Chapter 1
Seventeen days into our silent standoff, I heard my boyfriend of eight years had slept with his childhood friend. He was telling people we’d already broken up. When I called, he asked if I had anything to say. “I do,”I replied. “When do I get my forty-five thousand dollars back?”
——
“Did you and Ethan break up?”
That was how I found out my boyfriend had apparently spent the night with Vivian Shaw, the woman he’d known since childhood.
Someone had seen them leaving the same hotel suite that morning.
When confronted, Ethan had just shrugged and said we’d been over for ages.
News to me. We hadn’t spoken in seventeen days, but I’d been very careful not to use that particular word.
My thumb was dialing his number before I even processed the betrayal.
“Did we break up?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” His voice was flat.
I thought about it.
“Fine. When are you paying me back?”
Silence.
I sat up. “What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer.
“Ethan. You’re not planning to keep my money, are you?”
Forty-five thousand dollars. He owed me forty-five thousand dollars, and he’d said he would return it.
For seventeen days, I’d waited. I hadn’t dared say the words. Once we were officially exes, I knew he’d find a reason to write off the debt.
Now he’d announced it himself. Surely we could settle up before he moved on to the next woman.
“I gave you enough time,” I said. “You promised to pay. If you don’t, I’m getting a lawyer.”
My voice went shrill on the last word. So much for handling this with dignity.
I was on my feet, phone clamped to my ear, halfway to the door without any clear idea what I’d do when I got outside.
“Is that all you want to say to me?” he asked.
I stopped.
“Clara. You have nothing else to say?”
My hand was shaking. I was close to crying, and he wanted a different conversation.
“Pay me back n—”
Before I could finish the word, the line went dead.
I stood there staring at my phone, then sat down on the floor because my legs had stopped being useful. Tears ran down my face. I’d worked too hard for that money. I couldn’t afford to start all over again.
My phone chimed.
A bank notification. A credit of $45,000.
I opened the app. Checked the transaction. Checked the available balance. Closed it and opened it again, in case I’d managed to hallucinate a bank transfer.
The money was there.
I wiped my face on my sleeve.
Well. Could’ve held off on the crying.
I called my friends.
“Drinks tonight. My treat.”
Sophie Lane wanted to know what we were celebrating.
“Unexpected windfall.”
Technically, getting your own money back wasn’t a windfall. Emotionally, I’d just won the lottery.
I’d put my chances of seeing it again at about fifty-fifty.
The threat to get lawyers involved had come from panic. Picking a fight with the Whitmore family wasn’t something I was eager to test in practice.
But he’d paid. I could breathe. I could order an appetizer without mentally subtracting it from the mortgage payment.
At the bar that evening, I pushed the menu toward Sophie and Nina Brooks.
“Order whatever you want. And another round.”
Nina studied me across the table. “You actually seem happy.”
“I actually am.”
“You know about Ethan and Vivian?”
“Yes.”
“About the hotel? Somebody saw them come out together.”
“I heard.”
“So you really broke up.”
“We did.”
“And you’re not upset?”
I put down my drink. “Okay. Pick one. Your family loses everything, or your boyfriend leaves you.”
She hesitated. “Boyfriend.”
“You get cancer, or your boyfriend leaves you.”
“Boyfriend.”
“You get hit by a bus—”
“Clara.”
“See? Pretty good day.”
Nina was beginning to smile. Sophie wasn’t. She’d gone still, looking over my shoulder.
I turned.
Ethan stood behind me with Vivian and several of his friends. He looked like he’d heard enough to regret coming over.
I raised a hand. “Hi.”
His expression got worse.
“Come outside.”
“With you?” I glanced at Vivian, half a step behind him. “Your girlfriend’s right there. Seems a little awkward.”
She looked at him, waiting. He didn’t turn around.
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of my chair.
Sophie and Nina jumped up. I lifted my free hand to signal them I was okay, though I was already trying to pry his fingers loose.
“Ethan. I can walk.”
He didn’t stop, dragging me into a dim corner off the hallway.
