Page 14 of His Vow

"Good night, Soleil."

He let go and stepped down, turned and walked toward the street, hands sliding into his pockets, stride even, shoulders set. He didn't look back.

I stood at my door. Keys biting into my palm. Lips swollen. My pulse was hammering in my throat, my wrists, and the base of my stomach.

I unlocked the door, stepped inside, leaned against it, and closed my eyes.

My phone buzzed.

Nolan

You left your scarf at the restaurant.

I touched my neck. Gone. I hadn't noticed.

Soleil

Keep it. It'll be the only color in your apartment.

Three dots. Then he replied.

Nolan

It's already the only color in my car.

I pressed the phone against my chest and slid down the door until I was sitting on my own floor, grinning at the ceiling like a woman who had completely, irreversibly, and dangerously lost her mind.

FOUR

NOLAN

The first mile was the worst.

My lungs burned against the cold. My legs were stiff from the desk, from the hours of sitting, from a body that spent its days motionless in conference rooms and its nights standing at a kitchen counter reading case law. The streets were empty at 5:00 a.m. — just me, the pavement, and the streetlights throwing long orange bars across the asphalt.

By the fourth mile, the city had vanished. Nothing but the steady beat of my feet, air rasping through my nose, and the relentless rhythm of a man who couldn't stay still.

Six miles. No music. I turned when the streets turned and stopped when my watch told me to. The run didn't require thought. That was the point.

The apartment was dark when I got back. I showered, dressed, and stood at the kitchen counter with a plate of jerk chicken over brown rice. Scotch bonnet, allspice, thyme from the small plant on the windowsill — the only living thing in the apartment besides me. A legal brief sat open beside the plate. I read while I chewed. The chicken was seasoned well. I didn't taste it.

In eleven minutes, the plate was rinsed, dried, and stowed in the cabinet. Fork, glass — same setup nightly, aligned in the dish rack like relics of a life that sustained itself and nothing else.

No art on the walls. No photographs on any surface. The bookshelves held case law, financial models, and three biographies I'd read twice each. The couch had never held a second person. The bed had never been unmade on both sides. These were facts I no longer registered. The silence in the apartment wasn't something I noticed anymore. I'd stopped noticing it.

I picked up my phone from the counter. No missed calls. No texts.

Three days since the stoop. Three days since her mouth. The gasp she made when my teeth caught her lip, her fingers on the bare skin at the back of my neck. Three days since I walked away without looking back.

I hadn't called or texted. The sun emoji glowed in my messages, but I scrolled past it to reply to others.

Patience was the only skill that mattered. Every deal I'd ever closed, every structure I'd ever dismantled, every target I'd ever mapped — the weapon was never force. It was time. Pressure applied slowly, consistently, and without urgency. You didn't chase what you wanted. You positioned yourself correctly and waited for it to arrive.

I put the phone in my pocket and grabbed my keys.

The scarf was still inside my jacket. Burnt sienna. I hadn't moved it. When the heater kicked on, the rosemary drifted through the car.

I drove to Vanguard, and the floor was humming when I stepped off the elevator. Elise nodded from the reception. Two analysts glanced up and looked back down. I walked the corridor to my office without slowing.