**CHAPTER 40 — Frost's POV**
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I was in a five star hotel room with Anika, watching TV while she bit and sucked my neck with quiet persistence.
If I said I disliked it I'd be lying. Anika is a grown woman — and I've always loved that about her. She knows exactly what to do and what to say to make a man lose his mind. But recently my attraction to her had been lower than before, and that unsettled me more than I wanted to admit. Especially now, while she was clearly trying to pull me toward her — toward the bed, toward something that used to be effortless between us — and I was simply not in the mood.
She shifted, kissing me, sliding my shirt off my shoulders. Her other hand still moved at my neck. Then she moaned softly against my skin.
"Let's take a bath together, baby."
"Anika." I kept my voice even. "I'm tired from work."
She pulled back slightly, looking at me. "A month, Frost. A whole month and you're still busy every single day." Her voice tightened. "I thought you loved me. I thought I was important to you."
Her eyes filled.
I took her hand and held it. "You are important. Stop." I wiped her tear and kissed her once, quietly.
She pulled back. "But you didn't answer."
"Answer what?"
"I told you I love you." Her voice shifted — softer now, then harder. "And you said nothing."
She was right. Why hadn't I answered?
Before — if she'd said those words to me — I would have responded immediately. Kissed her. Touched her. Loved her back like a man with nothing else in the world. But now the words sat somewhere in my chest and refused to move toward my mouth. I couldn't explain it. I didn't want to examine it.
I opened my mouth to try anyway —
And something on the television stopped me.
A commercial. Pizza. Familiar music, bright colors, the kind of advertisement that costs serious money to produce. And there — right there on the screen — was Emily Sterling.
*The* Emily Sterling. The most famous actress working right now. I'd never seen her in a commercial before. Not once.
I reached for the remote and turned the volume up.
She was standing beside a man I recognized. Alex — the chef who worked with Cossette. What was he doing there? How had that happened? When had that happened?
The commercial ended with both of them speaking directly to camera, warm and polished and completely professional.
*"Krasiva Restaurant's pizza — now available in Foody's canned and frozen range. Healthy, delicious, and made the right way."*
Anika had gone still beside me.
Then — "That bastard." Her voice was low and sharp. "He's Cossette's chef. And they just said her company name. How does she even know Emily Sterling?" She stood up from the bed, her whole body rigid. "Cossette is garbage. She is absolute garbage."
She was trembling. Not from stress. Not from fear.
From jealousy.
I watched her and felt something cold settle in my chest.
I had seen Anika jealous before. Competitive. Driven. Those things I understood — they were part of who she was, part of what had attracted me to her. But this was different. This was obsession. Raw and uncontrolled and aimed entirely at Cossette. It had been building for months and I had chosen not to look at it directly.
I was looking at it now.
"Anika." I kept my voice steady. "It's one commercial. They won't win on the back of a single advertisement. Relax."
"One commercial?" She spun toward me. "It's Emily Sterling, Frost. Do you understand what that means? Do you have any idea how many people are going to buy their pizza now? Just because she smiled at a camera for thirty seconds?"
"It's a Foody product," I said. "Which means it's tied to our brand too. If she gains visibility, so do we."
Anika laughed. The sound was wrong — too sharp, too fast. "No. No, it doesn't work like that. She had her lawyers write that contract specifically so it wouldn't. She retains full rights to her division and her company. Everything stays separate. We get nothing from her success." She paused. "Our success. I hate it."
*Our* success.
I looked at her.
She said *our* company. As if Tasty belonged to her. As if she had built it, managed it, carried it through the last three years the way I had. She said it without blinking. Without noticing.
She was still moving — back and forth across the hotel room, hands tight at her sides, that laugh still sitting wrong in the air between us.
"I hate it when Cossette is better than me." She stopped walking. A smile crossed her face that I didn't recognize — slow and deliberate and something else entirely. "That's exactly why I need to destroy her. Sooner than I planned."
The room went quiet.
I looked at the woman I had chosen. The woman I had planned a future with. The woman I had been prepared to say *I love you* to not ten minutes ago.
*Was she always like this?*
The question arrived without warning and sat in my chest where the words had been.
*Had she always been this?*
Author's Note 💌
If you hate Anika as much as I do, don't forget to vote or leave a comment! Thank you so much for reading 💕