“I am two days away from closing the biggest deal of my career,” he said. His voice was different. Steadier. Like he had found a foothold. “Two days. I need you to give me two weeks after that closing. Just two weeks of real effort, premarital counseling, both of us fully committed. And I will write you a check for five hundred thousand dollars to just try.”
I stared at him.
Then I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Not because it was funny but because the absurdity of it confirmed everything I alreadyknew. He had just offered me half a million dollars to stay in a relationship. And all it did was make me more certain.
“I have to go,” I said.
I walked to the bedroom and pulled my bags out of the closet and started moving through the room methodically. Clothes, shoes, the things I would need immediately. I would send movers for the rest throughout the week.
Brendon appeared in the doorway.
“So that’s it,” he said. “You’re just packing and leaving.”
“I’ll coordinate with you to get my things out of the house. I’ll keep it clean and organized and it won’t take long.”
“Ivy.” His voice broke on my name. He was crying now, really crying, not quietly either, and some part of me that still cared about this man felt the weight of it.
“Three years. We built something. You’re just walking out like none of it meant anything.”
“It meant something,” I said. “It meant a lot. You are a good man Brendon and I genuinely mean that.”
“Then stay.” He crossed the room and grabbed my hands. “Please stay.”
I held his hands for a second. Then I gently pulled mine back and kept packing.
The crying shifted. I heard it change in real time, the grief curdling into something else, something that had edges. I had heard that shift before in my life growing up and I recognized it before he even opened his mouth.
“You know what,” he said. His voice was flat now. Cold. “You were nothing when I met you. Your businesses were barely breathing. You were three months from closing the tax company when we got together.”
I stopped moving but didn’t turn around.
“All those clients that came in your second year,” he said. “You remember how your business turned around almost overnight? That wasn’t luck. That was me. I made calls. I sent people to you. I built your reputation in this city and you don’t even know it.”
I turned and looked at him.
“I was going to turn you into something,” he said. “And you want to walk out and throw all of that away.”
“I built my businesses my damn self,” I said evenly. “I appreciate anything you contributed but I put in the work and don’t you minimize that.”
“You know what else, I was sleeping with my assistant this whole time.” He said it like he was commenting on the weather. “The whole time. Since the beginning. So you’re not leaving me for something you had. You’re leaving because you never had what you thought you did.”
The room went completely quiet.
I looked at him and I looked at his face and I knew it was true. Not because of how he said it but because of how he looked immediately after he said it. The micro second of satisfaction before the regret moved in.
“Thank you,” I said.
He frowned. “What?”
“Thank you for finally showing me who you are.” I zipped my bag and picked it up. “Because I have been feeling guilty for weeks. I have been tearing myself apart over doing this to a good man. And you just took all of that off me.”
“Ivy I was just—”
“Don’t.” I picked up the second bag.
“Don’t tell me you were joking. Don’t take that back. We both know you meant it.”
I moved toward the door and he grabbed my arm. Hard.
