All Chapters of Apex of Love: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

The pitch deck sticks to my palms. I press my thighs together under the conference table, wipe my hands on my skirt when no one's tracking me. Annika, the woman I'm replacing, wore a size four. I'm eight. The waistband bites a red trench into my stomach every time I inhale, and I've been inhaling plenty because the air in here is thin and tastes of other people's sweat.The fluorescents buzz. Not a hum. A buzz. Like a horsefly beating itself dead against a windowpane."I'm sorry, who are you?"The man across the table has jewels and a tie that costs more than my monthly rent on the east side. He studies me like an entreé he didn't order."Lena. I'm subbing for Annika. Sinus infection." My voice spikes higher than I intend. I clear my throat. "I have the Henderson projections.""Annika has the Henderson projections.""Annika emailed them to me at six this morning. Between sneezes." I slide the deck across the table. The wood gleams like a frozen lake. "Pages four through seven."He doe

The elevator doors retract. The forty-second floor exhales a silence that isn't soft—it's the silence of a building emptied of witnesses. The corridor unspools in both directions, lit only by the emergency track lighting and the city's ambient bleed through the floor-to-ceiling glass at the far end. Detroit glitters below: sodium-orange grids, the black coil of the river, the Penobscot Building's red orb throbbing its metronome beat. Beyond it, the Guardian Building's green-tipped spire glows steady as a vigil candle.My heels strike polished concrete. Too loud. I adjust my weight to the balls of my feet, muffling—then I stop myself. He summoned you. Stop creeping.His office occupies the corridor's end. I know because I checked the directory in the elevator this afternoon, after the pen, after the crouch, after I swore I'd never set foot in this tower again. The door is a slab of frosted glass. Light seeps through it in a warm, amber, unexpected way. I expected surgical blue-white. T

The tailor measured me Tuesday, silent and surgical, her tape cinching my hips, my bust, the width of my shoulders. She never inquired about preference. She'd only nodded. "He'll approve."He'll approve. As if the dress was never intended for me. As if I was the hanger.The dress lands at 4:30 PM on a Saturday in a box that outweighs my suitcase.Marcus Webb brought it. He positions it on the bed—the bed, possessive pronoun, as if I've earned it and withdraws without a single statement. The Black matte box is unmarked except for a silver emblem I don't recognize. When I lift the lid, the tissue paper rasps with the crispness of freshness.Emerald. Not green. Emerald. The precise shade of the vein in Julian Croft's forearm, the one I've been tracking for days.I removed the dress. The silk crepe slides through my fingers, liquid weight. A column, sleeveless, neckline made to plummet just far enough. No sequins. No ornament. The statement is the color, the drape, the way the fabric swal

The penthouse door closes and the sound registers in my spine. Not a slam. Not a click. A soft, pneumatic hush that says the room itself has been waiting.Julian walks past me without a word. He crosses to the sideboard where the decanter waits and pours two fingers of scotch into a glass that catches the last light. The Penobscot Building's red orb hasn't fired yet. The sky outside the window wall is the color of old steel, that particular Detroit gray that hangs over the river before the lights kick on at 5:47 PM exactly.I stay near the door. My boots are still laced. My coat is still buttoned. I'm gripping the strap of my bag like it's the last solid thing in the room."Take off the dress."His voice is low and even. He doesn't turn around."I'm not wearing a dress."He turns. The glass stops halfway to his mouth. His eyes travel over me and my jeans and my sweater and my scuffed boots and my coat I haven't removed. The assessment takes half a second and I feel it in my teeth."Ta

A few days later, I discovered another side to Julian Croft. It was both unexpected and intriguing. This time the setting was at sea. The Mediterranean is not blue. That's the first lie. It's green where the shore shelves and gray out in the deep and silver only when the sun hits it at noon. Right now it's churning, and the yacht is churning with it, and my stomach is churning worst of all.I clamp the railing on the upper deck and try to pull air through my nose. The wind whips my hair into my mouth. Salt grits my lips and stings the corners of my eyes. Below me, deckhands in crisp white uniforms move without trouble. They belong here. I belong in a studio on Van Dyke Avenue where the floor stays still.Julian stands ten feet off, talking to a man in a blue blazer about docking rights. His voice is steady. His shoulders are relaxed. He's been on this boat a hundred times. Nothing bothers him.I press a palm against my stomach. Sweat gathers along my hairline despite the cold wind. I