I had spent the last stretch of it barely present-nodding at the right moments, smiling when the conversation paused-but my mind was somewhere else entirely.

I asked myself the same question I needed to know urgently: How exactly did I die?

What should I avoid to prevent it? Did she poison me? Drug me? Put something in my product, lotion, or anything that may have been toxic to me?

It was mental exhaustion, trying to find the answer in front of the culprit. So I pushed my chair back and stood.

"I should get going," I said simply. "I need to prepare for work tomorrow."

"So soon?" Vivienne's voice was warm with fake disappointment.

"You two have each other," I said pleasantly. "Have fun."

Ronan reached for my hand before I could step away, lifting it and pressing his lips to my knuckles with a smile that was probably meant to be charming.

"Don't let work consume you," he said. "Once we're married, you won't have to worry about any of that."

I nodded, too tired to respond or care properly. I turned and left the restaurant, stepping into the cold night air.

I entered and sat in my car for a moment with the engine idling, my hands was on the wheel, staring at nothing.

I was curious what they would do now that I wasn't around. I wanted to see for my own eyes. So I decided to stick around.

I drove out of my space and moved to a quiet corner of the lot where the shadows swallowed the car whole. I turned the engine off and waited silently, holding the steering wheel tight.

It didn't take long. They finally came out together, bodies close and easy, the body language of two people who had stopped pretending when no audience remained.

I couldn't hear a word through the glass, but I didn't need to. I watched with steady, unflinching eyes.

Vivienne turned to him as they reached his car, her hand rising to his chest, her lips moving close to his ear. Ronan's hand found her waist immediately, pulling her in, and then he started kissing her slowly, not wasting time as his hand explored her body.

He pressed her back against the car door and kissed her like they had all the time in the world. My hands tightened on the steering wheel so much that my palms began to hurt.

I had known. I had seen it with my own eyes once already, in another life, through a door slightly ajar. I had died knowing this.

But it still hurt.

I felt it before I understood it-the wetness on my cheek, the tightening in my throat. I touched my face and stared at my fingers, ashamed of my own tears.

Why are you crying? I asked myself. You knew.

But knowing hadn't made it smaller. Six years wasted on this man, who I though loved.

Six years of making myself less so he could feel like more. Of handing him pieces of my life and watching him accept them without ever once asking what it cost me.

I had thought somewhere underneath everything, that it meant something to him.

That I meant something to him. But seeing how he and my little sister were about to make love in a parking lot, I knew I was nothing but a placeholder.

Ronan finally opened the car door, and they slipped inside together, still tangled. I sat in the dark and watched the windows fog slowly, felt my tears spill quietly down my face, and didn't bother wiping them.

I wasn't crying for him. I was crying for the version of me that had loved him anyway. That had given everything and called it love.

She deserved to grieve this relationship at least.

I couldn't watch anymore. So I pulled out of the corner and drove.

I didn't want to go home. The apartment would be too quiet, too small, and too full of the life I had built around people who were using me to build theirs.

So I drove to the one destination where I could cry loudly in front of no audience.

The abandoned dumpster beach.

---

I parked by the empty pavement and walked hurriedly down the steps toward the beach.

It wasn't much of a beach. It was neglected, forgotten-the kind of place the city had stopped maintaining years ago. Waste collected along the shoreline where the waves pushed it in, and nobody ever came to clear it.

It was void of any trace of human interaction, and all that was left was discarded waste.

That was exactly why I liked it.

I walked toward the water, watching the waves move under the moonlight, and finally, I dropped to my knees on the sand.

I removed my glasses and pulled the band from my hair, letting it fall loose around my shoulders.

I finally let myself cry.

I cried the way you can only cry when you're completely certain nobody is watching-ugly and uncontrolled, my hands covering my face, my whole body shaking with it. For Ronan. For Vivienne. For six years of a life I had quietly dismantled piece by piece to make room for people who were never going to deserve it.

I didn't know how long I stayed like that.

Then I heard footsteps.

I opened my eyes and turned, startled.

Lucian Vale stood a short distance away. He was in a t-shirt and joggers, visibly mid-run, chest still rising and falling from the exertion. He was sweating at his temples, and there wasn't a trace of the immaculate CEO the entire country recognized from magazine covers.

Just a man who had apparently chosen the one beach in the city that nobody else used for his evening run.

Of course.

I wiped my face frantically, glasses still in my hand, painfully aware of exactly how I looked-red-eyed, hair everywhere, sitting in the sand of a dumping ground at night like a person making very questionable life decisions.

And worse, I couldn't read his expression in the darkness.

"Miss Montclair." His voice was carefully neutral. "Are you crying because of the report deadline?"

The question landed like a slap.

It wasn't even meant to be cruel or unkind. It was just him, the respected son of the Vale Group. Everything had to be reduced to work to him. He didn't even see me as human going through a life crisis, just another variable for his growing firm.

So of course he will be here asking questions about the report deadline when I looked like this.

It wasn't fair. And I wasn't weak. I was definitely not having a breakdown over spreadsheets. Frustration burned through the grief, and I spoke before I could stop myself.

"No, Sir," I said sharply. "It's not work-related, so I'd appreciate it if you kept jogging and left me alone."

I regretted it the moment the words left my mouth. I had just snapped at my boss on a beach while crying.

I braced myself for the cold authority and reprimand. I waited, prepared for him to dismantle my professionalism.

But nothing came. The silence stretched on, and he just stood there in the darkness for a moment.

Then he said, quietly:

"I suppose the ocean does a better job of offering comfort than I do."

I stared at him, blinking.

He was-was that a joke? Had he been joking the whole time? The report deadline question-had he said it deliberately just to give me something to push back against?

I blinked at his dark silhouette, completely lost for words.

I didn't understand this man.

I never had.

I hugged myself tightly and exhaled. "I'm sorry for snapping at you."

I felt someone settle beside me in the sand and stiffened-turning to find him right there, close enough that I could see his face clearly in the moonlight for the first time since he'd arrived.

And for goodness' sake.

This man was ridiculously handsome. Unfairly, frustratingly handsome. Even sweaty from a run on an abandoned beach at night.

It didn't help that I had spent three years actively disliking him.

"It's fine," he said, staring at the ocean. "I'm glad to know it has nothing to do with work."

I muttered under my breath, "Like I would cry over you."

He turned his head slightly, one brow raised.

I felt my face go hot. "I-sorry. I didn't mean-"

This was so awkward. This was genuinely the most awkward moment of my life, and I had already died once.

"So," I said quickly, "you jog here?"

"Yes." He looked back at the ocean. "It's quiet. I sometimes try to help clear some of the waste, but it's not easy alone."

I glanced at him.

This man-Vale Capital Group CEO, heir to one of the most powerful fortunes in the country-came to a neglected dumping ground beach in his free time to pick up rubbish.

"I will push the deadline a bit for you, for the rewrite. I can't have a distressed employee working under such circumstances," he added.

I turned to look at him.

That was awfully nice. He was extending my deadline because he had simply found me crying outside work hours.

"Th-thank you," I said carefully.

He finally stood, brushing sand from his joggers, and looked down at me with that expression I still couldn't fully read in the darkness.

"Don't stay too long," he said simply. "It's late."

He turned and jogged back the way he came without another word, his figure disappearing into the dark until I couldn't hear his footsteps anymore.

I sat there a moment longer, not knowing what to make of this moment. It was sweet, strange, and a bit awkward.

I simply turned back to the ocean, taking a deep inhale. Finally alone with my thoughts, and oddly enough, the interaction had helped a lot.

I smiled reluctantly.

What a strange man.

Chapter 5 Strange Man

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