Too Late For Regret, Mr. Carlson

The private club was a cavern of leather and smoke. Jensen swirled the amber liquid in his glass, bored.

Spencer, his college friend and a man who had never worked a day in his life, was droning on about a sailboat.

Jensen wasn't listening. He was thinking about the shredder. The sound of the paper tearing. The look in Alexia's eyes. It was bothering him. She usually cried. She usually begged. Today, she had just… existed. Coldly.

His phone buzzed on the table.

He glanced at it. A message from Clark.

He frowned. Clark never texted him. They spoke through lawyers or assistants.

He slid the phone open.

The image loaded.

Jensen stared.

It was a passport. Alexia's passport. And next to it, a birth certificate. And a patent document.

The caption read: She's serious, brother.

Jensen felt a cold drop of sweat slide down his spine. Why did she have her passport? Those documents were supposed to be in the safe at the penthouse. He kept them there. For safekeeping.

He sat up straight, the whiskey sloshing over his hand.

He called Clark. Straight to voicemail.

He called Alexia.

The subscriber you have called is not available.

Panic, sharp and unfamiliar, spiked in his chest. She couldn't leave. She wouldn't. She was Alexia. She was the constant. She was the background noise of his life. You didn't lose the background noise.

He stood up, knocking his chair over.

Where you going? Spencer asked. "Aubree is coming by in ten."

Tell her to go to hell, Jensen snapped.

He was halfway to the door when his mother called.

Eleanor.

He answered, walking fast. "What?"

Jensen! Eleanor shrieked. "You need to come home. The staff is in a panic."

What happened? Is the house on fire?

Alexia! She came back an hour ago. She ordered Mrs. Higgins to open the guest room. She's moving her things!

Jensen stopped walking. "She's what?"

She's moving into the guest room! Eleanor shouted. "Imagine the gossip if the staff talks. A separated couple in the penthouse? It's unacceptable! I told Mrs. Higgins to lock all the guest suites. I took the keys."

Jensen closed his eyes. "You did what?"

I forced her back into the master suite, Eleanor said, sounding proud. "She has nowhere else to sleep. You need to go home and fix this. Make her behave."

Jensen hung up.

He ran to his car. He drove fast, weaving through traffic, running two red lights.

She was trying to move out. She had her passport. She had gone to Clark.

She was actually doing it.

He slammed the car into park in the garage and took the elevator up. His heart was hammering against his ribs. It wasn't love, he told himself. It was control. It was order. She was disrupting the order.

He threw open the front door. The apartment was dark.

Mrs. Higgins was standing in the hallway, wringing her hands. "Sir, she… she's in the bedroom."

Jensen didn't stop. He marched to the double doors of the master suite.

He didn't knock. He shoved the doors open.