.”

He’d looked at me—really looked at me—and I’d seen it.

The doubt.

The fear.

The part of him that was already pulling away.

“I need time,” he’d said quietly. “To figure this out.”

And that’s when I should have left.

But I loved him.

So I stayed.

* * *

“Ari, you still there?”

Ashley’s voice pulled me back.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“You need to tell them you can’t do this project. Conflict of interest or something.”

“I can’t.” I started the car finally, hands steadier now. “It’s a six-month contract. Six figures. I need this, Ash.”

“You need your sanity more.”

Maybe. But sanity didn’t pay bills. Didn’t prove I’d built something successful. Didn’t show him I’d survived just fine without him.

“I can handle it,” I lied. “He’s just another client.”

“And I’m the Queen of England.”

I pulled out of the parking garage, forcing myself not to look back at his building.

“I have to go. I’ll call you later.”

“Arielle—”

I hung up.

Drove home on autopilot.

Climbed the stairs to my apartment—the one I’d chosen specifically because it was on the opposite side of the city from where we used to live.

The one with no memories.