He’s wearing sunglasses inside. Of course he is. He’s dressed in a cashmere hoodie, looking fresh, unbothered, and annoyed that I exist in his general vicinity.
"For fuck’s sake," he says, wrinkling his nose as he scans the apartment. "It smells like stale sadness in here. Open a window."
I cross my arms over my chest, fighting the urge to hide until he leaves. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me cower. "Get out."
"Relax. I'm not here for you," he sneers, pushing past me toward the kitchen. "I just came to get my stuff."
"Your stuff?" I follow him, my bare feet slapping against the cold laminate floor. "You don't live here, Ryder.”
He ignores me, heading straight for the counter. He starts unplugging the stainless steel Breville espresso machine.
My jaw drops. "Are you serious?"
"What?" He doesn't even look at me, struggling with the cord tangled behind the microwave. "I paid for it."
"You bought that for my birthday," I snap, my voice rising. "It was a gift."
"I bought it for the *apartment*," he corrects, yanking the plug free. "And since I paid three grand for it so I didn't have to drink your instant swill when I stayed over, I’m taking it. God knows you can’t afford the beans for it anymore anyway."
The insult lands like a punch to the face. I watch him wrap the cord around the machine, his movements casual, entitled. He’s stripping my home of the one luxury item I actually use, not because he needs it—he has a commercial-grade machine at the estate—but because he can. Because he wants to remind me of my place.
"You are unbelievable," I whisper. "You humiliate me in front of the entire town, you destroy my business, and you come here to steal a coffee maker?"
Ryder hauls the machine into his arms, turning to face me. He’s got a sneer on his face that I want to slap off.
"Don't be dramatic." He sighs, adjusting his grip on the machine. "Honestly, you shouldn't be this surprised. The writing has been on the wall for months. You just refused to read it."
"Really?" I laugh, a harsh, brittle sound. “You told me you loved me.”
He rolls his eyes. "That’s just something you say. Face it, Blair. We didn't fit. We never did." He steps closer, and for the first time, his face loses that bored, vapid expression and twists into something meaner. "My dad was right about you."
The air leaves the room.
I stiffen, my fingernails digging into my palms. "What?"
"My dad," Ryder says, enjoying my flinch. "He told me months ago I needed to break things off.” Ryder smirks, a cruel twist of his lips. “I should have listened to him sooner."
Silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
Gabriel.
Gabriel Hollis—the man who watched me across dinner tables with eyes that felt like they were stripping me bare, the man whose intensity terrified and thrilled me in equal measure—thinks I’m not good enough for his son.
It shouldn't hurt. I should expect it from a man like Gabriel, who built an empire on ruthlessness. But for some reason, the idea that he looks at me and sees nothing but a waste of his son's time... it twists a knife in my gut deeper than Ryder ever could.
"Get the fuck out of my apartment," I say again. My voice is deadly quiet.
Ryder chuckles, adjusting the heavy machine in his arms. "Gladly.”
He walks out.
The door clicks shut behind him, leaving me in the silence of my unraveling life.
I stand in the middle of my kitchen, staring at the empty spot on the counter where the coffee maker used to be. It’s a small thing. A stupid thing. But it’s the catalyst that finally burns away the grief and leaves nothing but white-hot, blinding rage.
My dad was right about you.
Is that what he thinks? That I’m just some poor girl trying to latch onto his family’s prestige?
