The Roman ordered me to cancel the meeting, but when I heard an unfamiliar man’s voice on the stairs, his face suddenly went pale

Exactly at eight in the evening, Roman Gallagher pushed open the door of my bedroom so hard that the handle struck the wall and a small pearl earring hanging on the mirror fell onto the floor.

I was standing in a green silk dress and applying the final layer to my lips. The dress covered me below the knees, wrapped tightly around my waist, and did not hide those round hips which I had been forced to hide all my life. And Roman stood on the threshold, so tense as though downstairs not my date, but an armed enemy were waiting.

“Take off that dress,” he told me. “Cancel the date.”

For one second I thought that I had not heard correctly.

Then I put the makeup brush on the table.

“You have ten seconds to explain why you burst into my room and speak to me as though I were your property.”

Roman Gallagher could threaten even the strictest business people without raising his voice. I had worked in his large house for eight months and knew how the room fell silent when he entered a meeting. But now, for the first time, I saw that he too was more frightened than I was.

“Oliver Harrington is not who he told you he is,” he said.

“Eight seconds.”

“He owes two million four hundred thousand dollars.”

My hand stopped toward the bag.

“Not to a bank. To people who do not send letters when a debt is late.”

“You investigated my date?”

“Yes.”

“You investigated my date?” I repeated loudly.

“I check everyone who comes near this house.”

“The woman who brought the groceries yesterday too?”

“Yes.”

“The dishwasher repairman?”

“Yes.”

“My dentist too?”

This time Roman delayed for a second.

I laughed bitterly.

“You are insane.”

“They have said that before.”

I picked up my phone. From downstairs came the crunch of car tires and then the sound of a bell. Oliver was already waiting for me in the living room.

“Don’t you dare,” Roman said.

“Don’t touch me.”

He stopped at once. At this small distance I could hear the heaviness of his breathing. I was angry with myself, because instead of fear I saw something else in his eyes—not an order, but desperation.

“You are right,” he said.

“I did not expect that answer.”

“Bursting into the room was wrong. The commanding tone was even worse. You are not mine.”

“Correct.”

“But you still will not go downstairs.”

“You returned everything to its original state remarkably quickly.”

His jaw tightened.

“Oliver asked how long you had worked here.”

“It was an ordinary conversation.”

“He asked how often I traveled. Which elevator the staff used. Whether you had permission to enter the office. Whether I met clients in the house.”

A golden earring touched my neck and the cold metal pressed into my skin.

Suddenly I remembered how Oliver laughed when cinnamon spilled onto my sleeve. How he asked whether I stayed alone in this enormous house. At the time his interest had seemed pleasant to me.

Now every question was taking on a different face.

“No,” I whispered.

Roman’s anger disappeared immediately.

I went to the window. Below, the lights of Manhattan flickered, while my reflection in green silk looked strangely confident. I was thirty years old, smart, independent, and could manage a forty-room house and dozens of people at the same time, but men still treated me as though the size of my body determined my worth.

Oliver had seemed different. He told me that my smile could calm even a crowded room. He remembered that I hated olives. For two weeks I believed that someone had simply noticed me.

“Was anything real at all?” I asked so quietly that I was afraid even to hear the answer.

Oliver’s voice came from below.

“Chloe? If you are ready, I will come upstairs.”

Roman stood between the door and me.

Then something heavy fell in the living room. Oliver no longer called to me. I heard only three slow steps on the staircase. Roman took a black folder from his pocket, put his thumb on the clasp, and told me:

“Before we open this door, there is one thing you need to see…”

Roman opened the folder, but hid the very first page so that I could not read it.

“We do not have time now,” he said.

“If you are threatening me, I will read it anyway.”

“I am not threatening you. You are trying to survive.”

The steps on the staircase stopped.

Oliver said calmly:

“Roman, open the door. Chloe and I have something to discuss.”

The warmth I had heard in the restaurant was no longer in his voice. His voice had become cold. Businesslike.

Roman took out his phone and looked at one message. His face changed.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“The person who gave Oliver your address.”

A thin sheet of paper slid under the door.

I bent down and picked it up. My full name was written on it, and below it the date, working hours, and one strange note: “Lives alone most evenings.”

My hands went cold.

“Where did you find this?”

“In his car.”

Oliver knocked twice on the door.

“Chloe, step away from him. He already knows where everything is hidden.”

Roman looked toward me.

“Now you have to decide whom you trust.”

The lock turned slowly. At the same moment a police siren sounded from below, but Oliver chuckled.

“The police did not come for me, Chloe. They are here for Roman…”

After Oliver’s last words, such silence fell over the room that I heard every strike of the wall clock. Roman did not open the door. He put the folder on the bed and dialed something on his phone.

“Chief of Police, begin recording,” he said. “The witness is here.”

“Roman, what are you doing?” Oliver struck the door with his fist.

“What I should have done from the very beginning.”

Roman unlocked the door. It opened slightly and Oliver’s face appeared. He held a small black bag in his hand. There was a dark stain on the sleeve of his jacket, as though it had struck the door or wall.

“Chloe, come with me,” he told me. “This man lied to you all evening.”

“Put the bag on the floor,” Roman ordered.

Oliver laughed.

“Do you think your money will save you again this time?”

Roman took three photographs from the folder and placed them in front of me. In the first, Oliver stood with an unfamiliar man. In the second, he was leaving a bank branch. In the third, he could be seen at the back entrance of my house, two days earlier, at three o’clock at night.

The strength left my knees.

“This is impossible,” I said.

“You were asleep then,” Roman said. “He forged an employee card.”

Oliver’s smile disappeared.

“The photographs prove nothing.”

“That is why there is a recording here,” Roman replied.

He switched the phone to speaker. Oliver’s own voice sounded in the room, quiet and completely unfamiliar:

“Chloe will leave at eight. If Roman is not at home, she will bring me the office key herself. The woman is important to him, so she will not resist.”

I looked at Roman.

His face was frozen, but such pain appeared in his eyes, as though these words cut me more than they cut him.

A second voice sounded in the recording:

“And if she does not bring it?”

Oliver answered:

“Then we will need not her heart, but her silence.”

Oliver stepped back.

“It is edited.”

“It is a conversation taken from your phone,” Roman said. “An expert confirmed it.”

Police officers appeared on the staircase. Oliver tried to escape, but Roman blocked his way. For the first time I saw all this man’s confidence fall away.

“Chloe, please trust me,” he said.

I wanted to scream, argue, spit in his face. But only one question came out:

“What did you want from me?”

Oliver could not answer.

Roman answered for him:

“The office safe code. And documents with which they could gain access to my company’s accounts.”

The police officer put handcuffs on Oliver.

At that moment Roman’s phone rang. He answered, listened for several seconds, and the color drained from his face.

“What happened?” I asked.

He looked toward me.

“He was not acting alone. And the second person is already standing outside your old apartment…”