Chapter 34
HALLIE
Istood in the lobby of Colt’s office building and felt my entire world crumble.
He was gone.
And I’d done that. I’d driven him away with my lies.
My legs felt like immovable redwood trees with roots so deep they would never move again. I wanted to chase after him, but my body wouldn’t respond. And I was so cold.
“Hallie.”
Frankie’s voice came from behind me. I turned to see her emerging from the stairwell, breathing hard, her face flushed from running down who knows how many flights of stairs.
“Frankie.”
“Save it.” She moved toward me. The fury on her face was the motivation my body needed to start moving again. Away from her. “I need to talk to you. Now.”
People in the lobby were staring. I could feel their eyes on us, could hear the whispers starting.
Colt Jesson’s fiancée?
What’s going on?
Why does she have raccoon eyes?
“Not here,” I said quietly.
She didn’t seem to care who heard, but I did. Not for me. For Colt. He did not need his personal business splashed all over the tabloids. I would not make this worse.
I started walking toward the bathrooms.
“Don’t you run from me!” Frankie followed.
“I’m right here.” I pushed open the bathroom and stepped inside. When she chased me in, I closed the door behind her and locked it. The open stall doors signaled we were alone.
And then she let me have it.
“You need to understand what you’ve done. What you’ve destroyed.”
“Frankie, I didn’t mean—”
“Do you have any idea what Colt has been through?” Her eyes were bright with tears. “Do you know why he’s spent the last decade refusing to let anyone get close? Refusing to love anyone?”
I shook my head, fresh tears spilling down my cheeks. I didn’t know, but that didn’t mean I didn’t suspect something held him back. I felt it every time he kissed me. I saw it sometimes when he didn’t know I was watching him.
“He lost the love of his life,” Frankie said, her voice breaking. “Just before he went to college. He was so young.” She wiped her cheeks. “Her name was Lauren, and they were going to get married. He was nineteen years old and had a ring in his pocket and his whole future planned out.”
My hand flew to my mouth. Lost. Somehow I knew she wasn’t going to tell me Lauren left him. I could feel it deep in my soul. He lost her. As in there was never going to be a chance he ran into her at a coffee shop or stalked her socials.
She was gone.
“Oh god.” The words were a pained whisper.
“She was killed by a drunk driver. Hit and run. Walking home from his house.” Frankie’s face crumpled.
“And Colt heard the accident. He ran outside and found her on the side of the road. Broken. Lifeless. He held her while she died, Hallie. While her parents came running out of their house screaming. He watched the woman he loved take her last breath.”
“No,” I whispered, but Frankie wasn’t done.
“It destroyed him. Completely shattered him. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t function for months. And when he finally pulled himself together, he swore he’d never let himself love anyone like that again. Because losing Lauren almost killed him.”
I was openly sobbing now, my legs barely holding me up.
“So he spent his life building walls,” Frankie continued, tears streaming down her own face. “Sleeping with women he didn’t care about. Keeping everyone at arm’s length. Protecting himself from ever feeling that kind of pain again.”
“Frankie, I didn’t know.”
“And then you came along.” Her voice turned bitter. “And somehow, you got through those walls. You made him believe it was safe to love again. You made him think maybe he deserved happiness. Maybe he could have a future with someone.”
“I do love him.”
“Do you?” Frankie stepped closer, her expression hard. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re just like all the others. You’re a user. A liar. Someone who saw my brother as a target instead of a person.”
“That’s not fair. I changed.”
“When, Hallie? When did you change? Before or after you got what you wanted? Before or after you made him fall in love with you?”
I couldn’t answer. Because I didn’t know. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when revenge had stopped mattering and Colt had become everything.
“I warned him,” Frankie said, her bottom lip trembling. “I told him to be careful. That you might hurt him. But he gave you the benefit of the doubt. He said you had history, that you’d been honest with him about high school, that he thought you had real feelings for him.”
“I do have real feelings. Yes, at first that feeling was anger, but now it’s love.”
“No, you’re like all the others,” Frankie said.
“You wanted something from him, and you were willing to lie and manipulate to get it. And now I have to pick up the pieces again. I have to convince him that he does deserve good things. That not everyone is out to hurt him. Before the hole in his chest eats him alive.”
She moved past me toward the exit, then turned back.
“You are a heartless bitch, Hallie Bellrose,” she said quietly. “I hope whatever you were planning to get out of this was worth it.”
She left, and I stood there in the bathroom feeling like I might collapse.
My phone was ringing. I pulled it out with shaking hands.
My mother.
I couldn’t talk to her. Not right now.
I let it go to voicemail.
Then Hallie called. Then April.
I needed to get out of here. Needed to go somewhere I could think, could breathe, could figure out what to do next. I hailed a cab and gave the driver my apartment address, but halfway there I changed my mind.
“Actually, can you take me to Penn Station?”
I needed to get out of the city. Away from everything. Away from the scene of the crime.
The driver shrugged and changed course. At Penn Station, I bought a ticket on the next train to the Hamptons and sat in the waiting area with my hood pulled up, avoiding eye contact with everyone.
My phone kept buzzing. Message after message. Call after call.
Finally, I looked. And my heart stopped. Because someone had leaked the news.
The wedding was off.
Colt had released a statement through his PR team: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Colt Jesson and Hallie Bellrose have decided to call off their engagement. We ask for privacy during this difficult time.
The internet had exploded.
Twitter was full of speculation. Instagram stories with screenshots of that brief statement. Think pieces about what could have happened. Gossip sites with headlines like “Billionaire’s Engagement Implodes Days Before Wedding” and “What Went Wrong Between Colt Jesson and His Mystery Fiancée?”
Someone had snapped a photo of me and Colt right when the elevator opened in the lobby. Me with my mascara streaking down my face and him looking mad as hell. I cringed at the picture. It was not a moment I wanted memorialized forever.
The comments were brutal.
She probably cheated on him.
Gold digger exposed.
He dodged a bullet.
Colt deserves better.
I turned off my phone and put my head in my hands. I was no longer Hallie Bellrose. I felt like my identity had been erased. I would now be known as Colt Jesson’s ex-fiancée. The woman who’d somehow screwed up the engagement of the year. And now I was jobless. Single. Broken-hearted.
I’d lost everything.
And I deserved it.
The train came, and I boarded it in a daze, finding a window seat and pressing my forehead against the cold glass. I thought about Colt. About Lauren. About how he’d been carrying that loss since he was nineteen years old.
About how I had made it so much worse. I made him think it was safe to love again. Made him open his heart. Made him believe I was different.
And then I’d proven I was exactly what he’d always feared, someone who would hurt him.
Frankie was right. I was heartless.
The train pulled away from the station. I watched the city disappear behind me.
I thought about that night he had the nightmare. I groaned and a fresh wave of tears started. My poor man. He was carrying so much pain.
He had hurt me too, but that had been when he was young and dumb. I was old enough to know better. I had no excuse.
The train ride felt eternal. By the time I got off at my stop and took a cab to the beach house, it was dark. The house looked even more run-down in the winter night, but I was still glad to be there.
I let myself in and immediately went to start a fire in the fireplace. My hands shook so badly I could barely strike a match. So much of my life was just me fumbling around in the dark, trying to figure things out.
Once the fire was going, I curled up on the couch wrapped in blankets and let myself fall apart. I cried for Colt. For the pain I caused him. For the trust I’d broken.
I cried for Lauren, a girl I’d never met but whose loss had shaped the man I loved.
I cried for myself. For the years of torment I’d suffered after his rejection. For the revenge plan that had seemed so justified and now felt so cruel. For the happiness I’d found and destroyed with my own hands.
My phone—which I’d turned back on—kept buzzing with messages and calls.
Finally, I looked. Hallie and April had called sixteen times between them. My mother had called twelve times. There were texts from numbers I didn’t recognize. And one from Della at the Faux agency, probably wanting to discuss the very public implosion of her most high-profile contract.
But nothing from Colt. I’d destroyed us so completely that he couldn’t even bear to text me.
I thought about the wedding that was supposed to happen in a few days. The dress I’d never wear. All of it, gone.
And it was my fault.
I sat there in my father’s beach house, the place I’d wanted so desperately to restore, and realized that all the money in the world couldn’t fix what I’d broken.
I thought about going back to the city, but I couldn’t. Not yet.
Maybe not for days. Not until Valentine’s Day passed and the wedding that should have been was just a memory.
Maybe not until the media moved on to the next scandal and forgot about me entirely.
I was hiding. And I knew it was cowardly.
But I didn’t care.
I turned off my phone, pulled the blankets tighter around myself, and stared into the dying fire.
Tomorrow, I’d figure out what to do next.
Tomorrow, I’d face the consequences of my actions.
Tomorrow, I’d start trying to put the pieces of my life back together.
But tonight, I just wanted to hide.
And mourn everything I’d lost.
Including myself.