What I get is silence.
Chloe’s gone.
Jackson’s a smug bastard.
And Thatcher just handed me a career-defining opportunity…with Jackson surgically attached like a parasitic intern who snorted a line of corporate buzzwords and called it strategy.
I should walk. I should quit. But I’ve worked too hard for too long to let them take this from me.
No. If anyone should leave, it’s Jackson. He’s the problem. Not me.
But while he’s out there, thriving. I’m sitting here, mulling over the truth:I should’ve seen it coming.
The warning signs. The pulled-back affection. The headaches. The sex that went from routine to nonexistent.
And now, I’m looking back at the dwindling intimacy with Chloe like an idiot searching for clues in a murder mystery.
The victim? My dignity.
The suspect? Her wandering libido.
The motive? A textbook case of grass-is-greener syndrome, with a dick attached
I’ve retraced every moment, hunting for the red flags. I’ve come the conclusion that I didn’t miss them. I ignored them because I was scared of what it meant. And deep down, I thought if I stayed steady enough, stayed safe enough, then I would be enough.
Turns out, steady and safe don’t mean shit when you’re competing with the thrill of someone new.
I’ve learned that lesson before. Too many times.
First Natalie Stone. My first kiss, first “real” love—went to homecoming with Cash Neilson without even breaking up with me. I showed up to pick her up in my dad’s old suit and watched her parents take pictures of them in the rose garden.
Classy.
College? That was Professor McKay. I didn’t know she was married. Not until I found her husband waiting in her office.
And then there was Elijah Nichols. The mentor I thought was building me up, only to walk into a boardroom and watch him pitchmywork—myideas,myconcepts—as his own.
“That’s the game, kid,” he said afterward. “If your stuff’s good enough to steal, it means you’re worth something.”
Right.
So I adapted. Hardened. Learned to keep things close to the vest. Because trust is leverage. Vulnerability is legal tender. And once you run out, no one gives a damn about the debt they owe you.
But Chloe? She slipped past all my defenses. Took everything I gave freely and handed it to someone else. Someone who didn’t earn it. Who didn’t deserve it.
And I’m the idiot holding the receipt for a future that never existed.
My grip tightens around the bottle.
The stupid pine-patchouli candle she loved so much is drifting through the air, the throw blanket folded just so, the bookshelf perfectly symmetrical.
I hate that fucking candle. I want to mess up that fucking blanket. And I want smash that fucking bookshelf to bits.
Then snap a pic off all of it and send it to her.
But that would go against why I deleted her number in the first place.
And besides, her silence is better than any excuse she’d give me.
