HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 68

Chapter 68

Chapter 68

Bianca

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I couldn’t stop replaying it in my head the whole ride home. Claire’s voice, telling me something I wasn’t expected to hear. She said someone had sent her my work. Someone else had put together the pictures and the portfolio and sent it to her with my name and email attached.

“I just want you to know,” Claire had said toward the end of our meeting, “whoever sent this to me clearly thinks a lot of your work. I don’t usually take submissions like that seriously, but something about it made me look twice.”

I had smiled and thanked her and said something about being grateful, but inside my head was already spinning, already trying to work out who would do something like that for me. Who even had access to enough of my work to put together something worth sending.

By the time I got home that evening. I still hadn’t figured it out, and it was eating at me in a way I didn’t expect. I dropped my bag by the door and immediately called Amanda, pacing around my small living room with the phone pressed to my

ear.

“Okay but why does it matter so much who sent it,” Amanda said, laughing a little on the other end. “Someone believed in you enough to help you get noticed. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It is,” I said. “I just want to know who.”

“Maybe it’s a secret admirer,” she teased, and I could hear the grin in her voice even through the phone. “Somebody out there watching you very closely, Bianca.”

“Stop it.” I said, though my stomach did something small and stupid at the thought.

She wouldn’t let it go the whole call, throwing out names just to annoy me, guessing wildly, laughing every time I shut one down. By the time we hung up I was no closer to an answer, just more frustrated than before.

I called a couple of other friends after that, asked around lightly, casually, trying not to sound as desperate as I actually felt, but nobody had an answer for me either. Nobody even seemed to know what I was talking about half the time.

Later that night I sat with my sister on my small couch, a bowl of leftover pasta between us, the television playing something neither of us was really watching. Emma had that look on her face, the one she always got right before she asked a question she already knew the answer to.

“Do you have that man’s number,” she asked out of nowhere, not even looking up from her food. “The one that came here the second time. My friend.”

I frowned at her. “Who?”

She gave me a look like I was being deliberately slow. “You know who. The one who came to check on me when I left the } hospital.”

My stomach dropped a little, understanding exactly who she meant. “Adrian,” I said carefully. “No, I don’t have his number.” I

lied.

Hm,” she said, nodding slowly, going back to her food like that was the end of it. “Okay then.”

“Why I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me despite myself.

She shrugged, way too casually for someone who clearly wanted me to ask. “Nothing. I’m just asking because I have it.”

I stared at her “You have his number? Since when?”

13:58 Thu, Jul 23

Chapter 68

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while

“Since he gave it to me,” she said simply, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “In case something happened you weren’t around. He said to call him if I ever needed anything.”

I didn’t know what to do with that information, so I just sat there for a second, quiet, letting it settle. Emma kept talking about something else, some show she wanted to start watching, but my attention had already drifted somewhere else entirely.

My eyes landed on the small framed art hanging on my living room wall, one of the pieces I had done last year, colors

red over each other in a way I had been proud of at the time. I remembered Adrian standing in front of the day He e here to check Emma.

Can’t be him.” I thought, shaking the idea away almost as soon as it formed. But it stuck anyway, refusing to leave completely. The timing lined up too well, the anonymity felt too deliberate, too much like something someone careful would do and the connection, that was the part that kept circling back no matter how many times I tried to push it aside Who else did I know who had that kind of access to someone like Claire? Who else would even think to do something like that without expecting anything back?

I barely slept that night, my mind turning the same thought over and over until it felt worn smooth from overuse.

The next morning I wall them bent ov the seco

the office already tired, Adrian was there before me, standing near Felix’s desk, both of ow voices about something that looked important. I slowed my steps, my resolve faltering

night then, not with Felix standing right there, not with the whole office moving around us like a went to my desk instead and tried to focus on my own work, though my eyes kept drifting toward his side ftes, watching him move in and out of meetings, watching him sign paper after paper, watching the day

O longer than I wanted it to.

wasn’t until well into the afternoon, after the last meeting had cleared out and his office had finally gone quiet, that I found the nerve to walk over. My legs felt heavier than usual with every step bat I kept walking.

7

He looked up when I stepped in, setting down his pen slowly, “Bianca,” he said, “everything okay?”

I stood there for a moment, facing his desk, my hands pressed together in front of me to keep them from shaking. “Did you send my portfolio to Claire?”

He didn’t answer right away, but he didn’t look away either. He just held my gaze steady, and something about the look on his face told me the answer before he even said it out loud.

He didn’t deny it.

“Your work deserved to be seen,” he said finally, his voice calm, almost gentle. “I didn’t think you’d submit it yourself.”

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