CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 15
Ivy
The door clicks shut. The sound echoes louder than it should, sharp and final in the quiet room.
I sit there, frozen, the sheets pooling around my waist, staring at the space where he just stood. Waiting for something.
A knock. A laugh. Anything.
But nothing comes. He’s gone and he didn’t say a word.
My heart starts to hammer, the panic slow and suffocating, creeping up from my chest to my throat. I shove the covers back and swing my legs over the bed, half-expecting him to come back, to say he forgot something, to explain.
But the room is empty. His jacket’s gone. His duffle bag, too. Only silence remains.
I spot it then, my laptop, sitting crooked on the bed, the screen still glowing. Open. Exposed.
A sick feeling curls in my stomach.
No.
No, no, no.
I scramble across the mattress, my hands shaking, and pull the laptop toward me.
And there it is. Big. Bold. Unforgiving.
The Billion-Dollar Betrayal: Volcor Holdings Profited While Families Lost Everything.
By Ivy Monroe
Oh my god! Oh… My… God. Tell me he did not see this!
The breath rips from my lungs. My vision blurs.
He saw it. He saw everything.
The article. The headline. The reason he looked at me like I was nothing.
Last night, he told me he loved me. And for a little while, everything felt perfect.
The waves crashing against the shore. The soft breeze tangling my hair. Carter’s arms wrapped around me like he never planned to let go.
I can still feel him, the press of his chest against my back. The way he tucked me closer when he thought I was already asleep. The way his lips brushed my forehead like a promise.
And now… Now all of it feels like it’s slipping through my fingers.
My heart splinters slowly, piece by piece, as the weight of what I’ve lost crushes me from the inside out.
He thinks I betrayed him. But I didn’t even know it was there. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to piece it all together.
The draft. The email from my editor.
It came late last night, hours after I fell asleep wrapped in Carter’s arms. They’d had an intern put together a preliminary draft from the old files and then sent it to me to review. Because I told them—I told them—we had to approach it differently.
That it wasn’t just a story anymore.
But I never even opened the damn email. I fell asleep waiting for the file to load.
I didn’t read it. I didn’t even see it.
And now he thinks I wrote it. That I meant every word.
Tears sting my eyes as I grab my phone with trembling fingers. I call him straight to voicemail.
I try again, but the same thing keeps happening, straight to voicemail.
I text: Please. Let me explain.
The message delivers. But it never shows “read.” It just sits there. Waiting. Ignored.
I fire off an email next, rambling, desperate.
No response.
Another call. Another text: Carter, please. I didn’t mean for you to see it like that. Please let me explain.
Nothing. No answer. No message.
No hope.
He’s gone. And he’s not coming back.
I sink down onto the bed, the tears spilling over now, unstoppable.
Because I didn’t just lose a story. I lost the man I love.
And this time, it’s my fault.
***
I pack my belongings and catch the first flight home.
Ness is waiting for me outside the airport when I arrive, standing by the curb like she’s been glued there for hours. She’s holding an ice cream cone in one hand, her other arm stretched wide like she already knows exactly how bad this is going to be.
I talked to her the whole time I was at the airport. I called her before I even finished zipping my suitcase, rambling, crying, barely breathing. She stayed on the line until the moment the plane took off, promising she’d be right there when I landed.
And she is.
I pout as I walk toward her, sticking my bottom lip out like a child needing comfort. The second I’m close enough, she tosses the melting ice cream into the trash and pulls me into her arms.
“Why would you throw away perfectly good ice cream?” I say, burying my face against her shoulder, and let the tears come.
Hot. Messy. Ugly.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs, rubbing my back. “You’re okay, babe. Just breathe.”
I shake my head against her. “I’m not okay. I don’t know if I ever will be again.”
She holds me there for a long minute, letting me cry it out in the sticky afternoon heat, before finally pulling back just enough to look at me.
“Come on,” she says gently. “Let’s get you out of here.”
She steers me toward her car like she’s built for this exact kind of rescue. Well, I can admit it’s not her first. We’ve had each other’s backs through multiple heartbreaks, but this one, it’s different for me.
The moment we climb in, she shoves a bottle of water into my hands and cranks the AC.
“You wanna talk about it, or you want me to just drive and let you ugly cry in peace for a while?”
A broken laugh slips out of me, watery and cracked. “Can we get some more ice cream?” I manage to say.
“Of course, honey. I scream, you scream, we all scream for Carter. I mean… ice scream,” she says, trying to lighten the mood.
We stop by a drive-through. “Can I have two cones, triple scoops each, please?” I say yell through the passenger window. “She will have one triple scoop ice cream cone, please,” Ness corrects after ordering a shake for herself.
I glare at her. “You’ll thank me later,” she says with a knowing look.
I love ice cream, and ice cream loves me, but like with many dairy products, we don’t always go together. We both have a sensitivity for the damn thing, but can’t help but treat ourselves to ice cream whenever we’re in distress. It’s crazy, really. It’s like we shift the discomfort from our hearts to our stomachs so we can spend more time in the bathroom crying.
She’s looking at me, waiting for me to open up about everything going on.
“I don’t even know where to start.”
Ness nods like she understands.
She does. She always does.
“Start at the part where you fell in love with him,” she says, pulling onto the highway. “Because you did. It’s written all over your face. And if I remember correctly, what did I tell you?”
“You said not to fall in love with the handsome billionaire,” I answer.
I stare out the window, watching the world blur past in smudges of green and gray. Falling in love wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper.
“I know.” She glances at me, soft sympathy in her eyes. “You never do.”
I wipe at my face, but the tears just keep coming. “I wasn’t even going to do the story the way they wanted,” I explain. “They sent a draft. I didn’t write it. I didn’t even open it. I was supposed to change it, make it different, make it fair—”
I choke on the words. Ness reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“But he doesn’t know that,” she says gently. “And you didn’t get a chance to explain.”
I shake my head. “I fell asleep waiting for it to load. And he…”
I close my eyes against the memory. The way he looked at me like I wasn’t even a person anymore. Like I was just another lie he didn’t see coming.
“He saw it before I did,” I whisper. “And he thinks I betrayed him.”
Silence fills the car, heavy and choking. Ness doesn’t rush to fill it. She just lets me sit there, drowning in it.
“He told me he loved me,” I add after a long moment. “And I didn’t say it back.”
The admission rips something open inside me. Hot tears spill down my cheeks again.
“I didn’t say it back because I was scared. Because I thought… I thought maybe if I kept it to myself, it wouldn’t hurt so bad when it ended.” I turn to look at her, my throat raw. “But it still hurts,” I whisper. “It hurts worse.”
Ness pulls off at a gas station and parks under the shade of an awning. She turns off the car and faces me fully.
“You love him,” she says simply. “Whether you said it out loud or not. You love him.”
I nod, biting my trembling lip. “Yeah,” I croak. “I do.”
“And now what?” she asks. Her voice isn’t judgmental. It’s not harsh. It’s comforting.
I shake my head helplessly. “I don’t know. He won’t answer my calls. He didn’t read my texts. I emailed him. Nothing. He’s completely shut me out.”
“Well, you can’t fix anything by sitting here crying about it,” Ness says, squeezing my knee. “You either go after him… or you let him go.”
The words hit harder than anything else has. Go after him or let him go.
I stare out the windshield, heart pounding. The thought of never seeing Carter again fractures something inside me completely.
“I can’t let him go,” I whisper. “I have to try.”
Ness smiles, sad but proud. “There’s my girl.”
I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes for a second, trying to summon the strength I’m not sure I have.
“But first,” Ness says, starting the car again, “you’re gonna come to my place, take a shower, eat something, and breathe like a normal human being.”
I let out a watery laugh. “Bossy much?”
“You love it,” she says with a wink. “And you’re gonna need it if you’re about to throw yourself headfirst into a love story that could crash and burn.”
“I know,” I murmur. “But if there’s even the tiniest chance he’ll listen…” I turn to her, my voice fierce through the tears. “I want to fight for him.”
Ness pulls back onto the road, the city skyline growing larger ahead of us. “You’re not fighting alone, babe,” she says. “You’ve got me. Always.”
I close my eyes again, breathing deeply. For the first time since Carter walked out, a tiny ember of hope sparks inside my chest.
It’s not over yet. It can’t be. Not if I still have breath left in my body to fight for him.
And I will. I’ll fight. For the man who once looked at me like I hung the stars. For the man I stupidly fell in love with. For the man I can’t lose without losing myself.