Chapter 8
The silence in my apartment was a physical presence. It pressed in on my eardrums, a stark contrast to the raucous noise of the steakhouse still echoing in my memory. I’d gone straight home after dinner, ignoring Shay’s texts about a last call, ignoring everything.
I replayed the entire night on a loop, each pass through the memory stripping away another layer of my pride.
Henry’s cool, impersonal gaze sliding over me. The tiny, almost imperceptible tightening of his knuckles around his wine glass. My own pathetic, hopeful lean into Shay’s touch. The final, dismissive exit without a single glance back.
I was a fool. A stupid, reckless fool who’d mistaken a billionaire’s momentary distraction for genuine interest. I’d been a convenient, exciting novelty. And now the novelty had worn off.
Frustrated, I grabbed my phone from the charger. Maybe Shay and Felix were still out. Maybe drowning my humiliation in a cheap beer was the answer. I swiped the screen open, and my thumb automatically tapped the icon for a social media app—a mindless habit, a desperate search for distraction.
The app loaded. And my world tilted on its axis.
It was a grainy, paparazzi-style photo, but the subjects were unmistakable. It was splashed across the feed of a popular gossip page I followed for stupid celebrity news.
HOCKEY’S HOTTEST BILLIONAIRE BACK ON THE MARKET?
The headline screamed in bold, clickbait font. Below it was a series of pictures.
Henry Emerson. And clinging to his arm, a vision of effortless, terrifying beauty, was Kira. I knew her name. Everyone did. Russian supermodel. A face that sold perfume on every billboard in the world.
The first photo showed them exiting a sleek, black town car—a different one than he’d sent for me.
Henry was in a tuxedo, looking devastatingly sharp.
Kira was in a slinky silver dress that left little to the imagination, her blonde hair a perfect cascade over one shoulder.
She was smiling up at him, her expression intimate, familiar.
The second photo was the one that stopped the air in my lungs.
They were standing close together under the awning of what looked like an exclusive, dimly lit club.
Henry’s head was bent toward hers, his hand on the small of her back, guiding her.
Her hand was resting on his chest. They looked.
.. connected. A unit. Power and beauty, perfectly matched.
The caption was brutal speculation: “Henry Emerson looking very cozy with former flame Kira last night at the opening of the ultra-exclusive Harb club. The two dated briefly two years ago before their breakup. Sources say they’ve remained close friends, but is there more to this story? Are they rekindling their spark?”
The words were a sledgehammer to my sternum.
This wasn’t from tonight. This was last night. While I was lying in my bed, replaying the feel of him in my mouth, he was out with her. Dressed to the nines. Looking at her like that.
The ignored texts. The coldness at dinner. It all made a horrible, devastating sense. I hadn’t been a novelty. I’d been a placeholder. A cheap, easy distraction while he waited for the real thing to come back into town.
A white-hot, irrational fury exploded behind my eyes.
It burned through the humiliation, incinerating it.
I saw the flash of his jealous eyes at dinner and now it felt like a lie, a manipulation.
He was jealous of Shay touching what was his, even if he had no real use for it himself. I was just property in his portfolio.
My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped the phone.
I stumbled back, collapsing onto my couch, the images seared onto the backs of my eyelids.
Henry’s hand on her back. The same hand that had cupped my jaw.
His smile for her. The same mouth that had kissed me with a possessiveness that had felt like a brand.
A raw, wounded sound tore from my throat. I felt sick. Used.
The logical part of my brain, the part that was still clinging to the edge of the cliff, tried to reason. It’s just photos. It’s gossip. It could be nothing. But the hurt, furious animal part of me didn’t care. It saw the evidence and it screamed.
Without thinking, driven by a pain so acute it overrode all sense of self-preservation, I opened my text messages.
My thumb hovered over the unknown number that had both ruined and made my week.
The number that had owned me on my knees on a cold locker room floor.
The number that I never bothered saving.
The anger needed a target. It needed to lash out.
My fingers flew over the screen, typing out messages I would never, ever have the courage to send sober.
Me: I see. Now I get it.
A pause. No response. Not even a typing indicator. Of course not. He was probably still with her.
The fury boiled over.
Me: Congratulations on the reunion. She’s definitely more your type.
Me: I guess I was just the help you couldn’t resist slumming it with. A quick, easy fuck to pass the time.
The words were vile. They were cruel. They were everything I was feeling, weaponized. I was throwing a hand grenade into the carefully controlled world of Henry Emerson, and I didn’t care about the fallout.
I waited, my chest heaving, tears of rage and hurt pricking at my eyes. The silence from his end was louder than any response.
One final, devastating thought occurred to me. He’d seen me. He’d seen the desperate, hungry look in my eyes at dinner. He’d known exactly how his indifference would wound me. And he’d done it anyway.
My thumb stabbed at the screen one last time.
Me: Was it even real? Or was I just a warm-up act?
I hit send.
The moment the message delivered, the rage vanished, sucked out of the room like air from an airlock. It left behind a cold, vast, and terrifying emptiness.
What had I done?
I stared at the three green bubbles of my texts, a monument to my own spectacular, career-ending stupidity. I had just verbally attacked the owner of my hockey team. I had been profane, jealous, and utterly, completely unhinged.
A cold sweat broke out all over my body. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird.
I waited for a response. For anything. A dismissal. A cold, legalistic cease and desist from his lawyer. A single, cutting word that would put me in my place forever.
Nothing.
The silence was the worst punishment of all. It was confirmation. I was so insignificant, so beneath his notice, that my nuclear meltdown wasn’t even worth acknowledging.
The phone slipped from my numb fingers and clattered onto the coffee table.
I was nothing. The photo proved it. His silence proved it.
I had never felt more alone in my entire life. The hollow feeling from the dinner expanded, consuming me whole. I drew my knees up to my chest, buried my face in my hands, and let the crushing weight of my own sadness finally pull me under.