She arched a perfectly groomed brow. “Yours. That’s why I call her three times a week. To remind her exactly who is waiting for her. To remind her that while she’s out ‘breathing,’ there’s a man who loves her slowly turning into a gargoyle because he misses her.”
I turned toward the window, staring out at the low gray clouds pressing against the glass. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“She’ll eventually come back, Julian.”
“I said I don’t want to hear it,” I repeated, my voice dropping an octave.
Silence stretched—thick and heavy. Then quietly, against my will, I asked, “What is she doing right now?”
“Oh, now you want to know?” My mother stood, smoothing her skirt. She paused at the door and looked back at me with a soft, infuriating pity. “She’s healing at her friend’s, helping a charitable organization. She turned down a man.”
My heart gave a traitorous, painful thud.
“She’s happy, Julian,” she added gently. “She sounds… light. Like someone who finally put down a bag she’s been carrying for twenty years.”
I didn’t turn around. “Is that all?”
“She doesn’t usually ask about you, but she slipped up and asked if you were still drinking that ridiculous green kale smoothie every morning.” My mother rolled her eyes. “I told her you were living on caffeine and spite. She laughed. It was a very pretty sound.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
I stood alone for a few moments, just staring at nothing. Then I sank into my chair. My phone was already in my hand, thumb hovering over her name. I wanted to know if she was feeling like I was feeling—if, in the middle of her breathing, she ever felt like she was running out of air because I wasn’t there.
I put the phone down. I closed my eyes and could almost smell her—vanilla and the faint trace of lemon-blueberry.
“Find yourself, Elara,” I whispered to the empty room, my voice finally cracking. “But hurry the fuck up. I’m running out of things to break.”
Chapter 45
Elara
I missed Julian.
A year ago, I drove away from him and the wreckage of our world. Nine hours straight to D.C., driving until the sun crested the horizon and I was standing on Shayna’s doorstep, still smelling like his cologne and my own panic. I was a woman who’d outrun her own shadow.
I hadn’t spoken to Julian since the night I left. I’d listened to his voicemails—the initial rage, the threats, the eventual, crushing silence. I didn’t take the anger to heart because he was allowed to be furious. I’d played with his feelings for three years, and then I’d shattered them.
I left, but I felt the weight of it every day. Because he was the right man at the wrong time. And he wasn’t wrong when he said it—Iwaslooking for an exit. I needed to know who I was without a family name hanging around my neck like jewelry I didn’t earn, without a company I inherited instead of built, and without a man who kept giving until he didn't understand the wordlimit.
I needed to build something that was only mine, even if it was small. I needed to fix myself. Telling him that wouldn’t have changed his mind; it would have only given him another problem to solve, another fire to put out for me. And I couldn’t put my burdens on his shoulders. Not anymore. I didn’t leavebecause I wanted to stop loving him; I left because I couldn’t love him the way he deserved with the pieces I had left.
I was no good in those days—burned out, grieving, moving through life like melancholy had me in a chokehold. I’d called once to ensure the contracts reached the Ashworths, then I washed my hands of it all. I turned the company over to Alistair, let the lawyers handle the divorce, and changed my number. I prayed, I yelled at the moon, and I cried to sad songs that didn’t match my specifics, just the temperature of my pain.
But I kept Julian’s car. I kept it because I always planned to go back.
For the first three months, I was just… still. After I left the hotel, I moved onto Shayna’s couch and watched the rain. I didn’t read the news, but news like that finds you. I heard about the scandal—the financial audits, the leaked emails, the grainy security footage. Seraphine Moreau’s face was splashed across every business blog, her name now synonymous with predation. Part of me still wanted to beat her ass.
LuxePartout’s stock evaporated. The Ashworths didn’t just lose the deal; they were eviscerated. The morality clauses Julian had woven into the contracts triggered like a trapdoor, leaving them liable for millions. Alistair was ousted by the board. Their world burned to the ground. Grandpa Lionel eventually bailed them out, but he wasn’t kind about it. When I heard, I didn’t feel triumph. I was just numb.
Jordan got me a job at a charity that ran girls’ group homes across the DMV. Good work. Honest work. I spent my days filling out grant applications and holding the hands of sixteen-year-olds who had seen worse than I ever had. I learned that stability wasn’t inherited—it was built, one meal and one safenight at a time. It softened me. It remade me. It showed me what it looked like to use power the right way.
It made me understand Julian’s world a little more. I realized that sometimes survival isn’t clean. Sometimes people play the cards they’re dealt, and they play dirty. I even found myself doing some "unscrupulous" things to ensure my girls had what they needed—things I would never have done for the Ashworths.
I learned to breathe. Not the shallow, careful breaths of the woman I used to be, but deep, full ones. I learned my own name—Elara Vance—without any prefix. I built a quiet life from my best friend’s living room, and in that quiet, I realized the only thing missing was him. I loved my job, and I knew I’d keep it, working remotely and flying back when needed. I was ready.
Shayna snapped her fingers in my face, and I blinked back into the present. We were on her sofa, the TV glowing in the dim room.
“So, you’re really going back home?” she asked.
