Chapter 6 6

The tears stopped eventually. They always did.

Breanna sat on the entryway floor until her skin matched the marble temperature. Then she stood, walked to the living room, stood at the window. The storm had weakened to a drizzle, Manhattan's lights smearing through the wet glass like watercolors.

She opened the balcony door.

The cold hit her like a slap, October wind cutting through her damp dress, rain misting her face. She gripped the metal railing and looked down, fifteen stories to the street below.

Something caught her eye. Not him. Not a man standing in the rain. That would have been too romantic, too simple. It was his Maybach. It hadn't left. It was parked two blocks down, just outside the halo of a streetlight, its engine off. A dark, silent shape in the wet gloom. It just sat there, waiting. For what? A driver? Or was he inside, watching the building, a silent, brooding sentinel in a steel cage? The image was colder, more unsettling than if he had been standing on the pavement.

Breanna stepped back into shadow, heart hammering. She watched the car for a full five minutes, a motionless predator in the urban jungle. The man who'd called her pathetic. Who'd threatened to destroy her. Who couldn't even leave cleanly.

An engine roared to life, headlights cutting through the night. The Maybach pulled away from the curb, tires spraying water, and disappeared around the corner. The streetlight illuminated empty pavement, a puddle spreading where it had stood.

She closed the balcony door. Locked it. Her teeth chattered.

The shower burned, water as hot as she could stand, pounding her shoulders until the skin pinked. She stood under the spray and saw his face alternating-the contempt in the study, the strange complexity after she'd struck him, the silent, waiting silhouette of his car in the rain.

He's lying.

The thought arrived fully formed, unwelcome, undeniable. Something didn't fit. The man in the study had been cruel, calculated, complete. The man in the car had been hesitant, watching, waiting for something she couldn't name.

She dressed in cashmere and cotton, comfortable armor, and walked to the dining table. The torn settlement papers lay where she'd left them. She smoothed them flat, read the terms again, and felt something shift in her chest.

Not acceptance. Not resignation.

Rage. Directed, purposeful, finally hers.

Morning arrived gray and clean, storm-washed. Breanna sat on the sofa with her phone, scrolling through contacts she hadn't used in years. Hartwell's name appeared at the top, recent, useless. She kept scrolling.

Colton Harvey. Chief of Staff. The man who booked Hartwell's flights, managed his calendar, knew his secrets.

Her thumb hovered over the name. For a moment, her breath caught. It had been months since she'd initiated a call to anyone but a concierge or a reservation line. Her world had become so small. The thought almost made her drop the phone. But then the image of the torn papers, of his cold eyes, flashed in her mind. The hesitation vanished, replaced by a cold resolve. She pressed the call button.

Three rings. Four.

"Mrs. Rogers." Colton's voice carried the particular caution of a man who'd heard rumors. "Good morning."

"Colton." She made her voice steel, the way Hartwell had taught her, back when he'd loved her ambition. "Blue Bottle Coffee. Central Park West. Ten o'clock." She paused, let the silence stretch. "Don't tell my husband."

The line hummed with his hesitation. "Mrs. Rogers, I don't think-"

"Ten o'clock, Colton. Or my next call is to the New York Post's gossip columnist. I'm sure they'd love to hear about Hartwell's three-month 'business' trip to Paris right before filing for a surprise divorce."

She ended the call. The apartment surrounded her, expensive and empty, full of objects that had never been hers.