The silence in the car after leaving Juliet's house was suffocating, but the noise in my head was deafening.
Later that night, the vibration of my phone on the mahogany desk snapped me out of my trance. It was my assistant, Brian. He didn't call this late unless it was urgent. The news was unexpected: an old acquaintance wanted to buy a ten percent share in our conglomerate. I had to leave immediately.
I found myself heading to our main office located in London. It was a short flight, typically routine, but the time didn't pass in minutes or hours. It passed in flashes of memory.
Despite the altitude and the hum of the jet engines, I wasn't thinking about business. I wasn't thinking about stock options or the logistics of the deal. I was thinking about yesterday. I was thinking about her.
Juliet.
The image of her standing there seared itself behind my eyelids. Her shiny black hair had been damp, clinging to her skin. I remembered the way her neck was still wet from the shower, glistening under the hallway light. I closed my eyes and could practically see it again: a single, rogue droplet of water escaping the mass of her dark hair. I watched it in my mind's eye, tracing a slow, torturous path. It rolled from her hair to the smooth curve of her forehead, sliding down the bridge of her nose, hanging for a split second at the tip before dropping to her chin. Then, gravity took it down her neck, slipping beneath the collar of her shirt.
In the name of the Lord, what was wrong with me?
I gripped the armrest of the leather seat until my knuckles turned white. I was harboring a desire that was strictly forbidden. She was a girl I couldn't have. She was off-limits by every law of nature and morality, yet the pull was there, dark and magnetic. I had told my friend—hell, I had told myself a thousand times—not to think about it. I tried to bury it under layers of resentment and control, treating her like a problem to be solved rather than a person. But the thought itself was a weed; the more I tried to cut it down, the deeper the roots seemed to grow. It was hard to ignore, and it was becoming dangerous.
By the time the plane touched down in London, I had managed to wrestle my mask of indifference back into place.
I reached the Silver Group headquarters, a towering monolith of glass and steel that pierced the gray London sky. The automatic doors slid open, and the security guards at the front desk snapped to attention. I didn't stop; I simply greeted them with a curt nod and a sharp hand sign, bypassing the security check to head straight for the private elevator.
As the doors pinged open on the executive floor, Brian was already there, clutching a tablet to his chest.
"Hello, sir," Brian said, falling into step beside me as I strode down the corridor. "How was your flight?"
"Nice," I lied. It had been a psychological torture chamber. "When did you get here? I thought I arrived earlier than scheduled."
"I came here last night on the red-eye, sir," Brian replied, struggling slightly to keep up with my long strides. "He is waiting for you in your office."
"Good."
Brian stopped at the door, sensing my mood, and left me to handle the intrusion alone. I took a breath, adjusted my cuffs, and pushed the double oak doors open.
Sitting in my chair, looking as comfortable as if he owned the place, was Arthur.
My stomach churned with a familiar mix of annoyance and competitive rage. Arthur was my high school classmate, but more accurately, he was my arch-nemesis. Since we were teenagers, he had made it his life's mission to be my shadow. We used to compete for absolutely everything.
If I ran for Class President, Arthur ran. If I aimed for the 'Hero of the Month'—a ridiculous award I hated but needed for my transcript—Arthur was there, volunteering at three different soup kitchens to outdo me. We battled for the highest academy scores every trimester, trading the top spot back and forth like a pendulum.
He wanted to get everything I got. He wanted to experience everything I experienced. The obsession was pathetic. The most glaring example was Senior Prom. I had won Prom King, mostly because I campaigned for it as a joke to prove a point. Arthur, furious that he had lost, actually intentionally failed his final exams. He repeated the entire senior year just so he could run again the following year and win the title. He wasted a year of his life just to wear a plastic crown because I had worn one first.
And now, he was here.
I looked at him, taking in his smug grin and the way he spun a pen—my pen—between his fingers. If he was here, sitting in my office at the Silver Group, asking for ten percent shares, it wasn't an investment strategy.
It was a declaration of war. It meant he wanted to kick me out, or at the very least, destroy me in whatever twisted new game he had planned to play.