Chapter 98 The Wrong Name
I walked slowly to the door and peeked through the peephole. Then I saw Lena looking around, sweating and tapping her feet on the floor.
I hurriedly opened the door.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my brows furrowed.
“Thank God you are home. I almost pooped on my body,” she said, pushing me out of the way and rushing towards the restroom.
“Eeeww,” I muttered, closing the door behind me.
Then I heaved a sigh of relief and went back to the couch.
After a few minutes, she walked out of the restroom and sank down onto the couch.
“Oh my God! I almost disgraced myself,” she breathed out.
“What did you eat and what happened to your key?” I asked, leaning forward and placing my hand on my jaw.
“I don’t know for real, and about the key… I lost it on set,” she replied.
“You scared me for a second, because I thought the person at the door couldn’t be you.”
“Scaredy cat,” she teased.
“How was work today?” she asked.
“Fine, I guess,” I replied.
At that moment, I remembered the gossip about Alex’s company, but then I shoved it off, tagging it as ‘what doesn’t concern me’.
The next day, the café near the design district was crowded with architects and developers grabbing quick lunches between site visits.
I had walked in for a cup of coffee hoping the noise would distract me from the chaos going on in my head.
I was halfway through my coffee when I heard the name.
“… Harts & Associates is already losing clients left and right.”
Two men in rumpled shirts leaned over their table three tables away, talking loud enough for me to hear.
I was pretty sure they thought no one could hear them.
“Alex Hart looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks this morning. Information reaching me is that his closest pal was the one who betrayed him,” he said as if he was reading his words from a newspaper.
“Marcus Reeds?” the other man whistled low.
My cup paused halfway to my lips at the mention of that.
“Marcus?”
“That’s his friend and confidant.”
Something dropped heavily in my chest.
The company Alex had built from nothing, the one he used to talk about with pride in his voice during late nights on the Wilton project was now crumbling.
I didn’t know if it was pity, but I felt something that made me set the coffee cup down harder than I meant to.
I remembered the way his shoulder used to tighten anytime he spoke about working towards keeping his firm independent.
Now it was slipping away because of someone he trusted.
I tried to push the feeling away, because I wasn’t allowed to feel it anymore. Not with Dave’s cologne still lingering on the sweater I had worn last night.
I stood up and left the café without finishing my drink.
By the time I reached my office, the gossip had already spread through the usual industry channels: group chat pings, a casual mention in a client’s email, and a headline on an architecture blog that called it ‘quiet chaos at Harts & Associates.”
“Oh my goodness! This is really serious,” I muttered, my brows pulled together as I scrolled through the pages.
I didn’t read any of them to the end. I closed every tab and buried myself in the final renderings for a boutique hotel lobby.
The work helped until evening, when Dave texted that he was picking me up for dinner.
I closed up from work, he came to pick me up as promised, and ordered his driver to drive my car to my place.
We went to a small Italian restaurant with low lighting and heavy wooden tables.
Dave reached for my hand across the breadbasket, his thumb brushing my knuckles in his steady way.
“You seem somewhere else tonight,” he said, his eyes searching my face.
“It’s just… long day. Nothing important,” I let out a small smile.
He didn’t push further, and the way he never demanded explanations for every shadow on my face was part of what made it easier.
After a couple of minutes, we left the restaurant and he dropped me off at home.
When we got to the door, I kissed him longer than usual, trying to chase away the echo of the conversations and gossip I had heard earlier that day.
His lips were… warm and safe.
Then we both entered my living room.
Lena wasn’t home.
When I closed the door behind him, the pity that had been shoved down earlier found its way back up, uninvited.
DAVE WILTON’S POV
Joan had been unusually quiet all evening, even when the food was great and the wine was better.
I watched her across the candlelight, looking at the way her fingers traced the tip of her glass without lifting it.
It looked like she was carrying a weight she wasn’t sharing.
I waited until we were back at her place, shoes off and lights low. She was curled against me on the couch with her head on my shoulder when I finally said what I had been thinking for days.
“I’ve been thinking about us,” I started, my voice firmer than I had felt.
“I don’t want us to stay in separate houses. I want to wake up next to you without having to plan the next time we would be seeing each other.”
She looked up, her expression unreadable, but I continued regardless.
“Move in with me, Joan. I want exclusivity that actually matters.”
This time, she went still.
Not in a good way.
Then she sat up slowly, pulling her legs beneath her.
“Dave…” she said my name as if it were something fragile.
“That’s… a big step,” she added.
“I know,” I kept my tone even, the way I had learned she needed.
“But it feels right. We are good together and you know that.”
She looked at me for a long while, her eyes searching my face like she was trying to find the right words without hurting me.
“I do know that,” she finally said, but I saw the hesitation in her eyes.
“But I… I need time. This isn’t a no. It’s just… not yet.”
The words landed like a big blow on my chest.
But I nodded, taking in the sting.
“Sure… take all the time you need,” I muttered.
She leaned in and kissed me, soft and apologetic, but it didn’t erase the quiet fear that had been building in my chest for weeks.
The fear that no matter how much I give, part of her was still bonded somewhere else.
We didn’t speak much after that.
She fell asleep against me later, but I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering how long I could keep pretending her hesitation didn’t feel like a door left open for someone else.
JOAN COLE’S POV
Dave’s proposal sat between us like a live wire I didn’t know how to touch.
Moving in together and exclusivity?
That meant sharing drawers and morning routines and the small everyday pieces of life I had guarded so carefully since Alex and I fell out.
The part of me that remembered how safe his arms felt and how he never made me guess where we stood wanted me to say yes immediately.
But the other part that had heard the gossip about Alex’s firm crumbling, the one that still felt that uninvited pity kept me silent.
That was why I asked for time instead.
Dave handled it with the same quiet grace he always used to handle everything, but I saw the flicker behind his eyes.
I saw the small tightening at the corner of his mouth.
That night, when he held me on the couch until I fell asleep, I lay there pretending to sleep, my heart pounding in my chest.
Though I had told him I needed time, what I had t told him was that a part of me was still wondering whether Alex was falling apart right now and whether I had any right to care.
Past midnight, Dave’s hands moved over me, tickling every part of my body.
I wriggled then he pulled me closer, and slipped his fingers under me before placing his lips on mine.
I didn’t open my eyes.
I just moaned softly under him, letting myself seep into the warmth of his mouth and the solid weight of him pressing me down on the couch.
His hands continued to trace my body, slowly and deliberately.
I curled into him, whispering into his ear.
But when he slid deeply inside me, the rhythm pulled something else loose.
Alex.
His name came running back into my mind as pleasure bloomed in my belly.
I bit my lips hard enough that I tasted blood.
As Dave thrusted deeper, the words slipped out, soft and broken, halfway between a moan and a breath.
“Alex…”
Everything in the room became still.
Dave paused above me, his eyes piercing into my skin.
I had just spoiled something that couldn’t be rebuilt.
He pulled back slowly, eyes wide with something ugly I had never seen on his face before.