Page 91 of Yours to Keep

“I need wine,” I said hoarsely.

There was a brief pause. “Say no more. Mercedes is with me. We’ll be there in twenty.”

True to her word, my doorbell rang twenty-two minutes later. I opened it to find Ellora balancing two bottles of wine and a paper bag that smelled suspiciously like garlic bread. Mercedes held an armful of groceries that crinkled with unmistakable promise.

They didn’t ask permission before pulling me into a double hug. Mercedes whispered against my hair. “Oh, honey. He really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

Fresh tears burned behind my eyes, but this time, they didn’t spill over. I just nodded and stepped aside to let them in. Within minutes, my coffee table transformed into a chaotic spread of wine glasses, chocolate, chips, and what Ellora proudly declared was an emotional support bruschetta.

We curled onto the couch with our legs tucked under blankets. Ellora poured the wine with almost surgical precision, her eyes full of concern.

“Start talking,” she said. “What did he do?”

I told them about the spreadsheet and seeing Emily’s name on it, the words coming out uneven at first, snagging on the parts that still hurt too badly. They listened without interrupting. Mercedes’ jaw tightened a little more with each detail. Ellora’s eyebrows climbed higher and higher until they practically disappeared into her hairline.

“He fired a twenty-year nurse?” Mercedes said flatly when I finished.

“Apparently, it’s called restructuring,” I muttered bitterly.

Ellora snorted. “Ah yes. Corporate speak for I sold my soul for quarterly profits.”

A reluctant, watery laugh escaped me and Mercedes nudged my knee with hers. “Look, I know what you’re going through right now and you didn’t imagine the good parts. It just means you’re capable of seeing the best in people. That’s not a flaw.”

“It feels like one,” I admitted.

Ellora shoved a chocolate-chip cookie into my hand. “You trusted someone who worked very hard to earn that trust. That makes him the jerk. Not you.”

The wine burned pleasantly on the way down when I took my first sip, loosening the tight coil around my chest just enough to let me breathe. We spent the next hour cycling between outrage, ridiculous speculation about his inevitable miserable love life, and increasingly dramatic declarations about men in general.

By the third refill, I was smiling for real, even if the ache in my heart never fully disappeared. Eventually, their voices blurred into comfortable background noise as I stared down at my phone resting on the coffee table.

Sullivan’s name still hovered at the top of my recent calls and my chest tightened one last time. I picked it up, opened his contact, and hit Block. The confirmation prompt flashed across the screen, giving me a final chance to hesitate, but I didn’t.

The contact vanished from my call history and I set my phone facedown on the table and reached for my wine again. Ellora smiled softly. “Done?”

“Done,” I said, forcing myself to say the word.

The asshole could keep his spreadsheets, his depressingly empty, massive penthouse, and his perfectly tailored lies. I was finished with him. Once and for all.

CHAPTER 34

SULLIVAN

The house felt so much bigger and so much emptier without her around. Bree had only been there a handful of times, usually overnight, and she’d left behind faint traces of vanilla lotion and laughter that somehow still lingered, making it impossible to stop thinking about her.

I poured another drink I didn’t want, but needed. The amber liquid sloshed against the crystal as I crossed the living room. Normally, I liked the view, but tonight, it just made me feel exposed.

Instead of staying in front of the windows like I usually did, I dropped onto the couch and stared at my phone like it might detonate. The last message I’d sent sat unanswered.

Me: Please just talk to me.

Before that, there had been missed calls, voicemails, and another string of texts I’d typed, deleted, rewritten, then sent anyway. Apologies weren’t something I was overly familiar with, and apparently, when I tried, I overcompensated, but the message thread didn’t even show as delivered anymore.

I swallowed a mouthful of scotch that burned all the way down and tapped her contact again, hitting call out of sheer, stubborn reflex. The automated message came instantly. “The number you are trying to reach⁠—”

I ended the call before the voice had even finished. Clearly, she’d blocked me. I had suspected it would happen, but the realization that it actually had settled like a lead weight in my chest.

For a long moment, I just stared at the screen, waiting for anger to override everything else. Anger was familiar territory. Something I knew how to manage, but all I felt was a hollow, expanding quiet.