Chapter 4

Olivia POV

My apartment had been stripped to the bone.

The rugs were rolled tight like bandages. The paintings were down, leaving pale, ghostly rectangles on the dusty walls. Every step I took echoed against the floorboards.

I was down to the last box. The "Marcus" box.

I had been avoiding it like a landmine.

I sat cross-legged on the floor and pried opened the lid.

A scarf he bought me in Paris. A playbill from *Hamilton*. A small, dried flower press.

I picked up the scarf. It still smelled like him-a heavy mix of sandalwood and expensive tobacco. I buried my face in the cashmere for a split second, inhaling the scent of a ghost, before nausea rolled over me.

Against my better judgment, I checked my phone.

Izzy had posted a story. Of course she had.

It was a close-up of her hand on Marcus's chest. The ring was huge. A massive, ostentatious emerald-cut diamond surrounded by a halo of smaller diamonds.

It didn't just scream money. It screamed *new* money.

I stared at it until the pixels blurred.

Marcus had designed a ring for me once. On a napkin in a diner at 2 AM.

*Simple,* he had said, sketching a solitary, round diamond on a thin gold band. *Elegant. Like you. Nothing to hide behind.*

He gave Izzy a fortress. He had promised me a home.

My father's words echoed in my head. *He treats you better than anyone, Olivia. Even his mother gets jealous.*

I laughed. A dry, hacking sound that scraped my throat.

He treated me well until I became inconvenient. Until he needed the Vance family connections more than he needed my "elegance."

I called my dad.

"I'm going to the airport in two hours," I said.

"Are you sure you don't want to say goodbye to him properly?" David asked. "He asked about you today."

"He asked about me?"

"He asked why you weren't answering his emails about the portfolio transfer."

Business. Always business.

"Tell him I'm dead," I said. "Tell him I moved to Mars."

"Olivia..."

"I'm done, Dad. I'm burning the bridge."

I hung up.

I looked at the box.

I stood up and carried it to the building's incinerator chute in the hallway.

I opened the metal hatch. The rush of air from the chute roared up like a hungry beast.

I held the scarf. I held the playbill. I held the signed photo of him winning the Entrepreneur of the Year award, where he had written *To my partner in crime* on the back.

I dropped them.

One by one.

Down into the dark.

I went back inside to grab the last bag of trash. I needed to clear out the drawers in the hallway console.

I pulled the drawer open.

My breath hitched.

I had forgotten.

When I was at his office last week, before the haircut, before the end, I had seen something in the trash bin by his desk. I hadn't processed it then. My brain had refused to accept it.

But I had taken it out. Why? Habit? Desperation?

It was the stone.

Not the one I threw away in Chapter 2. That was a duplicate he made me for my keychain.

This was the *original*. The big one. The one that sat on his desk for three years as a paperweight. The one he said was his "anchor to reality."

I had found it in his trash can, buried under a Starbucks cup with Izzy's lipstick on the rim.

I pulled it out of my bag now.

It was still sticky with coffee.

He had let her throw it away. Or he had thrown it away himself to make room for her framed photo.

It didn't matter which. The result was the same.

*You are my rock,* he used to say.

Now I was just debris.

I saw a clip of an interview Marcus gave this morning on CNBC playing on my laptop. The reporter asked about his engagement.

"Olivia Hayes has been a great friend," Marcus said smoothly to the camera. "I know she wishes us the best. She understands the industry. She's a pragmatist."

A pragmatist.

I felt a cold fury rise in my chest. It was sharper than the sadness.

He didn't know me. He had slept beside me for years, and he didn't know me at all.

I took the stone.

I walked to the window. I shoved it open.

We were on the 20th floor.

I held the stone out over the city.

"I am not a pragmatist," I said to the wind. "I am an artist. And I am leaving."

I dropped the stone.

I didn't wait to hear it hit the ground.

I grabbed my suitcase. I walked out the door. I left the keys on the counter.

The Uber was waiting.

"JFK," I told the driver.

As the car pulled away, merging into the yellow stream of taxis, I felt my chest loosen.

The heavy weight was gone.

I looked back at the building one last time.

I turned forward.

I didn't look back again. The stone was dust. And so were we.