Leaving Home

At nine that evening, a stranger put Zariel's favorite sweater into a plastic crate as though it belonged to someone who had died.

"Careful with the books," she said, catching a paperback before it slid beneath a stack of shoes.

"They bend if you put them in like that."

The guard changed its position without speaking.

His colleague was already closing another crate, and between them her bedroom was emptying faster than she could decide what to keep beside her.

She took the blanket off her bed and folded it against her chest. Moving had once meant cardboard boxes borrowed from a shop. Tonight there were two men in suits and an armored vehicle waiting below.

"You can leave those clothes," Kaelen said from the doorway.

He had removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. In her narrow hall, beside the peeling wallpaper, he looked as inconvenient as a grand piano someone had delivered to the wrong address.

"They are mine," Zariel said. "Being unfashionable doesn't make them disposable."

"There is a wardrobe waiting at the penthouse. Everything has been fitted to your measurements."

She glanced at him over the blanket. "You arrange a lot of things before telling people."

"Your clothes must suit the occasions you will attend."

"My blanket won't be attending your board meetings. It's coming."

She pushed it into her duffel and added her hair products. Kaelen looked from the bottles to her loose curls, then checked his watch.

"Five minutes. Photographers are beginning to gather near this area."

"Already?" She turned toward the bedroom window, keeping away from the glass.

"Which is why the vehicle is armored. Finish packing."

She gathered the remaining things she could carry herself. The guards would manage the crates, but she wanted her bag in her own hands.

Her sweater caught on the zip, she freed it carefully, then looked around the room.

The mattress was bare. A pale square on the wall showed where she had kept her small shelves.

She had complained about this apartment for years, the cramped bathroom, the draft, the neighbour's television. Now she wanted another evening in it.

She checked the empty shelves one last time, making sure none of the books had been left behind. Everything she wanted was packed, and that made leaving harder rather than easier.

Kaelen waited in the hall while she checked the duffel. He offered no farewell to the place and no explanation to make leaving easier.

Twenty minutes later she was sitting beside him in the back of the vehicle, watching her street retreat through tinted glass.

He opened his laptop before they reached the corner. She put the duffel at her feet and took out her personal phone, leaving the company device in her bag.

Her family's account loaded slowly enough to make her check the connection. Then the balance appeared, followed by the status beneath it.

Paid in full. Account closed. No outstanding amount.

Zariel touched the screen as if it might vanish. She opened the details, checked the name, and read them again. The house debt was gone, along with the bills she had stopped opening without a calculator beside her.

Brenda would not have to pack her own bedroom. The bank would no longer decide whether she could stay in the home where Zariel had grown up.

"Has the transfer cleared?" Kaelen asked without looking up.

"Yes." Zariel lowered the phone, then raised it again because she wanted one more look. "It's all there."

"The confirmation should be saved with your records."

"Thank you," she said, the words rougher than she expected. "For Brenda. Whatever else happens, you've kept her in her house."

"The payment is an advance. I expect you to deliver the service agreed."

She put her phone away. Gratitude was harder to hold when he insisted on presenting it as a receipt, but the relief remained.

"Tomorrow your behaviour must withstand scrutiny," he continued. "Julian is already examining my schedule."

"Your stepbrother?" Zariel pictured the man who attended events only to find fault with Kaelen.

"Does he have nothing else to run?"

"He runs a rival business. He would prefer to run mine."

"And an engagement gives him a new place to look."

"He favours leaks and sabotage. If he traces this to your agency, he can damage the merger and challenge my position."

Zariel shifted toward him. This part she understood better than the silence between them, clients terrified of somebody finding the seam in a story.

"Then stop calling me Miss Thorne when we're in public."

Kaelen's fingers paused over the keyboard. "You object to your name?"

"I object to sounding like your appointment reminder. Lovers use first names."

"You will have to adjust more than a form of address."

"So will you. I've trained people to play spouses for much nastier families than a room full of investors. They have to know their partner, and the partner has to cooperate."

He closed his laptop. Without its light between them, she could see him watching her instead of the numbers.

"In private, you remain Miss Thorne. In public, you will be Zariel Sterling."

She disliked how easily he assigned both versions of her. Still, she would need him to believe she could do this, and she could. Her clients paid her to solve exactly such problems.

The car entered the Monolith's underground garage. Men with earpieces waited near the elevator, and cameras followed their path across the polished concrete.

Kaelen stepped out first. Zariel took her duffel and followed, refusing to leave it for another guard. He walked straight to the private elevator without offering his hand.

Inside, she watched the floor numbers climb. Her reflection still had the same curls, the same tired eyes, the same bag held close to her knees.

Kaelen stood beside her, facing the doors. Somewhere above them was the home he had arranged for a woman whose life he could now describe down to her bank balance.

The elevator stopped, and he turned toward her before the doors opened.

"There are rules you need to understand before you go any further."