“That…” I stammer, and then I shake my head sharply. “That didn’t happen, remember? That was a mistake.”
“Was it?” His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip. “I asked her.”
I’m so rattled by the past ten seconds that I’m slow to pick up his meaning. “Asked who?”
“Reese.” The tension in his shoulders is different now. It’s not the defensive, guarded posture from before, but alertness. Despite the pale, thin version of Wyatt in front of me, he looks more like the man I first met. “I asked her about the scoring matrix.”
I’m so shocked that my entire body fades out of existence before snapping back to the sharp, bright present. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“She got mad. Then she said she couldn’t remember.”
My pulse throbs in my ears. “She couldn’t remember which factors she included in the evaluation framework, or how she weighted them to calculate the composite divisional value score?”
“None of it.” He shifts from foot to foot, looking troubled. “She said it was all in her files, and she’d have to look it up to remember the details.”
I snort. “Right. I can’t tell you how often I forget the details of the matrix I built myself. It’s only the foundation of the entire analysis and the driver of every recommendation that follows.”
His gaze holds me in place as he steps closer.
“You wrote that audit, didn’t you?”
Is this… is it finally happening? I nod, too buffeted by emotions to speak. Then I choke out, “There was a note too.”
His brown eyes are liquid in the light of the setting sun. “What did it say?”
I can’t. I can’t share this with him after all this time and all this hurt.
“Ask your girlfriend.” I cut my eyes away. “She’s the one who stole it.”
“She’s not my girlfriend anymore.”
“Oh, right.” Bitterness coats my tongue. “Your fiancée.”
Those awful brackets around his mouth are back. “She’s not that either.”
This shuts me up.
“Does that mean—” I ask hesitantly.
“We broke up.”
The words hang there, and my whole body goes hot, then cold, then hot again.
They broke up. Wyatt’s single. The man I hate is single. The man I’ve hated for years, who’s hated me for years, is single, and he knows I wrote that third audit.
“I’m sorry?” It comes out as a question, and Wyatt laughs.
“No, you’re not.”
“No,” I say breathlessly. “I’m not. Was it because…”
“She stole your audit, passed it off as her own, and lied to me for years about it?” He breathes hard out of his nose. “It was a lot of things, but that was definitely a big one.”
“Good.” It’s out before I can stop it, and I slap my hand over my mouth. It’s not like I want him back. There’s no unwinding our whole, awful history.
