Page 165 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

“Ethan…” Bryce starts.

“No,” I cut in, not raising my voice but leaving no room for negotiation. “You’ll wait.”

There’s a tone I use in boardrooms when things have gone wrong, and I need people to stop speaking before they make it worse.

This is that tone.

Bryce stops.

Good.

I don’t wait for anything else. I turn and head out the door to find her.

She’s halfway down the hall near the private elevator lobby, standing beside the floor-to-ceiling windows with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, trying to hold herself together.

Chicago shines beyond the glass, all cold lights and sharp edges, but Addy looks wrecked enough that the entire skyline feels irrelevant.

She hears me approach and wipes furiously at her face before turning away.

“Addy.”

“I’m fine,” she says instantly, thick and uneven in a way that makes the statement objectively untrue.

“No, you’re not.”

“Excellent observation skills. Very impressive.”

Even now, upset and humiliated and clearly fighting not to completely unravel, she still defaults to sarcasm.

My chest tightens hard.

I stop a few feet away, giving her space because she looked at me as if I’d burned her in there, and I’m still trying to understand why.

Or maybe not why.

Maybe I already do.

Bryce.

Bee.

Of all the catastrophically improbable combinations in Chicago, apparently, I invited the man who broke her heart into my home for dinner.

“Addy,” I say carefully, “talk to me.”

She laughs once under her breath, but there’s no humor in it. “Honestly? I’d rather throw myself into Lake Michigan.”

“That seems dramatic.”

“So does discovering your billionaire boss is best friends with the ex who publicly dumped you in an airport.”

I exhale slowly. “I didn’t know.”

“I know that now.”

“You flinched from me.”

Her shoulders tense immediately.