Chapter 28 Return to Work

Chapter 28 Return to Work
Amelia Noah POV
The elevator to the thirty-second floor smells like coffee and ambition. Three weeks ago, that combination meant Monday morning possibility. Now it means my hands are shaking and I'm counting breaths—four in, hold, six out—while a woman from accounting pretends not to notice me clutching the handrail.
The doors open. I step into the glass-and-chrome hallway of Sterling & Cross Marketing like I'm entering a museum of someone else's life.
"Amelia!" Jenna from Creative practically sprints toward me, arms wide, face arranged in exaggerated sympathy. "Oh my God, we've been so worried! Are you okay? Of course you're not okay, that's a stupid question, I'm so sorry—"
She hugs me before I can stop her. Her perfume is floral and overwhelming. I stand rigid, arms at my sides, until she releases me.
"I'm managing," I say, the phrase I've practiced. Neutral. Doesn't invite questions.
"Well, if you need anything—anything—I'm here. We all are." She squeezes my shoulder, and I see it in her eyes: the hunger for details. The morbid curiosity dressed up as concern. She wants to know what it was like. What he was like. How close I came.
I smile tightly. "Thank you."
My office is exactly as I left it—laptop closed, coffee mug still on the desk with dried residue at the bottom, sticky notes about the Hartfield campaign scattered across my monitor. Someone watered my plant. The normalcy of it makes my chest tight.
I sit in my chair. It's the same chair. I'm not the same person.
"Welcome back." My boss, Richard, appears in my doorway with that particular expression people wear around trauma survivors—careful, like I'm made of glass and might shatter if he speaks too loudly. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," I lie.
"Listen, we want to make this transition as easy as possible. Reduced hours, work-from-home flexibility, whatever you need. The Hartfield campaign can wait—Mitchell's handling it. No pressure." He sits in the chair across from me, the one where clients usually sit. "Take all the time you need."
The kindness is genuine, and somehow that makes it worse. Because I can see in his face that he doesn't know what to do with me. None of them do. I'm the woman who almost got murdered on vacation. I'm the story they'll tell at happy hours, voices dropping to whispers: Did you hear about Amelia?
"I appreciate that," I say. "I'd like to ease back in. Maybe half days this week?"
Richard nods too enthusiastically. "Perfect. Absolutely. Whatever works."
After he leaves, I open my laptop. Three hundred forty-seven unread emails. I scan the subject lines: Q2 metrics, client feedback, team lunch schedule, someone's birthday cake in the break room. The banality of it feels obscene.
My calendar notification pops up: 10 AM meeting, Conference Room B. "Hartfield Campaign Strategy Session."
I should care about this. Four months ago, landing the Hartfield account was the pinnacle of my career. Luxury watches, sophisticated branding, the campaign that would make me senior director. I'd stayed late perfecting pitch decks, obsessed over consumer psychology, calculated engagement metrics down to the decimal point.
Now I stare at the meeting reminder and feel nothing.
The conference room is full when I arrive. Mitchell gives me a sympathetic nod. Jenna smiles too brightly. Everyone's trying so hard to act normal that the abnormality suffocates.
"Great, we're all here," Richard says. "Let's dive into Q3 strategy. Mitchell, walk us through the revised messaging."
Mitchell clicks through slides: target demographics, brand positioning, consumer touchpoints. Words like "aspirational lifestyle" and "emotional resonance" and "conversion optimization." I used to speak this language fluently. Now it sounds like he's speaking underwater.
"The key is creating desire," Mitchell says. "Making the consumer feel incomplete without the product. We're not selling watches—we're selling the person they could become."
Creating desire. Making people feel incomplete.
David's voice in my head, whisper-soft: You're exactly what I've been looking for. Like you were made for me.
My heart rate spikes. The conference room walls feel closer.
"Amelia?" Richard's voice. "Thoughts on the emotional angle?"
Everyone's looking at me. I realize I've missed something. My mouth opens, but different words come out than I intended:
"What if they're already complete? What if the marketing strategy is built on exploitation—manufacturing insecurity to sell solutions people don't need?" I hear myself talking, can't stop. "We're literally strategizing how to manipulate people's emotions for profit. That's—that's what predators do. Create need, fill it, make the target dependent—"
Silence. Jenna's face is frozen mid-smile. Mitchell stares at his laptop.
"I think," Richard says carefully, "what Amelia means is we should focus on authentic value proposition rather than manufactured urgency. Right, Amelia?"
"Sure," I whisper. "That's what I meant."
But it's not. And we both know it.
The meeting continues. I stop talking. When it ends, I'm first out the door, heading for the bathroom on autopilot.
The elevator opens on the lobby level—I hit the wrong button. A man in an expensive suit steps in. Tom from Legal, I think. Or maybe Sales. He smiles politely.
Then his cologne hits me.
Woody. Citrus. Mediterranean.
The elevator walls tilt. My vision tunnels. I'm back in Santorini, David's hand on my lower back as we walk through the resort, his cologne mixing with sea salt and lies—
"You okay?" Tom-or-maybe-not-Tom asks.
I can't breathe. The elevator is a box. A trap. He's between me and the door. Exit blocked. Predator positioning. Calculated. He knows. He's working with David. This is the next phase—
The elevator dings. Thirty-second floor. I push past him, ignore his confused "Hey—", run down the hallway and into the women's bathroom.
I lock myself in a stall. Sit on the closed toilet lid. Press my forehead against the cool metal divider.
Four breaths in. Can't hold. Six breaths out come in gasps.
My phone buzzes. Kate: How's first day back?
I type: I had a panic attack because someone wore cologne.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Kate: Come home. This isn't worth it.
But I'm supposed to be recovered. I'm supposed to slot back into my life like the last month was just a vacation gone wrong. Take some trauma leave, see a therapist, return to normal programming.
Except there is no normal. That woman—the one who cared about watch campaigns and corner offices and client retention rates—she died on a cliff in Greece. I survived. We're not the same person.
I stay in the bathroom stall for twenty minutes. When I finally emerge, Jenna's at the sinks reapplying lipstick.
"There you are! We're ordering lunch—Thai okay?" She's aggressively cheerful, determined to act like everything's fine.
"I'm not hungry."
"Oh. Okay. Well, if you change your mind—" She trails off, registering my expression. "Amelia, are you... do you want to talk about it? Like, what happened over there?"
There it is. The question everyone's dancing around.
"No," I say flatly. "I don't."
Her face flushes. "I'm just trying to help—"
"I know. Thank you. But I can't—" I stop. Start again. "I can't pretend this is normal. I can't sit in meetings about consumer manipulation. I can't smell cologne without dissociating. I can't be here."
I walk out before she can respond.
Richard's office door is open. I knock anyway.
"Amelia. Come in. Everything okay?" The same careful tone. The same glass-person treatment.
"I need to take extended leave," I say. "Personal. Medical. Whatever the formal term is. I need to not be here."
He nods slowly. "How long are you thinking?"
"I don't know. The trial's in December. Through that, at least. Maybe longer." My voice cracks. "I'm sorry. I know this puts the team in a difficult position—"
"Don't apologize." Richard's expression shifts—genuine concern now, not performative. "You survived something terrible. Take whatever time you need. Your job will be here."
But will I? Will the woman who wants this job even exist when the trial ends?
"I'll have HR process the paperwork," he continues. "When you're ready to come back, just let us know. No pressure."
I thank him. Head to HR on the twenty-eighth floor. Sandra, the benefits coordinator, pulls up my file with practiced efficiency.
"Extended medical leave, starting immediately," she confirms. "FMLA covers up to twelve weeks, then we can discuss long-term disability if needed. You'll maintain benefits throughout. I'll send the paperwork to your personal email."
"Thank you."
She hesitates, fingers hovering over her keyboard. "There's one other thing. Last week, we received a legal inquiry about your employment history. From—" she checks her screen, "—Pemberton & Associates, London. They requested your personnel file, performance reviews, any disciplinary actions."
My blood goes cold. "What did you tell them?"
"Nothing, per company policy. We don't release employee information without a subpoena. But I thought you should know they're asking questions." Sandra lowers her voice. "Is this about... the case in Greece?"
"It's David's defense team," I say numbly. "They're building their character assassination. Looking for evidence I'm unstable, unreliable, anything to discredit my testimony."
"They won't find it. Your record is spotless." But Sandra's face is troubled. "Still. If they're investigating your employment, they're probably investigating everything else too."
She's right. My stomach turns. They're digging through my entire life—jobs, relationships, medical history, social media, every mistake and vulnerability and private moment—weaponizing it all to prove I'm too broken to be believed.
I thank Sandra and leave. Take the elevator down thirty-two floors. Walk out into Manhattan afternoon sun that feels too bright, air too thin.
Kate's waiting at the corner, leaning against her car. She takes one look at my face and opens the passenger door.
"Let's go home," she says.
I slide into the seat. The door closes. Through the window, I watch people rushing past—briefcases and coffee cups and phone calls about meetings and deadlines and the contained dramas of ordinary professional life.
I used to be one of them. Now I'm someone else entirely.
And David's lawyers are coming for whoever she is.

Retry
C
Chapter 29: Therapy Begins POV: Amelia Noah Setting: Therapist's office, Upper West Side Plot Summary: Kate finds Amelia a trauma specialist—Dr. Sarah Chen, who works specifically with survivors of intimate partner violence and manipulation. First session, Amelia expects to tell "the story" chronologically. Instead, Dr. Chen asks: "What's the hardest part right now?" Amelia breaks down admitting she still has feelings for David—not the real him, but the version he performed. She dreams about their sunset photos and wakes up hating herself for missing someone who tried to kill her. Dr. Chen explains trauma bonding: her brain created attachment during the romance phase, and those neural pathways don't disappear just because she discovered the truth. The feelings aren't wrong or weak—they're normal neurological responses to manipulation. They begin EMDR therapy to process the trauma, starting with the earliest warning signs she dismissed. Dr. Chen introduces a crucial concept: Amelia didn't "let" anything happen to her—David is a sophisticated predator who has perfected his methods over a decade. Her job