They stay for hours, filling my apartment with laughter and stories, trying to pull me out of the dark. After we make a massive dent in the Chinese food, we tear into chocolate bars and finish the wine. For a moment, I almost feel human again, their love stitching together the edges of my broken pieces.
But when they leave, the door clicking shut behind them, the silence crashes back. I curl up on the couch, clutching my refilled wineglass, the TV’s glow casting shadows across the room. The takeout cartons sit untouched now, the chocolate wrappers crumpled beside me. My heart aches, a dull, relentless thud. I love him. I love Xavier Blackwell, and he’s destroyed me. Not just my career, my future, but the part of me that believed I could be enough.
In the quiet, my phone buzzes. From across the room, I see the screen light up.
Because I have more energy than I did earlier, I retrieve the device.
There’s a new email, the subject line stark against the glow. BREAKING: BLACKWELL ENTERPRISES BOARD DECISION.
My breath catches. The Lockhart deal. Did he go through with it? Did he ignore me and sign his empire’s death warrant? Or did he listen—just enough to save himself, but not enough to save me?
I don’t open it. I can’t. Not yet.
Phone clutched in hand, I drop onto the couch, the weight of his betrayal pulling me under, the cliff of my future terrifying and uncertain.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Xavier
Sweat clings to my skin, a slick sheen born of a punishing workout meant to silence the storm in my chest. It’s Friday—four days since I crushed Seraphina and watched her walk out of my office.
More pissed than I was even then, I shove through the glass door of my office, muscles burning, each step a reminder of the weight I can’t outrun. The Lockhart deal—its ink barely dry—is a wound, a particular brand of failure seared into my pride.
The office—with new people hurriedly shoved into cubicles—hums with a brittle tension, my team moving like ghosts, their eyes darting, their voices hushed. They skirt around me, sensing the volatility beneath my tailored suit, the live grenade I’ve become.
I’m colder than ever, my orders sharp as shattered glass, my voice a blade carving through egos and half-baked reports. A junior analyst flinches when my shadow crosses his desk. Good. Let them fear me. Fear is cleaner than the void Seraphina left behind, a hollow ache that no amount of rage can fill.
I walk down the hallway from the elevator, half expecting to be greeted by the scent of vanilla and salvation.
Instead…there’s nothing.
I push open the door to the reception area of my suite. Jessica. Is that her name? She’s my second assistant this week. Monday, I made do with no one after Seraphina left. Tuesday, a blonde showed up, and I burned through her in single, blistering shift. Jessica was an executive assistant at Lockhart, and I figured bringing her over was a good move.
I was wrong. She lounges at her desk, scrolling on her phone with an air of practiced indifference. Her purse is on her desk, and she barely lifts her gaze when I enter.
Fuck. She doesn’t even pretend to care.
“Heading to lunch.”
I might not mind, except for the fact she has strict work hours, eight to five, Monday through Friday. And she was forty-five minutes late. I check my watch. She’s been here a whole two and a half hours before walking out the door again?
On her desk, the message light blinks on her phone, repeatedly, damning her.
“Mind grabbing me a coffee first?” I’ve been living off whiskey at night, and caffeine to keep me going all day.
She stands and drops her phone in her purse. “I’m meeting a friend, and I can’t be late.”
Of course she can’t.
The air in here feels sterile, clinical, stripped of any warmth—no trace of vanilla to haunt me, no echo of Seraphina’s quiet efficiency.
“Coffee cart’s downstairs. You can call in an order. Or, you know, make your own cup.”
She’s got her hand on the doorknob before I react.
“Don’t come back.”
Jessica doesn’t respond. The sharp click of her heels fades into the hum of the office, leaving me with nothing but my own fury, coiled and useless.