Chapter 42
MYA
The door to the conference room clicks shut behind me, and the adrenaline that kept my spine straight for the last forty minutes drains out all the way down my body through to my heels, and my legs go a little watery.
Through the glass wall across the corridor, I catch a glimpse of Worth in his office—jacket off, sleeves rolled up, eyes glued to a stack of documents.
God, those forearms.
The way the fabric bites at his elbows, the veins standing out when he turns a page, do dangerous things to my pulse. It’s infuriating how much I love any look on him.
For half a second I think about knocking, but I don’t.
He never replied to my text. I tell myself he might need space, and that the smart thing is to give it to him. I adjust my blazer and head for my desk.
Seraya pops up the moment she sees me. “Well? How’d it go?”
I sag into my chair. “I didn’t faint. Or cry. Or throw up.”
“Low bar, babe, but I’ll take it.” She leans on the partition. “But Seriously?”
“It went good. They asked tough questions, but I had the answers. The board will reconvene and give everyone their decision in a month.” Saying it out loud makes the waiting feel like an Olympic event.
“A month!” Seraya theatrically clutches at her chest.
I laugh. “I know, right?”
Her phone lights up on the edge of the desk. She grimaces when she sees the name. “Ugh. My landlord.”
“Take it,” I tell her. “I’ll be here, breathing in and out like it’s my full-time job.”
She swipes to answer with a long-suffering sigh, pacing away. “Yes, Rafael?”
The office hums around me. Keyboards. Low conversation. The distant ping of the elevator. I stack my presentation notes into a neat pile I don’t need to look at anymore and stare across the open floor to Dre’s desk. If Worth needs space now, I can at least find out if he’s available later.
I stand and make my way over. “Hey, Dre. Is he busy today?”
She glances toward the glass. “Ryan is coming by soon.” Her voice dips. “They’re going over case files.”
My stomach tightens. The custody battle. “Right. Thanks.”
I hover for a second, then move to the office and rap my knuckles lightly on Worth’s door before easing it open.
He looks up.
“Bad time?”
Worth’s expression is polite. Not cold, just… contained. “I’ve got a few minutes.”
I close the door, suddenly aware of the way my pulse thumps in my wrists. “I, um… just wanted to let you know the presentation went well. They’ll deliberate and get back to us in a month.”
He nods once. “Good. I’m glad.”
The space I created between us is yawning wide.
“Dre said you’re meeting with Ryan. Everything okay?”
He leans back in his chair, fingers steepled. “The court moved our date.” A beat. “It’s in two days.”
“Oh. That’s… soon.”
“Yeah.” He looks past me, just for a second. When his gaze returns, it’s all business. “We’ll prep this afternoon and tomorrow. It’s straightforward. It also means you’ll be getting out of our arrangement sooner than planned.”
Said so simply.
I nod because that’s what I’m supposed to do. This is what I keep insisting I want. A clean end. Though my heart does not get the memo. It lurches, knocking into all the places I’ve been guarding.
“Okay,” I manage. “If you need anything, just let me know.”
“Ryan and I have it handled,” he says, dismissive in the old Worth way, like when I first met him.
“Right.” I nod again, not knowing what else to do with my hands, my voice, my face. “Then I’ll, um, get back to work.”
“Do that.” He reaches for a folder. The conversation is over.
I turn for the door and pause with my hand on the handle. “Worth?”
He looks up.
“You’ll do right by Bri.”
For a moment, the control in his face cracks. I see the man who waited outside a conference room for me because he couldn’t not. Then he nods once, the mask sliding back into place. “Thank you.”
I step out before I do something stupid, like cry.
There’s no one to blame for the cool edge in Worth’s voice but the woman who sharpened it.
Back at my desk, Seraya is finishing her call, eyes stormy. She mouths later and I nod, sinking into my chair like it might hold me together.
I open my laptop and start typing up my post-mortem notes while I try to remember that I asked for lines, for rules, for endings.
I got them. Now I have to live with them.
At the end of the day, I pack up slowly. When I finally sling my tote over my shoulder and head for the elevator, the light is still on in Worth’s office.
He doesn’t usually stay past five-thirty. At least he hasn’t in the past few months. He hates missing dinner with Bri.
Is it because of me? Logic says it’s the custody prep and a day swallowed by his lawyer. But my chest says I’m part of the reason.
I stand there for a second, arguing with myself before I finally sigh and knock.
“Come in,” he calls, voice rough.
He’s at his desk, expression strained, papers spread around him. He barely looks up.
“You’re still here,” I say gently.
He signs something. “Looks like it.”
“You should go home,” I try again. “Eat. Rest. Be with Bri. Let your lawyer handle the rest tomorrow.”
His pen stills.
“Mya, please don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I frown.
“Care,” he says, sharper now. “Not like that. Not in that soft, worried tone that makes me think we’re… something. Because five minutes later you’ll remember you don’t want that and suddenly I’m the asshole who didn’t get the memo.”
The words knock the breath out of me.
“That’s not fair.”
He finally looks up at me, eyes tired and frustrated. “Isn’t it? Earlier you were the one pulling away. Again. Now, you’re checking on me like you didn’t just slam a door in my face.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what you want from me anymore.”
“I want you to be okay,” I whisper.
Worth exhales, rubbing a hand over his face as if exhausted by himself and me and everything in between.
“Just go home, Mya. I’ll be fine.”
There’s nothing left to say. So I nod and back away.
Instead of heading straight home, I drive across town to the community center gym, where cheer practice is wrapping up. The sun is dipping low, painting the parking lot in late-afternoon gold as kids spill out laughing.
Brianna spots the car, waves like she hasn’t seen me in months, and jogs over. I told Maggie I’d pick Bri up today, and the sight of her is like a balm to the ache in my chest.
“Hey, Mya!” she grins as she climbs in, tossing her bag to the back. Her cheeks are flushed.
“Hey, superstar,” I smile. “Good practice?”
She launches into a rundown of stunts, near disasters, and the girl who cried because someone messed up her TikTok, and somewhere between her dramatics and laughter, the heaviness of the day loosens.
Several minutes later, I pull into the driveway of Worth’s estate.
Inside, Maggie is at the stove, spoon in hand, adding one last pinch of salt to something that smells delicious.
“Hi, lovelies,” she chirps with a smile. “Perfect timing. Dinner’s just done. Though I won’t be staying tonight.”
I set my tote on the bench and toe off my shoes. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, yes. I promised Worth’s mother I’d call her and help with the banquet hall plans for her next event.” She pats my arm as she passes. “You two will be fine.”
Before I can answer, Brianna skids into the kitchen in socks. There’s already a smudge of graphite on her fingers and a halo of baby hairs around her face from the ponytail she ditched after practice.
“It’s just you and me tonight, babe.” I lean down to bump her forehead to mine. “We’re flying solo.”
“How come?”
I keep my tone light. “Your dad is preparing for the custody case so he’ll be late.”
Bri nods once, eyes dropping to her socks. Her shoulders go a little square, and the skin at her throat tightens.
“Hey,” I say softly. “It’ll be okay.”
She flicks her gaze up, then away. “Yeah. I know.”
Maggie slips her cardigan over her shoulders and grabs her purse. “Call me if you need anything, girls.”
“Thanks, Maggie.” I see her out, then turn back to the kitchen. “All right, chef. Plates?”
While we eat dinner, I tell her about my coworkers’ bad habits and Bri counters with a story about a girl in math class who keeps drawing male genitalia on her binder. After, we clear the table together and slide the dishes into the dishwasher. Then we draw for an hour at the dining table.
Bri’s phone pings on the counter. She swipes it, reads, and chews her lip. “It’s Dad. He says he’s on his way home.”
“Oh, okay.” I aim for nonchalant, but the disappointment threads my voice before I can catch it.
Brianna looks up at me. “Did something happen?”
“No,” I say too quickly, drying my hands on a towel. “It’s—no.”
“I’m not blind. Something is going on. Dad was acting like someone had pissed in his shoes this morning.”
A laugh flies out of me.
I prop a hip against the counter and choose honesty, if not the whole of it. “We got into a little fight, but it’s fine. We’ll make up.”
She studies me like a puzzle with one piece missing. “Okay.”
We head upstairs together. At her door, Brianna starts to duck into her room, but I stop her. “Hey, can I come in for a minute?”
“Sure.”
Bri drops onto the edge of her bed, fussing with the hem of her T-shirt. I sit beside her, leaving an inch of space.
“You got quiet earlier,” I say. “When I told you about the case.”
She shrugs, eyes on her fingers. “It’s just… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about my mom.” The last word comes out hesitant, like it doesn’t fit right in her mouth. “Everyone has opinions. Grandma. Maggie. Dad.”
“What about you? What do you want?”
“I don’t know. I feel bad if I say I want to see her. Like I’m betraying Dad. But I feel weird if I say I don’t. I keep thinking she’ll get mad or—” She swallows. “Or leave again.”
I reach over, palm up. Bri places her hand in mine, fingers tense.
“You’re not responsible for anyone else’s feelings here.
Not your dad’s, not Vanessa’s, not anyone else’s.
This is your choice. If you want to try seeing your mom, slowly, on your terms, that’s okay.
And if you need space, that’s okay too.”
She blinks fast. “Dad hates Mom.”
“Dad is protective of you,” I correct gently. “And he loves you more than he hates anything. If you decide you want a relationship with her, I know he’ll respect that. You don’t have to avoid your mother to prove you’re loyal to him. That’s not your job.”
“But what if I try and it sucks?”
“Then we regroup. We set new boundaries. We make a different plan. You won’t be alone in it.
We’ll be with you the whole way.” I breathe, then add, “I don’t talk about it much, but I know what it feels like to miss a parent.
My dad died when I was little.” The old ache wakes up, familiar and dull.
“I remember that empty feeling, and the way it makes you scared to let people in—because what if they leave, too?”
Bri’s chin trembles. “Yeah.”
“We can’t fix the past. But wanting connection doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.”
Her face crumples. She tips sideways and presses her forehead to my shoulder. I wrap an arm around her and rub slow circles between her shoulder blades, letting her cry into my T-shirt.
“I don’t want to hurt Dad if I want to see Mom sometimes,” she says into the fabric. “I want to know why she left. And if she’s really different now.”
“That’s honest and brave.”
Brianna sniffs, pulls back, and I pass her a tissue from her nightstand. “How do I tell him?”
“Tell him exactly what you told me. That you want to try, on your terms. And if it ever stops feeling okay, you get to change your mind.”
Her shoulders loosen a fraction. We sit there a minute more. Bri squeezes my hand, then releases it.
“Thanks, Mya,” she says.
“Anytime.” I brush a curl behind her ear and stand, smoothing the quilt on her bed before heading out into the hall.
Brianna stops me. “Mya?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
The words land soft and fiercely in my chest at once. “Me too, Bri,” I say. “Me too.”