Kelsey shuddered, her nose wrinkling. “I don’t think I want to know a guy who can make Nathan Edge cry.”
“Suit yourself,” Taylor said with a shrug, clearly unbothered.
For a second, their banter almost tugged a smile out of me. But it faded just as quickly, crushed under the weight pressing against my chest.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to make him hurt the way he hurt me.” I whispered, picking at the hem of my sleeve.
The words hung there, heavy and ugly. Kelsey’s arm tightened around me.
“Elise,” she said softly, like my name itself was a comfort.
I shook my head, tears burning again. “I feel stupid for not seeing it sooner. All the signs were there, weren’t they? Him acting hot and cold after that meeting with Dalton. Inviting me to dinner in his office one night and actually opening up? God, I thought it meant something. And then his indifference about his thirtieth birthday.” My voice broke. “I should’ve known something was wrong.”
“Stop.” Kelsey’s tone sharpened, her hand catching mine before I could dig my nails into my palm. “You are not stupid. Nathan fooled everyone, Elise. Everyone. If anyone should be ashamed, it’s him, not you.”
I sat there in silence, staring at the city lights flickering through the wide glass windows, as the weight of everything caved in. Nathan’s lies. Our relationship. The stipulation. The humiliation of every soft, secret moment we’d shared being reduced to business.
The pressure in my chest became unbearable.
“I need a minute.”
Kelsey exchanged a look with Taylor before squeezing my hand. “Okay. Taylor already snagged us a room on the same floor. We’re just a few doors down or a call away if you need me.” Kelsey assured me.
“Or me.” Taylor added.
“Thank you.”
“I love you.” Kelsey pulled me into her and held me for a second before she pulled away and stood up from the couch.
I stumbled toward the bathroom like I was walking through fog once they let themselves out. The lights were too bright, the marble tiles too cold, and when I turned the faucet, the sound of rushing water filled the room until it drowned out everything else.
I slid into the tub, clothes and all, the water climbing up my body until it swallowed me in its warmth. Only then did the dam break.
It wasn’t quiet.
It wasn’t pretty.
It was the sound of my whole world splintering. Harsh, broken sobs tore out of my throat as I curled forward, pressing my face into my trembling hands. The water clung to my lashes, my hair plastered to my cheeks, and I choked on air like it was too sharp to swallow.
How could he?
How could the man who looked at me like I was his entire universe, who kissed me slow, who touched me like I was sacred, reduce us to a fucking stipulation?
Every memory twisted, every tender word curdled until I couldn’t tell what was real anymore. Was any of it real?
I clutched my chest like I could hold the pieces together, but they just slipped through my fingers. My sobs echoed against the bathroom walls, raw and hollow, as if the sound itself might split me in two.
And underneath the grief, underneath the rage, was something even more unbearable. Love. Still there, stubborn and reckless. Still his. Even after everything.
That was what hurt most of all.
My phone buzzed over and over on the counter with calls, texts, his name lighting up the screen like a ghost I couldn’t escape.
Nathan. Nathan. Nathan.
I wanted to answer. God, I wanted to answer. To hear him say he loved me. That it was real. But every time my hand reached for the phone, the stipulation echoed in my head.One-point-two billion dollars.And my hand dropped back, shaking.
Finally, I turned the phone off. The silence was louder than the buzzing had been.
