“My new assistant. Remember? The one we hired after making Dev a partner?”
Vague memories of a perky redhead with too many qualifications for the job floated through my ice cream-addled brain. “Right. Caroline. She seems... efficient.”
“She thinks you’re having a nervous breakdown.”
“I’m not having a nervous breakdown. I’m still processing.” I gestured emphatically with my spoon, sending a glob of ice cream flying onto my already questionable coffee table. “He turned it all down, Ani.”
“It’s been a week.”
Had it really been that long since Hudson’s public confession? Since I’d seen the viral video of him telling his father to basically go fuck himself and renouncing the Gable name? Since my phone had exploded with calls from industry contacts and journalists wanting comments? Since I’d shut down my social media and retreated to my apartment like some kind of jilted hermit?
Apparently so.
I’d watched that video seventeen times in the first twenty-four hours. Not that I was counting. Or stalking his social media, which had gone conspicuously quiet after the press conference. Not that I cared. I definitely didn’t care. Just like I definitely hadn’t spent an embarrassingnumber of nights staring at our old text messages, or scrolling through photos from the Kussikov-Martin wedding, or wondering what might have been if he hadn’t turned out to be evil incarnate with better hair.
“I’m coming back to work tomorrow,” I said, surprising myself with the declaration. “Happy now?”
“Ecstatic. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still coming over tonight with actual food.”
“Don’t you have a billionaire husband to feed and fuck?”
“Cal can fend for himself. He’s been stress-coding anyway, working on a secret project.” There was a strange note in her voice, something that might have registered as suspicious if I weren’t so committed to my ice cream therapy.
My buzzer rang, interrupting whatever half-hearted protest I was about to make.
“Did you send Dev again? God, Ani, you’re more overbearing than a mother-in-law drunk on jello shots.”
“Mari, wait?—”
I ended the call and shuffled to the intercom, ice cream still in hand. “If that’s Thai food, you better have remembered the extra spring rolls this time.”
Silence.
“Hello? Dev?”
More silence, then: “It’s not Devonna.”
The voice that came through the speaker wasn’t Devonna’s. It wasn’t Anica’s or Callan’s or even Caroline-whose-last-name-I-couldn’t-remember.
It was Hudson’s.
My spoon clattered to the floor as I froze, ice cream carton tilting dangerously in my slack grip.
“Mari?” His voice crackled through the ancient intercom. “I know I’m the last person you want to see right now. But I need five minutes. Please.”
I stared at the intercom as if it had personally betrayed me. Hudson. Here. In New York. At my apartment building.
My heart, the traitorous thing, decided to do a drum solo. My brain, slightly more loyal, screamed various obscenities.
“How did you get my address?” I demanded, finally finding my voice.
“Callan gave it to me.”
“That fucking son of a bitch backstabbing traitor.” Was there no one I could trust? “Is there a conspiracy I should know about? Are you all in a group chat behind my back? ‘Operation Fix Mari’s Broken Heart’?”
There was a pause. “I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy, exactly.”
“Oh my god, thereisa group chat.”
