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I’d started using ride share apps to get around the city. I refused to use any Margulis Realty driver, and asking Harry or any Fairchild driver to cart me around seemed tone deaf since I hadn’t seen Axel after our argument a week and a half ago. Actually, it seemed wrong to useanybody’sluxury services while I was in the process of burning everything to ground. If etiquette existed around detonating one’s own life, I didn’t know it. I just knew I needed to start from the ground up.
On the way to Eli’s and my brownstone, I called my assistant. I hadn’t been to the office much recently, and Tatiana sounded surprised to hear from me.
“Cora! Are you coming in today?”
“No, no, unfortunately. Still feeling under the weather.” I cleared my throat, as though this would bolster my story. But then I thought better of it. “Listen, you should know what’s about to happen. I won’t be coming back into the office.”
“Oh. You won’t? Why not?” Nervousness wrung out her voice. I could practically see her nibbling on her bottom lip like she always did.
“I need you to help me with a few tasks. I’m preparing to leave Margulis Realty. For good.”
She stammered for a moment. “But…you’re about to become CEO.”
“I know.” I looked out the window as the Upper West Side flitted by. “I never wanted to be CEO, though.”
She expelled a breath. “Oh. Well…why not?”
My eyes fluttered shut. “It’s a long story, and I don’t have that much time. I need you to work on a few things for me, though.” I rattled off a long list of tasks: get the condo appraised for current market value. Review my resignation documents for errors. Research a new lawyer who could help me be declared legally single, since Eli refused to budge on the divorce. “And last but not least: figure out if you want to take a leap with me.”
“Y-you mean…like…quit with you?” she asked.
“Yes. I won’t be offended if you choose to stay. But I’m giving you the option. I don’t have a golden parachute to offer. But I can offer you something else. Something different than what you’ve been doing.”
The car eased to a stop in front of the steps leading up to my brownstone. I hadn’t been in this house for months. Seeing it again sent a spasm of nostalgia through me. It was a six bedroom, nine bathroom monstrosity that included bay windows, a cellar, and six stories of renovated townhouse glamour. For all the crap Eli and I had lived through, I loved this place because I’d thrown so much of my passion and energy into making it perfect.
But no amount of energy would ever make anything perfect; especially not in my family. And nostalgia was no longer a valid excuse for continued misery. That’s all my nostalgia had gotten me. I’d clung to the wisps of happiness from my childhood for too long. I’d honored my parents so much, I’d dishonored myself.
“Oh, and last thing, Tatiana,” I said, reaching for the car handle. “Can you tell me if Eli is there right now?”
“I saw him come in about twenty minutes ago for the board meeting,” she said.
“Good.” I smiled up at the front door of my former home, certainty pumping through me. “Once that board meeting is done, keep him there as long as you can. I have a few matters to resolve, and I want to make sure I have as much time as possible.”
I ended the call, humming to myself.
Eli’s absence would make this part of the plan much easier.
All those Margulis stocks in our joint portfolio? They’d be mine shortly. Damian had shown me exactly what to do on Eli’s computer.
Eli wouldn’t miss them. They were only a small part of his portfolio, and losing them would barely be a blip on his bottom line.
But neither he nor my father would like what I planned to do with them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AXEL
If anyone wondered what the definition of misery was, it involved an official subpoena from the United States government and three scowling Fairchild brothers.
My brothers and I spent thousands of dollars per hour to figure out how to proceed. Life turned into an anxious whirlwind. Practically every day brought some new headline or a new shade of gray to the tabloid circuit.
I had to stop listening after a while. Because after about a week, the tabloids said that Cora and Eli had gotten back together. The mere words strung together caused a painful jumble in my gut that seemed destined for ulcer status. I couldn’t believe it was true; deep down, Iknewit had to be gossip. But whether or not she’d truly gotten back with Eli, I’d sent her away and let her show me how much I meant to her. Apparently not much, if she could she just drift away like that.
It hurt worse the second time around. Cora had fooled me into thinking she was serious about us. That she and I might have actually had a future together. But it turned out, I was the same chump as always.
I fell head over heels for the girl who played in a different league and was never even half as serious about me as I was about her. I fought with myself every day not to call her, not to show up at her doorstep and demand she return to the penthouse. Nothing felt right without her at my side, which was a fact I needed to come to terms with, once and for all.
I just didn’t know how I could make my bones believe it. My body and heart knew something my mind didn’t want to believe. There was nobody for me but Cora.
