Chapter 5: You Are Nothing without Me

Cecilia

“You can’t keep doing this, Cecilia.”

My best friend looks down at me with deep sadness in her big brown eyes. She pats at my forehead with a fresh towel and pushes a lock of hair behind my ear.

I have never felt so near to death in my life. I’m on my side in bed, with the covers tucked tightly around me. My entire body feels heavy as lead. 

“You can’t keep letting Emeric hurt you like this,” Grace continues. “It’s killing you. Tell me that you see that, honey.”

I let my heavy eyelids fall closed and exhale a shaky breath.

Of course she’s right. But my attachment to Emeric has never been about what’s logically right.

He’s my mate. It feels physically necessary to keep myself as close to him as I can, whether or not he’ll ever claim me as his. Whether or not he treats me well.

The only reply I can manage is to nod my head. I can’t deny it. Living like this is destroying me.

I just haven’t been able to figure out how to live any other way. But I think it’s time I finally put an end to it.

Grace convinces me to call out sick in the morning, and I spend the whole day sleeping.

By the time another morning comes around, I’m finally feeling alive again. Enough to get up and out of bed, and to start thinking some clear thoughts. I lost my baby, but I still need to live on.

I get myself together, dress for work, and drive to Emeric’s apartment. 

I don’t expect him to be there. He’s always in the office by six a.m., despite our workday not starting till nine. But I let myself into Emeric’s penthouse all the time. The doormen on the ground floor know me, and I have the keycode to the apartment’s front door.

But when I reach the top floor and punch in that code, the door doesn’t unlock like it’s supposed to. The keypad buzzes and glows red.

I try again, going slowly to be sure my fingers don’t slip. But another angry buzzing sound tells me I’m wrong. That the passcode has been changed, apparently.

I’m standing there just staring at the door, wondering why Emeric would have changed his security code without telling me, when I hear footsteps approaching.

Suddenly the door opens, and there stands Victoria. 

She looks like she’s just rolled out of bed. Her long, blonde hair is collected in a loose, low ponytail slung forward over one shoulder, and she’s wearing nothing but a short, silky, rose-pink bathrobe.

“Cecilia, what are you doing here? I thought we talked about this the other day—” 

“I’m just here to get my stuff, Victoria. Don’t worry, I just need to grab a few things and I’ll be on my way.” I step forward to enter the apartment, but Victoria sidesteps to block my path. 

“What ‘stuff,’ exactly? I can’t imagine Emeric would want you in here pilfering items from his apartment when he’s not present.”

“I’m not pilfering anything.” 

I clench my teeth. This woman knows very well that I am not trying to steal anything from Emeric. She just can’t resist any opportunity to demean me. 

“I keep some clothes in Emeric’s closet. I just want them back. And I left my iPad charging in his office last week.” 

“Ohh, that was yours?” Victoria acts like a big revelation is dawning on her. “Oh, I’m so sorry Cecilia, but I had the housekeeper throw all of that out. I’ve been tidying up since I moved in, you see. The place desperately needed a woman’s touch.” 

For a moment I’m speechless. 

“You threw my clothes and my iPad away?” I ask slowly.

Victoria nods. “I asked Emeric about them, and he said he had no idea where they came from. The iPad I donated to charity, of course. Those clothes… well, they really belonged in the trash.” 

“You can’t be serious.”

She smirks. “And yet, I am.”

I never once stayed the night at Emeric’s. Not once. 

I went over, we ate and drank together, and we had sex… and then I went home. That was our routine.

But he’s with someone new for two days and she’s already having sleepovers—and even moving in?! 

I can’t make any sense of it. 

It feels surreal to walk into the place I’ve worked for seven years, knowing what I now know.

I thought this company would be where I’d build a solid career. It felt like home to me for so long.

But now that I know I’ve been manipulated and discriminated against, I no longer feel safe here. Or like I belong at all.

“You’re late,” Emeric barks at me the second I walk into his office. He runs a hand back through his thick, jet-black hair and narrows his dark eyes. 

I sigh instead of replying, and cross the room to meet Emeric at his desk.

“Victoria called me,” he continues. “She said you went to my apartment and removed all your belongings.” He looks at me with a furrowed brow, as if asking for an explanation.

“That’s not what happened,” I say quietly. I don’t have the energy to keep arguing with him about Victoria with any real enthusiasm. “I went there trying to collect my belongings, but Victoria told me she’d already thrown all my stuff away. Including my iPad and all my clothes.”

Emeric arches an eyebrow. “Victoria is my guest, and you’ve been picking on her since the moment you met—out of obvious jealousy. Now you’re lying to discredit her.”

It feels like the oxygen is being sucked out of the room. I can’t believe Emeric still won’t believe me.

“You’re letting your feelings get in the way of your professional responsibilities, Cecilia. You’re being childish. This is a workplace. And not only that, my family’s—” 

Enough is enough. Heart bursting with warring emotions, I interrupt before he can go on.

“If that’s really what you think about me, you’d better find someone else to do this job.”

“What?”

“Emeric, I quit. Consider this my official resignation.”

He huffs out a dry, cold laugh and leans back in his big leather chair. “Don’t be stupid,” he says with a condescending grin. 

“Actually, for the first time since I met you, I’m not being stupid.” 

Emeric’s arrogant smile starts melting off his face, replaced with a blank look of surprise or confusion. 

“I quit,” I repeat loudly, straightening my spine. “And I want absolutely nothing to do with you anymore, Emeric. I mean it.”

He leans forward and runs a hand down over his eyes, then his mouth. When it comes away, his face is grim with anger. “You won’t last a month without me, Cecilia,” he growls, standing to tower over me. “You are nothing in this world without me at your side.”

I smile up at him. And then I turn my back on him and walk away.

“We’ll see about that,” I say.