I Loved Your Ghost Not You Chapter 1

I was just shooting the breeze with my buddy that day, completely unaware until I happened to glance back and saw Viola standing there. Her face was dark as a thunderhead, practically vibrating with rage.

We had been venting about the exhausting, messy realities of dating. I was mid-sentence, casually saying that she was just a placeholder—someone to pass the time with, because compared to Mona, everyone else was just static on the radio.

I even brought up her best friend. I said that with the lights off, there wasn't a damn bit of difference between them anyway, and that faking my way through that little performance had been a total waste of my energy.

The truth was, sleeping with her best friend had originally been a desperate, clawing attempt to get back at Viola.

But the morning after, I overheard the two of them laughing about it. Viola actually told her friend that it was a calculated move. She said it was just a way to teach me a lesson—that once I felt dirty, once I was terrified she’d throw me away for being tainted, I’d finally stop throwing tantrums and fall in line.

Her friend even chimed in to compliment my body, laughing that I was just a little too inhibited, and if I’d let loose a bit more, she would have had the time of her life.

But what Viola didn't see coming was this: I truly, fundamentally, did not give a single damn.

* * *

The day after I slept with Shirley, Viola showed up at her door.

She sank into an armchair, her posture painfully languid, her tone entirely too casual.

"Don't look so tense. I'm not here to read you the riot act. I know Holden came to your place last night."

"I let it happen."

Shirley let out a low whistle.

Viola lit a cigarette, the flame illuminating the sharp angles of her face. "How was he?"

"Pretty damn good," Shirley said, sinking back into the opposite sofa, a reminiscent gleam in her eyes. "I see why you keep him around. The boy’s got fire. Built perfectly, firm everywhere it counts."

"He's just wound a little tight. If he leaned into it, he'd be lethal."

"And that look on his face—like he was right on the edge of crying? Jesus, it was so pure it almost hurt. Thinking about it now makes me..."

Viola kept smiling, but the expression was entirely localized to her mouth. It never reached her eyes.

"Still," Shirley mused, "you knew he was only crawling into my bed to get back at you. Why give him the green light?"

"Because now he’ll learn his place," Viola said, her voice completely flat.

"He’s been acting out lately. Throwing fits, testing my patience. It was getting exhausting. Once he realizes that throwing a tantrum gets him absolutely nowhere, he’ll stop."

Shirley looked thoroughly entertained. "Aren't you worried that giving him a taste of the buffet will turn your house cat into a stray? What if he decides he likes sneaking out?"

Viola let out a dismissive scoff. "He won't."

"Holden grew up in the foster system. He’s been starved of affection his entire life. You give a guy like that a single drop of warmth, and he treats you like a life raft. He loves me down to the marrow of his bones. Last night was just a blind, impulsive lashing out because he was hurt. He doesn't have the spine to make a habit of it."

She tapped her cigarette against the ashtray, the words spilling out with a cloud of grey smoke.

"I know how he ticks. Once the anger burns off, the guilt is going to eat him alive. He’s going to feel filthy. He’s going to be terrified that I’ll look at him and see something used. After this, he’ll be perfectly docile. No more shouting, no more crying. Low maintenance."

"Let him cross the line once, and I buy myself a lifetime of absolute obedience."

"It's a good return on investment."

Shirley clicked her tongue, giving a slow, mocking round of applause.

"Spoken like a true CEO. You train your men the way people train dogs."

"But from what I remember, Holden is practically a saint. The guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body. What the hell did you do to push him over the edge? Was it... because of Hayden?"

"Don't tell me he walked in on you two—" Shirley made an explicit gesture with her hands, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

Viola shot her a dead-eyed glare.

"Keep your mind out of the gutter. He just saw us kissing."

Shirley whistled again.

"Seriously though, what's the endgame here? Hayden is back in the States. Who are you picking? He’s the ghost you’ve been chasing for a decade."

"You only keep Holden around because their names sound the same, and they have the same jawline."

"Hayden isn't going to share you."

The cigarette smoke veiled Viola's face, blurring the hard lines of her expression.

She let the silence stretch out.

"I'll deal with it when I have to," she finally said. "Holden can't survive without me. Worst case scenario, I keep him set up somewhere quiet."

"He's naïve. If I don't protect him, this city will chew him up."

Then, remembering something, she shot Shirley an ice-cold look. "You made him use protection, right?"

Shirley froze, taking a fraction of a second too long to recover.

"Obviously."

Viola crushed her cigarette into the glass tray. She pulled her trench coat tight around her shoulders and stood up, her voice dropping to a glacial chill. "I let you take a bite out of my property last night. But hear me clearly."

"There won't be a next time."