Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 181

Chapter 181

Daphine’s POV

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The coffee shop was quiet for a Thursday afternoon, just the soft linking of mugs, the occasional scrape of a chair, and the low murmur of strangers having conversations that weren’t mu

to hears

I liked it that way. No one needed anything from me here.

da

I had my laptop open, a half-finished latte going cold beside it, and a spreadsheet on my screen that David had asked me to review by end of day.

Market projections. Numbers stacked on top of numbers. I’d be staring at them for the past hour, and for the most part, they made sense,

I typed in a note, corrected a formula, moved my cursor to the ext colum, and then stopped, just stopped,

My fingers rested on the keys without pressing anything

1 looked at the screen for a moment, then past it, to the

framed print of a Parisian street that didn’t quite fit the rest of

inted wall behind my laptop, where someone had hunga

décor

I don’t know why I kept looking at it. I wasn’t really seeing it. I vs just… somewhere else,

Thinking about David,

Eight months. I’d been working for the man for nearly a year, and the best way to describe our relationship was “stiff”

We were like two operating systems that refused to sync. He was all starched collars, expensive watches, and sentences that ended in periods.

1 was… well, I was the one who purposefully renamed his favorit server “Sparkle Cloud” just to see if his left eyebrow would finally twitch.

It never did. He just sent a three-word email: Rename it back.

1 sighed and leaned back into the uncomfortable metal chair.

1 liked the work. I genuinely did, I liked the logic of it, the way a well-built spreadsheet told a story if you knew how to read

But sometimes, sitting in places like this, carving out corners of offee shops to get through tasks that had been handed down from the forty-second floor, I wondered if I was just another line in David Tyrone’s perfectly organized life. Neatly placed. Easily accounted for.

I picked up my latte, remembered it was cold, and set it back down.

Yocus, Daphne,

I pulled my eyes back to the screen and found my place again, and for a little while, I did focus.

The the next section came together faster than the first, and I was almost back in the groove of it when I heard the door open

I didn’t look up, People came and went all afternoon, that was the whole point of a coffee shop.

But then something prickled on my forehead. That specific, inexplicable awareness that someone is looking at you.

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17:12 Mon, Mar 9

Chapter 181

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I looked up, and my stomach dropped.

Kyle.

He was standing just inside the door, scanning the room with that unhurried confidence I used to mistake for calm.

He hadn’t changed much-same broad shoulders, same close-cut fade, same expression that sat somewhere between a smile and a dare.

His eyes landed on me, and something in them settled, like he’d been looking for exactly me.

I moved before I’d made a conscious decision to.

My hands went to my laptop, snapping it shut. I shoved it into my bag, along with my charger and notebook.

I pulled the zipper and reached for my coat from the back of the chair.

“Daphne.”

His voice hadn’t changed either.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and turned, not toward him, but toward the exit. Except he was already moving, already threading through the tables toward me, and there wasn’t a clear path out that didn’t put me exactly in his direction.

I slowed to a stop, straightened my spine, and told myself my heartbeat was perfectly normal.

“Kyle.” My voice came out even. I was proud of that.

“You’re leaving.” He said it like it was interesting to him. Like it was a choice he wanted to examine.

“I was already leaving.”

“Your latte’s still on the table.”

“I don’t want it anymore.”

He tilted his head. “Can we just…”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I haven’t even said what I want to talk about.”

“I know what you want to talk about.” I shifted my laptop bag higher on my shoulder, the strap digging into my collarbone.

“And the answer is still no, Kyle. Whatever it is, the answer is no.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, a sound I knew too well, It was that specific, condescending huff, the one that meant he thought I was being hysterical and he was currently deciding how to “manage” me.

Before he could open his mouth, a shadow moved to my left.

A man in a black apron stepped closer. He was one of the managers, maybe in his mid-thirties, with weary eyes that flicked between us like he was reading a crash report.

“Excuse me,” he said, his voice measured. “Is everything all right here?”

He looked at me when he asked. He didn’t look at the man towong over my table; he looked at me, checking for the signal.

Before I could even breathe, Kyle turned his head.

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17:12 Mon, Mar 9

42%

Chapter 181

55 vouchers

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