Just thinking about having to meet the yacht dealer made me nauseous. I was more nervous than I used to be before some brutal oral exam back in the day.

I waited until midnight on Sunday for Ryan to call—or at least send a message—and it took a ridiculous amount of self-control not to text him something as simple as goodnight. I’m proud of myself for holding out.

I never thought calling someone could be this hard. Especially someone you really, really want to talk to. Typing in the number was easy enough. Then I just froze.

Thessa called Tuesday morning to check how I was doing. Her sickly sweet voice sent chills crawling up and down my spine. I know Thessa.

Of course I didn’t take Adele’s advice and go into the office. I didn’t come clean, and I didn’t ask for help.

On Monday, Thessa landed a cheerful email in my inbox that felt like a punch straight to the stomach. She reminded me that the multilingual catalogue we regularly prepare for one of our longtime clients was supposed to be heading to print soon.

Whatever little common sense I had left is officially gone. Not that there was much of it to begin with, considering how exhausted I’ve been lately. So earlier, I went down to the shop.

I had a nightmare. About Grumpy. He just stood there, staring at me with those cold blue eyes, his brow drawn tight. It scared the hell out of me. I even woke up sweating.

By Thursday, I’d been running on autopilot all week. I get up at seven every morning, and that one hour I keep for myself is sacred.

Mark showed up at eight on Monday morning, as if he didn’t know I was running a three-person project on my own. I don’t even have to go into the office so I don’t waste time commuting — and still, at eight-oh-seven, he was knocking on my door.