Chapter 25 A Message

Chapter 25 A Message
Weekends were the only thing keeping me sane lately. Two days to breathe, to sleep, to pretend my life wasn’t a tangled mess of residency stress, emotional confusion, and… whatever was happening with Sarah.

I expected her back today. She hadn’t said she would come, but I still expected her. Maybe because the apartment felt too quiet without her.

But she didn’t show.And the silence felt heavier than usual.

All week, that strange feeling had been creeping up my spine—the sense of being watched. It started the night I saw the black car outside my building. I kept telling myself it was paranoia, stress, exhaustion.

But today… it was worse.

I went out to pick up groceries, trying to shake the unease. The moment I stepped out of the store, my heart dropped.

The same black car. Parked across the street. Engine off. Windows tinted.

Watching.

I froze for a second, pulse hammering in my ears. Then I forced myself to walk home like nothing was wrong. I didn’t want to give whoever was inside the satisfaction of seeing me scared.

But when I got home and peeked through my window, the car was still there. That was it. Fear snapped into anger.

I grabbed my keys, marched downstairs, and walked straight toward the car. My hands were shaking, but I refused to back down. If someone wanted to intimidate me, they picked the wrong day.

I knocked on the window—hard.

The door opened, and an older man, maybe in his fifties, looked up at me. Calm. Too calm. Like he’d been expecting me.

“Yes, miss?” he said politely. That only made me angrier.

“Tell your boss to stop whatever he’s doing,” I snapped. “I don’t want to be followed. I don’t want to be watched. I don’t want anything to do with him. He told me to lose his number, so I did. He needs to leave me alone.”

The man blinked once, expression unreadable. “Understood,” he said quietly.

I didn’t wait for anything else. I turned and walked back to my building, my heart pounding, my hands trembling, adrenaline buzzing under my skin.

But as I reached the door, a cold realization hit me:I never said who “his boss” was. I never said a name.
I never said anything specific. And the man didn’t ask.He knew exactly who I meant.

When I stepped back into the apartment, still buzzing with adrenaline from confronting that driver, my phone chimed.

A message. From him.

“You do not tell me what to do. I do.”

I stared at the screen, my breath catching for a moment. What?

I read it again, slower this time, as if the words might rearrange themselves into something that made sense. But they didn’t. They stayed exactly as they were—cold, commanding, and completely contradictory.

So he wanted me to delete his number. Fine. I did.

But he still had someone watching me?Still had a car following me around the city? Still felt entitled to send messages like that?

I let out a humorless laugh. “What a confused person,” I muttered under my breath. Because none of it added up.

I tossed my keys onto the counter, pacing the living room as the message burned in my mind. This wasn’t someone who wanted distance.This was someone who wanted control.

I decided that during my call with my mother today—maybe even with Sarah, if she ever came back—I would finally say something. This feeling of being watched wasn’t going away, and what if something actually happened to me? Someone needed to know.

Robin was coming over for dinner tonight, and somehow that made the decision easier. I told myself I would give him a real chance this time. A clean slate. Something simple, safe, and normal. Because whatever had happened with Marco—whatever I thought I felt, whatever tension or confusion lingered—it wasn’t something I wanted in my life anymore. In fact, it wasn’t even something real to begin with.

When it came time to choose an outfit, I wandered into Sarah’s room and raided her closet. She had a talent for collecting bold, provocative pieces—clothes that made you feel like you owned every room you walked into. I picked one of them, not to impress anyone, but to remind myself of who I was.

I wanted to feel hot for me. To remember that I was a treasure. That I deserved to be treated like one.

And tonight, I was choosing myself.

By the time the doorbell rang, the apartment smelled warm and inviting, the kind of scent that made a place feel like home. I smoothed down the dress I’d borrowed from Sarah’s closet — bold, fitted, unapologetically confident — and for the first time in days, I felt a spark of myself again.

I opened the door, and Robin’s eyes widened just a fraction — enough for me to notice, enough to remind me that I still had that effect on people. He smiled, warm and easy, the kind of smile that didn’t demand anything from me.

“Wow,” he said softly. “You look… incredible.”

I felt a small, unexpected flutter in my chest. Not attraction — not yet — but something gentler. Appreciation. Safety. A reminder that there were men in the world who didn’t come with shadows attached.

“Come in,” I said, stepping aside.

He walked in, taking in the apartment, the food, the atmosphere. “You didn’t have to go all out.”

“I wanted to,” I replied — and it was true. I needed this.

Robin shrugged off his jacket, and for a moment, the room felt lighter. Softer. Like maybe I could actually have a normal evening.

Robin settled into the chair across from me, the soft glow from the kitchen lights catching the edges of his smile. He looked comfortable and grounded. It was… nice. Strange, but nice.

I served the food, and he let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Emily, this looks amazing.”

I shrugged lightly, trying to play it off. “Cooking relaxes me.”

He nodded, taking his first bite. “Well, you’re incredible at it.”

We talked about work, about his week, about the little things that made up normal life. And for a while, I let myself sink into it. The simplicity. The calm. The feeling of being just… a woman having dinner with a good man.

Just as I was starting to relax into the evening, my phone chimed again.

A message.