I drove a drunk stranger home and woke up to a nightmare.

Part 1

I was sitting on the edge of my own sofa, staring at a woman I did not know.

She was curled up in a pale blue silk dress.

Her blonde hair was fanned out across the pillow.

She was breathing slowly and evenly.

My apartment smelled like red wine and jasmine perfume.

She had been too drunk to remember her address.

I had brought her here because it was the only place I knew was safe.

On the coffee table, her clutch sat half open.

The phone screen was glowing inside the bag.

I was not trying to look, but the name on the screen was too bright to miss.

It read ‘her father, Dan’.

Dan was the CEO of the engineering firm I had joined two months ago.

My name is Craig.

I am thirty-four years old.

I work as a structural engineer.

I grew up outside his hometown in a small town.

My father was an electrician.

My mother was a nurse.

They raised me to show up, do the work, and never make a scene.

I carried that simple philosophy into my marriage.

Her name was Brenda.

We realized after four years that we wanted completely different lives.

She moved to out west.

I stayed in the city.

Living alone in a two-bedroom apartment that was entirely too quiet, my daily routine remained predictably simple.

After finishing a long day at the office, the evenings consisted of returning to an empty home and cooking dinner for one.

Dan ran his company with zero tolerance for anyone who could not keep pace.

I was still deep in my probation period.

The only person I was close to was my colleague Tyler.

Tyler insisted we go to a rooftop bar that Friday night.

The bar was packed and loud.

I nursed an beer in a quiet corner.

Then I saw her at the far end of the bar.

She was alone in a pale blue silk dress.

She was holding her fourth or fifth cocktail.

The bartender nodded in her direction.

I walked over and asked if she needed a cab.

She tried to stand but stumbled.

I caught her elbow before she went down.

She could not remember her building name.

I had two choices.

I could call a cab to nowhere or take her to my apartment three miles away.

I chose the second option.

I guided her to my sofa and set a pillow under her head.

I placed a bottle of water and two pain relievers on the table.

That was when I saw her phone screen.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

I had just carried the daughter of my boss into my apartment at midnight.

I walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

I wrote a note saying she was safe and I was in the other room.

I slept on the hardwood floor of my bedroom.

She left early the next morning before I could even make coffee.

She left the note on the counter.

I thought that was the end of it.

Then Monday morning arrived.

Tyler nudged me in the hallway.

He told me the boss’s daughter was in the office.

I looked through the glass partition.

It was Heather.

She looked entirely different in a sharp blazer and clean bun.

Her eyes swept the room and paused on me.

She recognized me.

Over the next few weeks, she started appearing at the office more often.

She found reasons to swing by the engineering floor.

She asked me highly specific questions about foundation reinforcement.

She brought coffee and remembered I took mine black.

One evening after she had gone home, I found her marketing suite chair was wobbling.

I grabbed a wrench from the supply closet and fixed it.

The next morning, she left a sticky note on my keyboard thanking me.

One late evening, we were the only two people left in the building.

She told me about Brian.

Brian was the son of her father’s most important business partner.

He was controlling and possessive.

He tracked her location and decided where they ate.

The night at the bar was the night she had finally ended things with him.

She had gone to the bar because she did not know where else to go.

Then Brian came back.

He walked into the office under the guise of a partnership meeting.

He saw Heather reviewing drawings at my desk.

His smile vanished for a fraction of a second.

He had not come for business.

He had come to reclaim what he believed was still his.

He stood in Dan’s doorway and made sure his voice carried.

He asked Dan if he knew an engineer had taken his daughter home at midnight.

He stripped the story of all its context.

He left out the part about her being safe.

He left out the part where I slept on the floor.

He made it sound like the worst possible scenario.

Dan looked up slowly from his desk.

His jaw tightened.

Later that day, Brian found me in the hallway.

He had somehow obtained security footage from my apartment building.

It showed me guiding a stumbling Heather through my front door.

He sent the footage to Dan.

Within the hour, I was sitting across from the CEO in his corner office.

Dan pressed play on the video.

My entire career was dissolving right in front of me.