because she needed a moment to get her composure and regain
her breath. She felt winded, Coralyn’s sweet scent invading
her office like a gust of warm air, her unexpected presence
after she’d been constantly thinking about her, unable to stop,
doing something that made her body feel like liquid. It was the
wrong state. She needed to be solid, not fluid. Liquid could
evaporate. Liquid could become nothing.
“Lock the door,” Giana commanded. She was proud of the
way she kept any emotion out of her voice, even though inside
she was barely holding to the scraps of the person she’d been
before that meeting in her office changed everything.
The last time she was here, she cursed me, I hit my head,
and my whole life changed.
The slide of the bolt in place and the twist of the lock on the
handle sent a surge of delight racing through her that was
entirely carnal. All this time, she’d been torn between wanting
to hate Coralyn and wanting to punish her as she deserved, but
in a way that wasn’t entirely so fuelled by anger.
There was more. Her heart wasn’t in her work anymore, and
she wanted Coralyn to pay for that too. She wanted to know if
Coralyn had worked through all her despair. Her PI hadn’t
been able to answer that. He hadn’t been able to get close
enough to know if Coralyn was still broken and bleeding
inside.
The outer workings of a person wouldn’t tell you that. You
could still be highly functional and be a mess on the inside.
Hadn’t she herself proved that since she was fourteen years
old?
“Have you arranged all your pieces back together?” It was a
mean question. One she asked to the windows without turning