Her eyes follow me like daggers as I turn, spine rigid, chin high. For a heartbeat, I feel her gaze burning into my back. Then—heels clicking sharply against the marble, the sound fading toward the doors.
I don’t falter until I’m alone in the marble bathroom, bracing against the sink.
The mirror stares back at me, my face pale, my hands trembling. My throat burns.
Why? Why?
I slam my eyes shut. No. Not now. Not here.
I need to leave.
I stride to Greg’s office, pushing the door open before I lose my nerve.
“Della, good,” Greg says at once, looking up from his desk. “We’re starting your transfer for the work visa. HR is preparing your petition. Once it’s approved, you’ll need to return home for the consular process. Then you’ll come back as part of our Chicago office. I’m glad Marshall requested you. You’re a great asset to the team.”
“Thank you, Greg,” I manage. My voice is breaking. “But I need a favor. I need to leave. Now. Please.”
He rises immediately, concern clouding his face. His hand brushes my arm. “Della, are you all right?”
“Not really.” My lips tremble. “But I will be. I just… need to leave.”
He nods once. “Of course. Call me later.”
I nod in return, already leaving.
The office.
The building.
The city.
* * *
The clouds drift beneath the wing, soft and weightless, shifting from one shape into another. Pure white. Ephemeral. Just like my happiness.
Here one moment. Shattered the next.
A couple of words. That’s all it took. One poisonous whisper, and I plummeted—from the clouds straight to the hotel room floor.
I still feel it—the carpet against my knees, the ruby cutting into my palm as I clutched it like it could anchor me through the storm. My body shook with sobs so violent I thought they might break me open for good. Leah’s voice still echoes in my skull, sharp and merciless: “…he sold you, your love, for my money.”
Déjà vu.
The same cruel triangle—me between Dorian’s silence and Leah’s venom.
Different years, same wound reopening.
“Can I get you anything, madam?”
The stewardess’s voice cuts through the fog, pulling me back to the thin air of thirty thousand feet.
A new heart, I almost say.
Instead, I murmur, “No. No, thank you.”
I press my forehead to the window, watch the clouds blur and scatter. My heart is in pieces, and the only way to hold them together is distance.
Back in the room, once the tears dried, I’d stood on trembling legs and packed as quick as I could.
