My Husband's Boss - Book 2

Previous Chapter

Tim POV

It had been a few days since I’d been discharged from the hospital and was recuperating at my ex-husband’s place. Gavin had been very attentive, helping me with showers and getting dressed. My wrist was starting to feel better. I knew I had to talk to Gus. I knew he’d done the wrong thing with Jason, but it wasn’t all his fault.

I stared at my phone for the tenth time that morning, Gus’s contact information glowing on the screen. The apartment was quiet; Gavin had stepped out for a work call, something about a client presentation that couldn’t wait. The silence gave me space to think, which was both a blessing and a curse.

My wrist throbbed with a dull ache as I scrolled through the messages between us. Gus’s last text from yesterday: Hope you’re healing up okay. No pressure. I’m here whenever you’re ready. Simple. Honest. The kind of message that made my chest tight.

I’d fucked my ex-husband. Multiple times over the past few days, if I were being honest with myself. Each time telling myself it meant nothing, that it was just comfort, proximity, the familiarity of a body I’d known for a decade. Each time, knowing I was lying to myself.

I should call him. The thought had been circling in my mind all morning like a vulture. I’d replayed the sauna scene a hundred times, each iteration adding new layers of complexity to my anger. Gus had been weak, yes, but weak people didn’t deserve to be discarded entirely. Weak people deserved a chance to explain themselves, to make amends.

I picked up the phone and typed out a message before I could overthink it: We should talk. Not over the phone. Can you meet me somewhere?

I hit send before the anxiety could stop me. Three dots appeared almost immediately, pulsing like a heartbeat. Gus was typing. I waited, my heart hammering against my chest as I watched those dots dance across the screen.

Gus: Yes. Anywhere. When?

I looked around the apartment. Gavin wouldn’t be back for hours. I texted back: How about here? He’s out and won’t be back for a bit.

Gus: I’ll be there in 20 minutes.

I set the phone down and immediately regretted it. What was I doing? I should have thought this through more carefully, should have prepared something to say. Instead, I was about to have a conversation that would either repair my marriage or end it, and I had no idea which way it would go.

I pushed myself up from the couch, moving slowly to minimise the ache in my ribs. The bruises had faded to a sickly yellow-green, visible in patches across my torso when I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror. I looked like someone who’d been hit by a car. I looked like someone who’d also been fucked senseless by his ex-husband multiple times over the past few days.

The guilt twisted in my stomach, sharp and acidic.

I made my way to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, trying to shock some clarity into myself. The mirror reflected back a version of myself that I barely recognised: swollen lips, dark circles under my eyes, and an expression caught somewhere between guilt and anticipation.

Twenty minutes. That was how long I had to figure out what I was going to say to the man I’d married.

I dried my face and moved through the apartment, straightening things that didn’t need straightening. I adjusted a throw pillow on the couch. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to make myself look less like I’d just rolled out of another man’s bed. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

My phone buzzed. A text from Gavin: Running a bit late. Might be 2.5 hours. Don’t wait on me for lunch.

Well, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about Gavin interrupting our conversation. The buzzer rang at precisely nineteen minutes.

My breath caught in my throat. I stared at the intercom for a moment, my hand hovering over the button. This was it. This was the moment when everything either got better or fell apart completely. I pressed the button to let Gus in.

The next few minutes stretched out; I stood in the doorway of Gavin’s apartment, waiting. I could hear the elevator rising, the soft ding as it reached this floor. My palms were sweating. I wiped them on my track pants, then immediately felt foolish for doing so.

The elevator doors slid open, and Gus stepped out.

He looked terrible. His normally neat dark curly hair was unkempt, sticking up at odd angles. There were dark circles under his beautiful dark eyes that I had never seen before. He was wearing a hoodie and jeans that looked like he’d slept in.

Tears were running down my face as he hugged me. “Fuck, Gus, I’ve missed you.”

Gus’s arms came around me, and I let myself sink into the embrace, breathing in the familiar scent of Gus’s cologne mixed with something else, exhaustion, maybe, or desperation. Gus held me like he was afraid I would disappear if he let go, and I found myself holding just as tightly, my injured wrist screaming in protest, but I didn’t care.

“I’m sorry,” Gus whispered into my hair. “Tim, I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know what came over me, why I did it. I know that doesn’t fix anything, but I need you to know that I’m sorry.”

I pulled back just enough to look at Gus’s face. Up close, the damage was even more apparent. Gus looked like he hadn’t slept in days. There was a hollowness to his features that made my chest ache.

“Come inside,” I said, tugging Gus toward the kitchen. “Do you want a coffee?”

“Let me make it,” Gus said.

“It’s okay; I’m not hurting that badly anymore. I can do it.” I grabbed a couple of cups and turned on the coffee machine.

The coffee machine hissed and gurgled, filling the silence. I focused on the mechanical sounds, on the smell of the grounds brewing, anything to avoid the weight of what needed to be said. Gus sat at the kitchen island, his fingers drumming an anxious rhythm against the marble countertop.

“Pierre called me,” Gus said. “After you got hit by the car. He told me Jason had set the whole thing up. That he’d been looking for me specifically, that he knew about us and wanted to... I don’t know; prove something.”

I poured the coffee with my good hand, the other still wrapped in its protective bandage. The liquid was dark and steaming, and I set a cup in front of Gus before settling onto the stool beside him.

“I know,” I said. “You told me in your message. But knowing that doesn’t change what happened; you still had a choice, Gus.”

“I know I did, and I made the wrong one,” he said.

“I guess it was as much of a choice as you would have had to make this week, while staying with Gavin.”

He looked at me with his dark eyes. He was fishing to see if Gavin had tried to fuck me while I’d been staying here.

I felt heat crawl up my neck. There it was, the accusation hanging between us like smoke. I set my coffee cup down carefully, buying myself a moment to collect my thoughts.

“It’s not like that,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were hollow. How could I explain what had happened with Gavin without sounding like I was making excuses? The truth was messier than a simple denial.

Gus’s jaw clenched. He looked away, his fingers resuming their anxious drumming against the marble. “So it is like that.”

“It’s not the same thing,” I said, and even as the words left my mouth, I knew they sounded weak. “I didn’t plan anything with Gavin. It just... happened.”

Gus’s laugh was bitter, hollow. “Just happened? Tim, you’re staying in his apartment. You’re letting him shower you, cook for you, take care of you. You’re doing exactly what I did, letting yourself be seduced by someone you have history with.”

“How many times?” Gus asked, still not looking at me. The question landed like a punch.

I opened my mouth, closed it again. There was no good answer to this. No number that wouldn’t hurt. “Does it matter?”

“It matters,” Gus repeated, and this time he did look at me, his dark eyes searching, pleading almost. “How many times, Tim?”

I wrapped my hands around the warm coffee cup, using it as an anchor. I could feel Gus waiting, could feel the weight of the question pressing down on me like a physical thing.

“Three times,” I said. “Maybe four. I lost count.”

Gus flinched as if he’d been struck. He stood abruptly, the stool scraping against the polished floor with a sound that made me wince. Gus moved away from the island, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“Four times,” Gus repeated, his voice hollow. “While I’ve been at home, worrying about you, trying to figure out how to fix what I broke, you’ve been here fucking your ex-husband.”

Gus moved to the window, his shoulders rigid with tension. I watched him, waiting for the explosion I knew was coming. Instead, Gus just stood there, staring out at the city below, his reflection ghostly in the glass.

“I don’t even know what to say,” Gus said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “I came here thinking maybe we could fix this. Thinking maybe if I could explain, if I could make you understand what happened in that sauna, that we could move past it.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Gus held up a hand, cutting me off without even turning around.

“But you’ve been doing the exact same thing I did. You’ve been betraying me. The only difference is you got to do it in comfort, in his bed, while I was home alone losing my mind.”

“It’s not the same,” I said.

“Isn’t it, Tim?” Gus said. “Explain it to me then. How is it different?”

I stared at my coffee, watching the dark liquid ripple slightly as my hand trembled around the cup. The question hung in the air between us, demanding an answer I wasn’t sure I had.

“It’s different because...” I trailed off, searching for words that wouldn’t sound like excuses. “I was hurt. I was on painkillers. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Neither was I,” Gus said, still facing the window. His reflection was pale, drawn. “Jason had just... he had just used me. I was confused and ashamed, and I came home to you, and I told you the truth. I owned what I did.”

The truth of it hit me, Gus was right. Gus had come home and confessed everything, had laid bare the betrayal without trying to minimise it or hide behind circumstances. And I had run. I had been hurt, took my anger, and ran.

The realisation settled like a heavy blanket, suffocating in its clarity. I’d spent so much time angry at Gus for his weakness that I hadn’t stopped to examine my own.

I’d been hurt, yes, but I’d also been looking for an escape route, and Gavin had provided one. Gavin with his familiar touch, his careful attention, his willingness to take care of me without asking for anything in return. Except that wasn’t true, was it? Gavin had wanted something. Gavin had always wanted something.

“You’re right,” I said quietly. The words felt strange in my mouth, like admitting them cost something fundamental. “You’re right, and I hate that you’re right.”

Gus finally turned from the window. His dark eyes were wet, glistening in the afternoon light streaming.

“Tim, tell me what you want,” he said.

I stared at Gus, the question hanging between us like a blade. What did I want?

The answer should have been simple: I wanted my marriage to work, wanted Gus to never have betrayed me, wanted to undo the last week and start over. But life didn’t work that way, did it? You couldn’t unmake choices. You could only decide what came next.

“I want...” I started, then stopped. My throat felt tight. “I want to know if we can come back from this. Both of us. Not just you. Me too.”

Gus moved closer, taking my hands in his. “Can we?” he asked, his eyes searching mine. “I know I love you, Tim, and I’ll do anything to fix this.”

That was what I wanted to hear. I leaned in and kissed him.

The question was so raw, so desperate, I thought about Gavin in his bed, about his touch, and it had felt like falling into a familiar rhythm. I thought about how easy it would be to slip back into that life with Gavin, to let him take care of me, to pretend the last few years hadn’t happened. But that wasn’t what I wanted. Not really.

“Yes,” I said and meant it. “I think we can. But not like this. Not with me here, not while I’m still...” He gestured vaguely at his injured wrist, at the bruises that still painted his body in shades of yellow and purple. “Not while I’m still broken.”

Gus’s grip on my hands tightened. “You’re not broken, Tim.”

“I feel broken,” I admitted. The words came easier now; the floodgates opened. “I feel like I’ve been broken since Jason, and every time I think I’m healing, something else cracks. With you. With Gavin. With myself.”

Gus pulled me into an embrace and kissed me again. This time it was different, slower, more deliberate. There was a tenderness to it that made my chest ache, a kind of apology and plea wrapped into one. When we broke apart, Gus rested his forehead against mine, breathing me in.

“I need to tell you something,” Gus said quietly. “About Jason. I did some digging at work. I have a friend who works at the Vic Traffic Police, and he has access to the traffic cameras. He found footage of the car that hit you; it’s exactly the same model of car and colour that Jason drives, but the number plates were hidden.”

I pulled back slightly, studying Gus’s face. He looked exhausted, hollowed out from the inside. “Jason ran me down on purpose?” “I think he was sending you a message,” Gus said.

“Pierre said Jason isn’t done with you. That he sees you as unfinished business.” Gus’s jaw tightened. “That he’s going to try again.”

The words hung in the air like a threat. I felt my stomach drop, the coffee suddenly too hot in my hands. I set the cup down carefully, afraid that if I didn’t, my trembling hands might shatter it.

“What do you mean, unfinished business?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. I’d lived with Jason’s obsession once before; I’d felt the weight of it pressing down on me during my marriage to Gavin. The thought of it starting again made my skin crawl.

Gus’s hands found my face, tilting it up so our eyes met. “He told Pierre that you leaving him, that you moving on with me, was like losing control. And Jason doesn’t lose control. He doesn’t accept that people can just walk away from him.”

My breath came shallow. I thought about the dream I’d had in the hospital, the one where Jason and Pierre were on the couch, and Gus and I were kneeling between their legs, sucking their cocks. Jason and Pierre were kissing each other using us as subs.

The dream clung to my mind like something visceral and wrong. I could still feel the phantom sensation of hands on me, could still taste the salt and heat of Jason’s skin, though I knew it had only been a nightmare born from medication and trauma. But now, with Gus standing in front of me, speaking about Jason’s obsession, the dream felt less like a product of my subconscious and more like a premonition.

“We need to be careful,” I said, hearing the tremor in my own voice. “If Jason’s planning something, if he really does see me as unfinished business...”

“I know,” Gus said, and there was something hard in his expression now, something protective. “That’s why I came here. Not just to try to fix us, but to warn you. To make sure you understood what you’re dealing with.”

I pulled away from Gus.

“We need to talk to Pierre; make sure he’s on our side.” Gus nodded, but there was uncertainty in the gesture.

“Pierre’s complicated. He feels guilty about what happened, but I’m not sure how far we can trust him. He brought Jason to the gym, knowing what Jason was capable of.”

I felt the weight of that statement settle over me.

Pierre had always occupied an ambiguous space in my life, helpful in some ways, complicit in others. The man had helped me understand aspects of the BDSM lifestyle, had guided me through the Collar Club, and had been present at crucial moments. But he’d also walked into that sauna with Jason, had stood by while Gus was manipulated.

“He’s the only connection we have to understanding what Jason’s planning,” I said, hearing the resignation in my own voice. “We need to know what he knows.”

Gus pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. His thumb hovered over Pierre’s name for a moment before he looked back at me. “Are you sure about this?”

I nodded slowly, the weight of the decision pressing down on me. “Yeah. I’m sure. We need to know what we’re up against.”

Gus typed out a message, his fingers moving quickly across the screen.

Within minutes, Gus’s phone buzzed. Pierre had agreed to meet, but not at Gavin’s apartment. He’d suggested a neutral location, a coffee shop downtown that was far enough away from both their lives and Jason’s usual haunts. “The message was brief: “Coffee shop downtown. One hour. Bring Tim. Urgent.”

I felt my stomach tighten at those words. What Jason’s planning. The phrase echoed in my mind as I looked at Gus, who was already moving toward the door.

“We should go,” Gus said, glancing at his watch. “We have less than an hour to get downtown.”

I nodded, but my body felt heavy, reluctant. Part of me wanted to stay in this apartment, in this bubble where the only problems were the ones between Gus and me.

I grabbed a light jacket from the coat rack by the door, careful not to jostle my injured wrist. The bruises had faded enough that I could move more freely now, but the vulnerability remained. I felt exposed, unprepared for whatever conversation awaited me.

The elevator ride down was silent. Gus stood beside me, and I was aware of the way he cared for me, opening doors and helping with my jacket.

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Gus drove us downtown, the silence in the car heavy and complicated. I stared out the window at the city passing by, watching pedestrians move through their ordinary lives, oblivious to the weight pressing down on me. My wrist throbbed with a dull ache, a constant reminder of the car, of running into the street without looking, of the moment everything had spiralled out of control.

The coffee shop was small and tucked away on a side street, the kind of place that attracted a specific crowd: artists, students, people who valued anonymity over convenience. Gus parked two blocks away, and we walked the remaining distance in silence. My body still ached from walking, but I pushed through it, needing to move, needing to feel like I was doing something.

Pierre was already there, sitting at a corner table with three coffees on the table. He looked at me. “Fuck, Tim, I’m so sorry for what happened to you. Are you okay, mon ami?”

I’m okay, I told him, sitting down across from Pierre. My wrist is healing up fine. I set my injured arm on the table, the bandage still visible but less restrictive than before.

Pierre’s dark eyes moved between Gus and me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. The man looked troubled, his usually composed demeanour fractured by something that looked like genuine concern.

“I need to tell you both something,” Pierre said, his French accent thickening as his voice dropped lower. “Jason has been… active. Very active since you left him, Tim. Since Gavin walked away from the company.”

I felt Gus tense beside me. “Active how?” Gus asked.

Pierre picked up one of the coffees and took a long drink, as if gathering himself. “Jason collects people, you understand? He doesn’t just let them go. He sees other people’s relationships as irrelevant to what he wants.

I watched Pierre’s dark eyes move across the table, watching the subtle shifts in my expression. The man’s French accent had deepened, a tell that Pierre used when he was uncomfortable or trying to emphasise a point. I had learned to read these things during our time at the Collar Club.

“He’s been making inquiries,” Pierre continued, his fingers wrapped around the coffee cup. “About you, about Gus, about Gavin. He’s trying to understand the connections, the vulnerabilities. Jason doesn’t move randomly, Tim. Everything is calculated.”

I felt my stomach tighten. I reached for the coffee Pierre had set out for me, needing something to do with my hands. The liquid was still hot, steam rising from the cup in wisps. “What kind of inquiries?”

Pierre glanced around the coffee shop, ensuring no one was within earshot. The afternoon crowd was sparse, a couple of professionals, probably accountants, sitting at a table by the window with laptops open. An older woman nursed a cappuccino in the corner, lost in a paperback novel. We were safe enough to talk.

“He’s been asking about your work,” Pierre said, turning back to Tim. “About where you are during the day, your routines. He’s been asking mutual acquaintances from the Collar Club about your preferences, your limits, what gets you... excited.”

I felt my face go red. The thought of Jason cataloguing my intimate details and building some kind of profile made my skin crawl. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s obsessed,” Pierre said flatly. “Because you escaped him, and that’s something Jason doesn’t process well. You were under his control, Tim, through Gavin, and then you just... walked away. You built a life with Gus and have moved on; he can’t accept that.”

Gus’s hand found mine under the table, his fingers threading through mine in a gesture that was both reassuring and possessive. I squeezed back, grateful for the anchor.

“So what do we do?” I asked, hearing the strain in my own voice. “If Jason’s building some kind of profile, if he’s planning something, what’s our move?”

Pierre set down his cup with deliberate care. “That depends on what you’re willing to do. Jason operates in the spaces between legality and the BDSM lifestyle. He uses people’s desires against them and exploits the power dynamics they’ve already consented to explore. It makes him difficult to pin down through conventional means.”

“Are you suggesting we go to the police?” Gus asked, and I could hear the scepticism in his tone. They both knew how that would play out. What would they even report? That Jason was asking questions about me?

“The police won’t touch this,” Pierre said, confirming what I already knew. “Jason’s too careful. Everything he does exists in a grey area. He asks questions but doesn’t threaten. He shows interest but doesn’t act. By the time anything becomes concrete enough for law enforcement to care, it’s too late.”

I felt the weight of that settle over me like a shroud. I’d lived in that grey area once before, during my marriage to Gavin. I knew how Jason operated, knew the careful choreography of control and suggestion that made it nearly impossible to prove anything criminal.

“There has to be something,” Gus said, his grip on my hand tightening. “Some way to stop this before it escalates.”

Pierre leaned back in his chair, studying them both. “There is one option, but you won’t like it.”

I waited, my pulse quickening.

I knew what Pierre was going to say next.

Pierre’s dark eyes shifted between us, and I held my breath, waiting for the words I already knew were coming.

“You could confront him,” Pierre said. “See what he wants.”

I felt Gus’s hand go rigid in mine. The words hung in the air like poison gas, suffocating in their simplicity.

“Absolutely not,” Gus said, his voice hard.

“Just listen,” Pierre continued, undeterred by Gus’s immediate rejection. “If Tim were to reach out, to suggest a meeting, to indicate interest in… reconnecting, Jason would be off-balance. He’d be focused on the perceived victory rather than whatever plan he’s been building.”

My throat felt dry. The coffee in front of me had gone cold.

“You want me to bait him,” I said quietly, hearing the disbelief in my own voice. “You want me to pretend I’m interested in going back to him so he’ll... what? Reveal his hand?”

“It’s a calculated risk,” Pierre said, his dark eyes steady. “Jason’s predictable in some ways; he wants to feel like he is in control.”

“No,” Gus said again, but this time there was less certainty in his voice. He looked at me, then back at Pierre. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t,” Pierre said flatly. “Not one that doesn’t involve running, and I don’t think Tim wants to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.”

My mind was already spinning through the implications. Reaching out to Jason. Suggesting a meeting. The thought made my skin crawl, but Pierre was right about one thing: I was tired of Jason’s shadow stretching across every decision, every moment of peace I tried to build.

“If I do this,” I said slowly, feeling Gus’s hand tense in his, “if I agree to meet with Jason, what’s the endgame? What am I actually trying to accomplish?”

“Information,” Pierre said. “You need to get him to talk. Once he thinks you’re his again, he’ll talk; he won’t be able to help himself.

You’ll get him talking about his plans, his obsessions, and then you’ll have leverage.”

I stared at Pierre; his logic was sound, but the thought of deliberately putting myself back in Jason’s orbit made my stomach churn. I’d spent months trying to escape that gravitational pull, and now Pierre was suggesting I walk straight back into it.

“How would I even contact him?” I asked, my voice sounding distant to my own ears. “Jason’s not exactly someone I’ve been keeping in touch with.”

“Through Pierre,” Gus said, and I turned to look at my husband. Gus’s jaw was clenched, his dark eyes hard as flint. “If anyone reaches out to Jason, it would be you, Pierre. You could tell Jason you’ve seen Tim and that he was asking about him.”

Pierre nodded slowly, as if he’d been waiting for Gus to arrive at this conclusion. “That could work. Jason trusts me, or at least trusts me enough to believe what I tell him. If I mention that I’ve seen you, that you seemed... interested...”

I watched the exchange between them, my mind racing. This was happening. They were actually planning to use me as bait, to dangle me in front of Jason like some kind of lure. The rational part of my brain screamed that this was a terrible idea, that it would only make things worse. But underneath that fear was something else, a cold determination that had been building since I’d woken up in that hospital bed.

I was tired of being Jason’s prey.

“What would you tell him exactly?” I asked, my voice steady despite the tremor in my chest.

Pierre leaned forward, his dark eyes intent. “That I ran into you at the coffee shop near the hospital, you were going in for a weekly check-up.”

“That you looked... conflicted. Like someone caught between two worlds. I mentioned Jason in passing, and your reaction was telling. You asked about him. You wanted to know what he was doing, how he was doing.”

I felt something crystallise inside me at those words. Conflicted. That was one way to describe what I’d been experiencing, caught between Gus and Gavin, between my old life and my new one, between safety and the pull of unfinished business I’d never actually chosen to leave behind.

“And then what?” I asked. “After you tell him you saw me?”

“Then we wait,” Pierre said. “Jason will reach out. He won’t be able to help himself. The man is driven by the need to possess, to control. If he thinks there’s even a possibility that you might be wavering, that you might be open to reconnecting, he’ll move heaven and earth to make it happen.”

Gus shifted beside me, and I could feel the barely contained tension radiating off him. “I don’t like this,” Gus said, his voice tight. “Any of it.”

I understood the objection, had even expected it. But I also understood something that Gus was struggling with: we didn’t have the luxury of disliking our options. We only had the options available to us.

“Neither do I,” I said quietly. I turned my attention back to Pierre. “But if this is the only way to get ahead of whatever Jason’s planning, then I need to do it.”

Pierre nodded, seeming to understand the weight of that decision. “I’ll contact him today. I’ll plant the seed, tell him I saw you, that you asked after him, as I said.”

“And then?” Gus asked, his jaw working. “What happens when Jason reaches out? When he wants to see Tim in person?”

“Then we take precautions. Gus, you’re a Private Investigator; you have access to technology that we can use to keep track of Tim and keep him safe.”

Gus nodded slowly, though I could see the conflict playing across his face. The man didn’t like this plan; I didn’t particularly like it either, but we both understood the necessity of it. Sitting passively while Jason circled us like a predator wasn’t an option.

“I have equipment,” Gus said finally, his voice carrying the weight of professional experience. “A tracker we can put on Tim’s phone, audio recording capabilities if we need them. I can set up alerts, so I know where he is at all times.”

“Good,” Pierre said, glancing around the coffee shop once more before continuing. “Jason will likely want to meet somewhere public at first. He’ll want to assess Tim’s state of mind, gauge how genuine he is. He won’t make his full play until he’s confident Tim is sufficiently… compromised.”

I felt my stomach turn at the clinical way Pierre described Jason’s reaction.

Compromised. The word echoed in my mind as I stared at my cold coffee. I understood what Pierre meant: Jason would want me vulnerable, uncertain, caught between desire and reason. It was the space where Jason thrived, the grey area where consent became murky, and control could masquerade as seduction.

“When?” I asked, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. “When do you think he’ll reach out?”

Pierre checked his phone, the screen casting a pale glow across his dark features. “I’ll contact him this evening. Jason checks his messages obsessively; he likes to know what’s happening in his circle at all times. I’d expect to hear from him within twenty-four hours. Maybe less.”

I nodded slowly, processing the timeline. Twenty-four hours until Jason knew he was conflicted. Forty-eight hours, perhaps, until they were face to face again.

The weight of that timeline settled over me like a physical thing. Twenty-four hours. Forty-eight hours. The numbers felt both impossibly distant and suffocatingly close.

“I need to tell Gavin,” I said, the words emerging before I’d fully thought them through. Pierre and Gus both turned to look at me, and I could see the immediate resistance forming in Gus’s expression.

“Why?” Gus asked, his voice tight. “Gavin’s not part of this.”

“Because he is,” I said, meeting Gus’s gaze. “I’m staying in his apartment. If Jason’s watching, if he’s building a profile, he’s going to see Gavin. And Gavin deserves to know what’s happening, deserves to know why Jason might be trying to contact me while I’m under his roof.”

Gus’s jaw tightened visibly at that. “Tim…”

“He’s already involved whether we like it or not,” I said, holding Gus’s gaze steady. “And honestly, after what’s happened this week, Gavin deserves honesty. He’s been nothing but helpful, and I won’t have him blindsided if Jason shows up at his apartment looking for me.”

Pierre nodded slowly, as if acknowledging the logic in my argument. “He has a point. If Gavin understands the situation, he can be an additional set of eyes. Another layer of protection.”

Gus didn’t look convinced, but I could see the moment he accepted the inevitability of it. The tension in Gus’s shoulders shifted, resigned rather than resistant.

“Fine,” Gus said quietly. “But we tell him about everything, the tracker, the plan, all of it. If he’s going to be in this with us, he needs to know exactly what he’s protecting you from.”

I appreciated that Gus was taking back some control of the situation, asserting himself in the only way he could right now. The man I’d married wasn’t one to sit passively while others made decisions about his life.

“Agreed,” I said, reaching over to squeeze Gus’s hand. “We tell him everything.”

Pierre finished his coffee and set the cup down with finality. “I’ll reach out to Jason this evening. In the meantime, the two of you should prepare yourselves mentally.

Jason will be charming at first. He always is.

He’ll want to remind you of what you had and what you could have again…”

To be continued…..

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