Most of my stalking, however, was on Pierce Industries and its business ties in Cincinnati. I searched way longer than I should have, trying to deduce if Hudson really was going there, and finding nothing helpful. Did he really have business or did he just want distance?
It shouldn’t have mattered. Our next assignment wasn’t until Friday. But the need to know ate at me, consuming my mind until I’d spent hours exhausting every avenue of research I could think of.
At least I stopped myself at online stalking and checking my phone over and over for a response from him. I didn’t call the airport to see if a Pierce Industries jet had taken off—that wouldn’t have been healthy behavior.
Besides, I had no idea what airport.
***
I awoke the next afternoon with a knot in my chest. My muscles felt jittery even before I’d had any coffee. They were my usual anxiety symptoms, but I couldn’t say for sure what had caused the attack. Worry about my meeting with David? Or stress about Hudson?
In an attempt to relax, I popped in a yoga DVD before I had to get ready to leave. The narrowed focus and rhythmic breathing loosened me for the most part, but the edge still lingered.
I spent longer than usual prettying up for my meeting at the club. Not for David, but for myself. Sometimes looking good made me feel good, and I was willing to try every trick in the book to get rid of the tension. But no matter what I did, the anxiety remained, buzzing through my veins with a steady electric current.
It was simply nerves about the promotion, I told myself. I’d feel better after meeting with David.
As I was on my way out the door, I got an incoming text. I checked it eagerly. But it wasn’t from Hudson. It was from David.
“Something’s come up,” it said. “Reschedule for Wednesday at 7.”
Then I knew. That the stressing had nothing to do with David, because moving our meeting did nothing to change the way I felt. I should have felt relief, or a spike in the tension since it would have to be dragged out two more days. Also, I should have wondered about what had come up. David and I were close enough that he’d tell me. But I had no desire to ask.
Hudson. It was Hudson that kept coming to mind. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he thinking of me?
I texted back a confirmation to David and paced my apartment, trying to decide the best way to get my ex-lover off the brain. I needed to catch a group. Checking online, I made sure there was still an Addicts Anonymous session scheduled on Monday afternoons. There was, but I had plenty of time before the session started.
I could run. With Jordan driving me around so much, a bit of aerobic activity would be good for me. I changed into shorts and a tank top, put on my running shoes and started out.
The run helped clear my head, the endorphins flowing through my body making me feel better and more confident. And invincible. Which was why when I found my route had led me to the Pierce Industries building, I convinced myself it didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t a big deal to be there. Especially since I only went inside to use the bathroom in the lobby before resuming my run.
I felt so good from the exercise that I decided to skip therapy all together and keep on with my run for a while longer, continuing to the Lincoln tunnel before turning around. I passed the Pierce Industries building again on my way back. And since I knew there was a drinking fountain inside, I went in again, this time lingering a bit in the lobby, scoping out the elevators looking for some sign of Hudson in the building. I managed to make myself leave before I slipped into a car and pushed the button for the top floor.
The next day I didn’t possess as much strength.
Not only did I return to the building three times, but each time I rode the elevator. I told myself it couldn’t be called stalking exactly, because Hudson was out of town—though I had yet to accept that as truth—and because I never actually pushed the button for Hudson’s floor. Instead, I let fate take me wherever, journeying with whoever stepped on to whatever floor they were going to, then forcing myself to return back to the lobby. It felt like elevator roulette—if the car took me to the top floor, then I was meant to stop by Hudson’s office. But each time, I missed the bullet, the other passengers never choosing his floor.
Until Wednesday.
Even though my shift the night before had gotten me home at almost six in the morning, I was awake and back at the Pierce building before one that afternoon. My first ride took me only to the fifth floor. When the passenger stepped out and the doors closed, I leaned against the back of the car and sighed, knowing the car would return to the lobby if I didn’t push a button.
But instead of going down, the car went up. Someone must have summoned it from a floor above. I held my breath as I watched the needle rise higher and higher. Then it stopped on the top floor. Not the secret top floor that required a code and would take me to the loft, but to the floor that Hudson’s office was located on. I braced myself for what I’d see when the doors opened, hoping I’d learn something by peeking around whoever stepped into the car with me.
But I wasn’t prepared for the sight that met me. Three men in suits were laughing and joking as the doors parted. And with them was Hudson.
“Alayna.” His voice was even as always, with only a hint of surprise in his tone.
I froze, my body unable to move, my mouth unable to speak. A wave of jumbled emotions ran through me: I was happy to see him, yet petrified. Enraged to find he was in town after all and somewhat satisfied that my suspicions had been right.
Hudson held a hand out to me. Automatically my arm moved to take it, and he pulled me out to stand next to him. He turned to the men with him. “Gentlemen, my girlfriend has decided to surprise me with a visit to my office.”
I managed to smile before pinning my stare to my gray running shoes.
“That can never be good,” one of the other men said and they all laughed. “Well, we’ll leave you to her then. Thank you again for meeting with us.”
I barely heard the goodbyes the men exchanged with Hudson before they took my place in the car, and how I made it the short distance to his office was beyond me. I was numb, my mind consumed with the fact that I was someplace that I shouldn’t be.
The office doors clicked closed behind us. Hudson must have held my hand the whole way there, but I didn’t notice until he dropped it and walked away from me. “What are you doing here, Alayna?”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, but the absence of anger in his tone brought me out of my haze. I could get myself through this. I’d been good at talking my way through things in my obsessive days. I’d explain and he’d believe me and all would be fine.