She wasn't just beautiful. She was striking in a way that made you feel immediately underdressed. She had high, sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that stared directly into the camera lens with a predatory confidence. Her hair was glossy and black, swept over one shoulder in a wave that probably took forty minutes to style but looked effortless. She wore a white silk blouse, the top button undone—professional, but suggesting a life that didn't end at 5:00 PM.
I stared at the pixels, feeling a hollow ache spread through my chest.
I had expected her to be young, someone who looked like a mistake. But Lucia Vance looked like an upgrade, sharp and already finished with the world’s doubts.
This was the woman Ryan had been seeing, the one he had driven toward on the night he died, leaving me and all our dreams behind.
I opened a new tab and found her Instagram.
The profile was public. Of course it was. Real estate agents lived on visibility; privacy didn't sell houses.
I began the scroll. It was a masochistic slide through a life that looked technicolor compared to my own gray existence. Staged living rooms with mid-century furniture. "Just Sold" signs in front of colonials. Drone shots of roof decks at sunset.
I stopped on a photo from six months ago. July.
Lucia on a beach. She was wearing a black bikini, her body lean and tanned, saltwater drying on her skin. She was looking away from the camera, laughing at something, her neck arched. The ocean behind her was an impossible, filtered blue.
Caption:Santorini, you were perfect.
I imagined Ryan looking at this photo.
He had certainly seen it. Maybe while he was sitting in his truck at a job site, or in the bathroom while the shower ran. Maybe he was lying in bed next to me, the phone angled away, staring at the curve of her neck while I slept.
I imagined his thumb hovering over the heart icon, his fingers pinching the screen as he zoomed in.
I scrolled further, faster now, hunting for pain. Lucia at a vineyard, holding a glass of rosé. Lucia hiking in expensive, branded gear. Lucia at a rooftop bar in a black dress that clung to her ribs.
She looked happy and whole. A woman who had never spent a Friday night scrubbing lasagna off a Pyrex dish.
I clicked back to her company page, needing a location. A geography to pin the betrayal to.
Her bio listed her headquarters: Northampton, Massachusetts.
Two hours west.
Ryan had been driving west. Toward the Berkshires, the city.
I sat back, the kitchen island digging into my spine. My hands were shaking so hard they vibrated against the table.
He had built an entire emotional architecture with this woman. And she lived two hours away. Did they meet halfway? Did he drive to her on those "late site visits"? Or did she come here, walking the streets of my city, eating in our restaurants?
A knock at the front door made me jump.
I walked to the hallway, leaving the laptop open on the counter. Through the frosted glass panel, I could see a broad-shouldered silhouette, work boots visible at the bottom.
Ben.
I opened the door, wrapping my arms around my torso as the cold air rushed in. He was still wearing the same Carhartt jacket from last night, the canvas dark with grease stains. The drywall dust was still there, settled into the creases of his jeans, but he looked more awake now. More alert. His hair was damp, like he'd showered but hadn't bothered to dry it properly.
"You didn't call," he said.
"I know."
"I thought—" He stopped, shaking his head. "Can I come in?"
I stepped back, pulling the door wider.
"Kitchen," I said, already turning back. I walked back to the counter where the laptop still sat open, Lucia's face frozen on the screen. Ben appeared in the doorway and stopped.
