Chapter 5

Olivia POV

Coming to the gallery opening was a mistake.

I definitely shouldn't have come. My flight was scheduled for midnight, leaving me with four agonizing hours to kill, and my friend Sarah had begged me to stop by her exhibition in Chelsea.

*Just one drink,* I had told myself. *A final toast to New York before I burn the bridge.*

I didn't expect the universe to play such a cruel, cosmic joke on me.

I was standing by a sculpture of twisted metal-a jagged, chaotic piece that mirrored exactly how I felt inside-sipping sparkling water, when a sudden hush fell over the room.

The atmosphere shifted instantly. The air became charged, electric, sucking the oxygen right out of the space.

I turned.

Marcus and Izzy walked in.

They looked like royalty descending upon the peasants. Marcus was in a tuxedo-why on earth was he in a tuxedo at 8 PM?-and Izzy was wearing a silver dress that shimmered like liquid mercury.

I tried to shrink into the shadows. I tried to will myself into becoming part of the drywall.

"Olivia!"

Izzy's voice was a homing missile, locking onto my coordinates with terrifying precision.

She waved, a frantic, performative gesture, and dragged Marcus toward me.

He looked... arrested.

He stopped dead in front of me. His eyes swept over my black turtleneck and jeans. I wasn't dressed for this high-society tableau; I was dressed for a six-hour flight to Montana.

"You're here," Marcus said. His voice was low, rough around the edges.

"I was just leaving," I said.

"We just came from a pre-wedding shoot," Izzy gushed, clinging to his arm as if she were afraid he might float away. She flashed the ring. It caught the harsh gallery lights and blinded me with its calculated brilliance. "Marcus insisted we stop by. He loves supporting local art."

She looked at me with a triumphant smirk. Her eyes screamed it: *I won. You lost. Look at us.*

But Marcus wasn't looking at the art. His gaze was anchored on me.

"I heard you resigned from the research position," he said, ignoring her. "My assistant told me."

"Yes," I said.

"I have a position open in Marketing," he said, the words rushing out a little too fast. "If you need a job. It pays well. You wouldn't have to leave the city."

He was doing it again. Trying to fix my life. Trying to keep me within arm's reach, like a pet he could visit on weekends to assuage his guilt.

"I don't need a job, Marcus," I said.

"Don't be stubborn," he snapped, a flash of his old impatience surfacing. "You can't live on air."

"I have a plan."

"What plan?"

"A new direction."

A man walked by us-someone from our old circle, holding a martini like a weapon. He leaned in, his voice dripping with faux-sympathy. "Rough night for a reunion, isn't it? You two were the golden couple. Shame."

Marcus stiffened visibly.

I looked the man dead in the eye. "Marcus and I were strictly business partners. The contract expired."

Marcus flinched.

It was a small movement, a tightening around his eyes, but I saw it. It was the reaction of a man who had just been slapped. I had reduced our entire history-the late nights, the secrets, the love-to a transaction.

"Is that all it was?" Marcus asked quietly, his voice barely audible over the gallery chatter. "A contract?"

"You tell me," I said, my voice steady despite the trembling in my hands. "You're the one marrying the merger."

Izzy's smile faltered, cracking at the edges.

"Well," she said, her voice sharp and brittle. "We should go. People are waiting."

She tugged on his arm, harder this time.

Marcus didn't move for a second. He looked at me, really looked at me, with a confusion I had never seen before. He reached out, as if to brush a stray hair from my forehead-a reflex, a ghost of muscle memory.

I stepped back.

His hand dropped to his side, empty.

"Goodbye, Marcus," I said.

"Take care, Olivia," Izzy said. "Hope you find... whatever it is you're looking for."

They turned and walked away.

I watched them go. He was tall, broad-shouldered, the man I thought I would spend my life with. But he was walking away with a woman he didn't love, marching toward a future that was nothing but a beautifully wrapped lie.

I checked my watch.