The lift slows and shudders to a stop, but I don’t move. Not while she’s still beside me. I try to speak, but there’s too much behind it.
The doors part. Cool air hits my face. Theo doesn’t move. She’s still got the folder locked to her chest. Her eyes stay on the floor.
‘Finn.’ Her whisper slices through me.
But it’s not enough to stop me. I step out and walk. I have to get… I have to…
The paper cuts into my palm where I’ve folded the edge of the offer. Each step forward burns hotter than it should. My spine’s damp, and the back of my shirt sticks.
No footsteps, no sound from the lift. I keep waiting for something. Her voice behind me, sharp or soft, anything.
But there’s nothing. Just the foyer stretching out.
This isn’t the version where she runs from me. This is the crueller version, where she stays inside and simply lets me go. Where I walk away, tearing at the seams, waiting for her to shout my name. And she doesn’t make a sound.
Bad timing. Two broken people.
This was never going to have a happy ending.
I want to turn back. God, I want to. I want one more glimpse of her, standing there, not letting go.
I can’t.
It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I’m too fucking scared she won’t be looking at me. Or worse: that I see in her eyes that this was never as real for her as it was for me.
Then the doors close.
Chapter 21
Theo
‘Partner! Your cake finally arrived.’ Charlie shoves a box into my hands. ‘I had them use the good photo. The one you actually smile in.’
It’s a Saturday, and we’re in the office because that’s where we belong. And because yesterday happened, and I can’t be in my flat with all that silence and Finn’s absence.
I tip the box open. It’s a proper cake. A full-on, marzipan-heavy, cream-filled monstrosity. And on top of it, printed on a sheet of edible paper, is my own face. Smiling. Professional. Unbothered.
Lies. All of it.
‘Oh. For me?’ I barely recognise my voice; it’s miles from how I feel.
‘Hell yeah for you!’ She’s radiating enough energy to power the entire building. ‘You did it, Theo. The firm’s yours as much as it is mine now. The hours, your loyalty and brilliance… And what you pulled off with Finn…’ She shakes her head, beaming. ‘You didn’t just rebrand him. You gave him the chance of a lifetime.’
‘Thanks, Charlie. It means a lot.’
It does. It truly, madly, deeply does. This was the dream and the whole bloody point. Proof that I could rebuild, that I’m worth more than my last colossal fuck-up. But right now, it feels like a consolation prize. A shiny distraction from the gaping hole Finn Lennox left.
She frowns as she reads my expression. ‘Marseille is a big deal. You know that, right?’
My stomach coils, and I set the cake on my desk with meticulous care, making sure it’s perfectly aligned with the edge. One small thing I can control in this swirling emotional apocalypse.
‘Aye, it’s a fantastic opportunity for him.’ I say the correct words, use the professional phrasing. And part of me means it. The other part wants to scream.
This is a massive win for her agency. Our agency, I mean.
‘Partners? I feel it requires a handshake.’ Charlie extends a hand, a wide smile lighting up her face.
I take it with a firm grip. ‘Partners,’ I repeat, the word echoing in the hush that follows.
