Lisa

Something's wrong.

It's Monday, and Jennie's avoiding me again. It's not like last week when I knew why she was doing it—I could sense her desire and guess at how hard she was trying to keep it under wraps.

This isn't that. This is Jennie being so gun-shy that it makes me nervous.

By the end of the workday, I can't take it anymore. It's only another hour until the office empties out, but I catch Jennie during a quiet moment when her phone isn't ringing and nobody else wants a piece of her time. I can't help myself. Waiting would just mean another couple of hours for me to fret, and this is probably nothing, right? I could use a good old-fashioned dose of Jennie Kim telling me I'm being ridiculous.

I square my shoulders as I march into her office with my excuse: "Your nine o'clock tomorrow cancelled. I could reschedule it with Ms. Jung. Or would you rather leave that space blank?"

"Blank," she says, not looking up from her laptop. "Thank you."

Thank you? Jennie doesn't thank people for just doing their jobs. Is she feeling okay? Did she get a terminal diagnosis or something and decide to be nicer to everyone during her last few months? My dad tried that. Yes, it's a totally irrational fear, but it grips my throat.

"What's wrong?" I blurt out.

Her fingertips freeze over her keyboard. "Nothing is wrong."

Right, okay. Nothing is wrong. She's just a very busy woman. Nevertheless, an impulse makes me ask, "You sure?"

Jennie looks up at me with a flash in her dark eyes that stops my heart. Her lips purse. "Quite sure. I've never been better, actually. In fact…"

I have a bad feeling about this.

She looks me steadily in the eye. "Lisa, I've been giving some thought to our…arrangement."

Oh, no.

At least I manage not to say that out loud, but Jennie's next words don't make me feel any better. "As…pleasant as it has been, it's time to call it off."

Has the ground beneath my feet turned to jelly or something? Or is that just my knees not wanting to support me? "What? Why? What happened?"

She sticks her tongue into her cheek. "Nothing's happened. It's all been very—very—"

"If you say 'pleasant,' so help me," I growl and then realize I said it out loud. But, God, seriously. She's going to do this, and she's going to call our thing lukewarm into the bargain?

Jennie sets her jaw. She looks unnaturally pale. "I wasn't going to. It's been many things, but most of all, it's been unwise. We both know that."

"Well, yeah? We talked about that, we…" My hands are sweating. I manage not to wipe them on my skirt. "We've been careful." Mostly. A thought occurs to me. "Shit, did someone see us in the parking garage?"

Jennie looks startled. I guess that means no? But instead of reassuring me, she says, "Lisa. I said it's unwise. Moreover, it's unethical, regardless of who suggested what to whom and at what time." She holds up a hand when I try to object. "Please don't take it personally."

My eyes must be the size of dinner plates. "Don't what?"

"It doesn't mean I don't…" She pauses and then tries again. "It doesn't mean you're not…appealing. It's just something I can't do anymore. It's wrong, and that's that."

That's that. As if it's something simple, something that occurred to Jennie when she was between e-mails. But it must have been more than that. Surely.

"What happened?" I repeat.

"I told you, nothing." Her tone is the worst thing. She's not snapping or getting impatient. In fact, she seems eerily cool, the ice queen she's always looked like. The one I'd thought I was melting.

"Is it because I pushed you?" I seem to be whispering to some smaller, inner Jennie who's calling for help. "About the—identity thing. The orientation thing. I told you I'd stop doing that. I told you it doesn't matter…"

"No, you didn't." For a second, actual fire appears in her eyes. "But you're correct; it doesn't. It's not about that either. Lisa, if I hurt you, I'm sorry, but…" She lifts her chin. "I don't think I have. It was just sex. So you always said."

She might as well have punched me, I feel so winded. Just sex? Is she insane? We were getting more intimate with every encounter. We'd started kissing, for fuck's sake. Doesn't that have to mean something?

Then I could punch myself in turn. What a Disney Princess point of view. Am I twenty-five years old and still thinking a kiss is magical and transformative?

Well, not anymore, I'm not. I take a deep, shaky breath. "So you've just decided that's it. You don't want any more."

She looks up at me and then slowly rises to her feet. Her chair wheels rumble against the hardwood floor. Her makeup, hair, and outfit are all flawlessly in place. She could be a picture, not a person. "Lisa, any affair is a two-way street. Both parties must agree to it. If you called it off, I'd listen. I hope you know that."

Both parties? "Yes, but—"

"But what? It was an arrangement." She pauses. "Not a relationship. Correct?"

I don't like to imagine what my face must look like as life snatches the rug out from under me yet again. There's nothing for me to say but "Yeah. Correct."

Because she's right. We never made promises. Right now, that seems like the smartest move I've made in this whole stupid mess.

For a second, I think I see another look in her eyes. Regret? Pain? My heart leaps, which is enough to tell me I'm utterly fucked, but then the look is gone again. Jennie says, "Please don't be insulted when I say I understand if you'd want another job. I'd be happy to help you get one."

Please don't be insulted? At least she's trying not to make me sound like a cheap good time. I remember when she made a similar offer back in her hotel room on the night all this began, an offer I couldn't have accepted for a second. It had been insulting then, and impossible, too. Like she'd been asking me to cut off a leg.

Now she's asking me to cut off two.

I open my mouth to say no again, before my brain catches up with me. It gives me a helpful sneak preview of what life around this office would be like with me and Jennie circling each other, me longing for her and knowing I'll never have her again. She's right: Once somebody calls it off, it's off. A two-way street. So I'd be stuck in this office, running her errands and fielding her calls while thinking about her body and wishing more than anything that things could be different.

It would be painful. So fucking painful. I've had enough of pain, enough of grabbing on to a hot stove and not being able to let go again.

My voice sounds hollow. "You said you knew somebody in environmental law?"

Jennie's shoulders roll back slightly, almost like the world's tiniest flinch. But she sounds calm when she says, "Yes. I do."

I take a deep breath. I'm not going to cry. I'm not. "That'd definitely be for the best."

She gives a brusque nod. "I'll give them a call tonight."

"I'd appreciate that." My eyes are smarting. Yeah, I was right before: The worst things always happen to you in the blink of an eye. "I'll just—get back to work, then."

"Always a good idea." She glances back at her laptop, probably dying to get out of this conversation with her idiot assistant who didn't know when to quit.

I fight the urge to knock that fucking laptop right off her desk and scream at her, yell at her for not giving me things she never promised to give me in the first place, for making me feel emotions that are my responsibility alone. Instead, I turn on my heel and head for the door again.

I put my hand on the knob. Before I open it, I can't resist turning back for one more look at her. She's still standing up, still watching me expressionlessly.

"You know, this is really fucked up," I say, my voice too thick.

"Yes," she says. "Exactly."

I stick it out at my desk for another hour, which is as long as it takes for Jennie to send me an e-mail letting me know she's working late and it's fine for me to go home. She won't be needing anything else from me tonight.

Super. Awesome. I go home.

Minnie's bedroom door is closed with light shining around the edges; I sneak into my bedroom and shut the door as quietly as possible. I leave the lights off and navigate my bedroom solely with the streetlamps' light through my blinds.

It's enough light for me to make my way to my bed, sit down on the edge of it, and cry like a baby.

Stupid. Stupid. You knew it was a bad idea. You never listened to yourself. You never learn.

I dig my fingernails into my scalp and try to shut the little voice up. I can't. It's too insistent. It's too right.

Jennie's not at work the next morning. Sick, supposedly.

I should be relieved I don't have to face her, but I'm not. Especially since the receptionist, Monica, is the one who brings me the news, instead of Jennie telling me herself. Monica also seems to find this odd, but she's professional enough when she says, "So, since there's nobody here for you to assist, I guess you get the day off. She said to tell you to go home."

Something's very wrong. "Well, I have a couple of things I need to take care of, and I might as well do them here. I hate taking work home, you know?"

She tilts her head in acknowledgment. "Me, too. Good luck with it."

I could use more than good luck. I could use a divine blessing to help me make sense of this mess.

Okay, even Jennie Kim gets sick sometimes. Maybe the timing is just a coincidence and she's just too embarrassed by our conversation last night to text me—she thinks it'll send a mixed message, or…

I could drive myself crazy wondering. I sit down at my desk, open my laptop, and stare at the black screen before remembering I have to turn it on.

Then it's a solid hour of answering e-mails and returning calls—honestly, why did Jennie think I could just go home, like my workload disappears without her? Or is it because I'm about to get another job and she thinks I'm going to check out mentally before I leave?

She ought to know better. I'm doing this job until I'm booted out the door.

Eventually, I get through everything and force my way through some homework. I sigh when I log into the course management system and see that my late essay just got a C. I know it's more than I deserve, but I've been doing so well, and it'll seriously hurt my final grade in the class, which will drag down my GPA, and good Lord, this day is not off to a great start, is it?

By the time two o'clock rolls around, I'm about ready to cry uncle and go home after all, maybe grab a pint of chocolate ice cream on the way and sob self-indulgently into it. But before I do, I head toward the break room to make a cup of coffee, where I run smack into Jaemin.

He gives me a bleary smile. "I think I'm still hung over."

I manage a smile for him in return. Saturday night with him and his friends, plus Minnie and Sorn, was fun. I was more careful with my booze than the last time I went out, but Jaemin got absolutely wasted and talked about his attraction to Chris Hemsworth until I wondered if his boyfriend would dump him then and there. I'd laughed a lot and even managed to put Jennie out of my mind for a few hours, except for wondering what it would be like to have her there, looking around in disapproval at everyone cutting loose. I'd also ruthlessly strangled my inner voice when it wondered what it would be like to take Jennie on a date.

Didn't strangle it hard enough, looks like. I pat Jaemin on the shoulder. "Yeah, you got pretty happy."

He smooths back his hair. "Pretty unhappy the next day, too. And today. So I fit right in with the general mood around here."

"General mood?" I've stayed isolated at my desk today, not wanting to talk to anyone else in the office.

He grimaces. "Sehun and Mark are both pissed off. Jennie's divorce just got pretty intense."

My stomach knots up. I try to keep my expression calm when Jaemin looks at me, plainly hoping I'll feed him some new details. I can't let him see that I know nothing, not if I want to get anything else out of him.

"Pretty intense," I agree and take a shot in the dark. "I, uh, don't think Mr. Ashford is very happy." It's the likeliest thing I can think of—Jennie hasn't said anything about how her ex is handling all this, but I remember what he's like. Spiteful and mad.

Jaemin snorts. "No shit. What does he have on her, anyway? Sehun and Mark were saying it was bound to be something, but even they didn't know for sure."

My stomach's knot decides to ice over for good measure. "I—uh—neither do I. What were they saying?"

Jaemin shrugs and adjusts his paisley necktie. He keeps his voice low. "That he's trying to renegotiate the whole divorce. I guess they were going to split the assets evenly before? But now he wants everything, and it sounds like she's giving it to him. Sehun and Mark think there's something going on, and, I mean, there's got to be, right?"

"Got to be," I repeat through numb lips.

He gives me a swift look. "You didn't know any of that?"

I give myself a hard mental shake, which barely is enough to let me say, "Oh! Yeah, sure I did. How could I not? Personal assistant and all." Do I sound crazed? Maybe I sound crazed.

"Good. I didn't mean to say anything I shouldn't. That's all I know, anyway." He pours a glass of water. "Maybe that's why she's out today. She's bound to be consulting with her own lawyer."

I can't feel my toes. Is that a sign of stroke? "Well, yes. That's where she is."

He laughs a little. "Duh, you'd know, right? Surprised you're not with her. She's always got you by her side. Way more than she ever did Stephanie."

Please don't blush, I beg myself. Please. Now doesn't seem like the time to tell Jaemin that Jennie's about to have me around a lot less. "She wanted me to take care of some things around here. But, uh, I'm going now. That's actually where I'm going. To Jennie."

"Got it." He rubs his fingers over his temples. "I wish I could leave, too. Except I'd want to go lie down in a dark room."

No fucking kidding, I think as I walk away without my coffee. I do, too. Except I want to have Jennie with me. Maybe the darkness would make it easier for her to tell me the obvious truth: Her husband has found out about our affair and is blackmailing her.

What else could it be? From what I can tell, Jennie's aboveboard in her business dealings and doesn't hang out with shady characters. Like Jaemin said, I'd know. I'm in her back pocket all the time, except when I'm busy with other parts of her.

The dirt Taehyung Ashford has on Jennie must be…me.

The thought makes me want to vomit. And then punch him, hard. And then vomit on him, too.

None of that will solve anything. I've got to talk to Jennie. I'm already reaching for my phone to text her when I realize that a paper trail is an even worse idea than before; what if a judge subpoenas her texts?

I call her instead. No answer, as I should have expected. I could leave a voice mail in my most professional, helpful-assistant tone, simply asking Jennie to call me back, but I doubt that's going to happen.

Only one thing will work. I've got to corner the lioness in her den so we can have this out face-to-face.

I gulp as I pack up to leave the office. I can't go over to her place right away. She's probably not home yet. That could be a good thing, since it gives me a chance to think about what I'll say. This is scary as hell—and yet I feel the first spark of hope I've felt since Jennie dumped me last night. If I know what her problem is, then I have a chance to address it. Maybe we can have a real conversation about all this. Finally.

Miracles can happen, right?