Chapter 45
LANEY
I didn’t remember much about driving back to his penthouse. All I knew was that the skyline had been blurry beyond the windshield and a magnificent ache had built in my chest. Low and deep, like something vital had been cracked open and drained of whatever it had needed to survive.
If it hadn’t been for Jack, I would’ve headed directly for home, but I couldn’t leave him there. I didn’t want my things there anymore either. All I wanted was to wipe any trace of my existence from his home but a fucking contract said that I couldn’t do that.
Swiping my tongue across my lips, I parked his stupid, beautiful car and cursed myself for getting so drawn into this whole thing. I should’ve known better. I had known better, but somehow, I’d let myself wholeheartedly believe that it’d become something it hadn’t.
As I walked into the penthouse, the same place where he’d so tenderly iced my ankle and where he’d kissed me for the first time like he actually wanted me, a sob rose up from a shattered place deep inside.
I’d fallen asleep in his arms right there on that couch countless times, feeling safe, protected, and loved.
I’d stupidly, blindly walked around all over this damn place with a big grin on my face, genuinely believing we could be something more. But it wasn’t more. It was never going to be more.
Stumbling to the couch in the darkness of the room, I sank down on the edge and stared straight ahead, not even blinking.
Tears flowed freely down my cheeks. Jack appeared out of nowhere and launched his bulky weight onto my lap, but I just sat there, letting him pin me in place as my hand slid absently into his fur.
I’d never fully understood what it meant to be shaken to the core. Even when my mom had died, it hadn’t come as this much of a surprise. Then again, she hadn’t actively convinced me for months that she wasn’t dying.
Sterling, on the other hand, had spent at least the last few weeks acting like he had feelings for me. Looking at me like I’d somehow slayed his demons singlehandedly and talking like he was desperate to spend not only the next year with me but the rest of our lives.
When I’d gone after him to see if I could help with Jameson, I hadn’t expected for one second to hear the words I had.
Said in that cold, emotionless tone that made him sound more detached than a fucking drone.
Now— lucky me —I couldn’t stop hearing them.
They replayed over and over in my head like a skipping record.
Marrying for love isn’t part of the equation for us. You need to forget about it. It’s never been part of the deal, Jamie. For other people sure, marriage is all about love, and romance, and all that other hippy-dippy bullshit, but we’re not other people. We’re Westwoods. Fucking act like it.
I felt like I’d been slapped, then gutted, then discarded as nothing more than trash. If you want your inheritance, do what I did. Play the game. Win.
What was worse was that Jameson had asked him pointblank if he loved me. He’d taken Sterling’s silence as confirmation. So had I, for one ridiculous minute, but then he’d snapped out that line about his inheritance and suddenly I’d known.
While I had fallen for him, fully and completely, he’d never cared about me as anything more than a tool to get some more money. More than the fucking billions he already had.
Napa and that kiss in the hot tub hadn’t been the start of something new.
His smile when he’d spoken about raising our kids there together someday hadn’t been because he’d been excited about building a life with me.
Every soft touch and quiet look, every sleepy, early morning coffee, and every moment I’d thought I’d seen something real flicker behind that careful mask had been a lie.
All of it.
The block party planning. The dinners. The protection. The lawyers. He hadn’t been acting out of love for me. He’d been protecting an investment. His wife, who was nothing more than an asset on his path to his inheritance.
“I was such a fool, Jack,” I whispered into the dark, but the cat just purred louder, completely unfazed by the fact that I was falling to pieces, the wool yanked from my eyes to be faced with such a cruel reality that I honestly didn’t even know how to begin processing it.
For what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, I just sat there, numb, furious, and feeling strangely hollow. All I could think about was how easily Sterling had made me feel special and how effortlessly he’d made me feel disposable.
When I finally got up, I didn’t pack with any real intention. I just grabbed a bag, stuffing it with whatever I could reach. Some clothes, a phone charger, and my toothbrush. Jack meowed in protest when I scooped him up, but he didn’t fight me. He seemed to know that we had to leave this place.
To what end, I didn’t know. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that our marriage had to last a year in order for me to get the shares in Baby Blossom back if I divorced him. I refused to tear up that contract before I could walk away with my business.
He’d already taken my heart and stomped all over it. I wouldn’t let him do the same with the company my mother had poured her heart and soul into. Right now, I just didn’t know how on earth I was ever even going to look at him again.
My chest was too tight, my throat too raw, and tears were still flowing down my cheeks in an unstoppable tide. I didn’t even bother trying to wipe them away as I took the elevator down to the parking garage.
I considered taking the trolley home, but I was taking Jameson’s approach to this whole thing. Fuck him.
Between Jack and his stuff, the crying, myself, and my own things, I wasn’t going to mess around on the trolley. Instead, I got back into Sterling’s precious freaking Jaguar and peeled out of the parking spot like I could burn away the memories of him right along with the rubber.
I didn’t slow down until I pulled up to my dad’s house. The porch light was on, but there was no sign of movement inside.
Since I didn’t really know where I stood with my father right now, I couldn’t even just barge in.
Instead, I had to knock. On the door of the house I’d grown up in.
All because of Sterling and his desperate need for more money.
God, as if he doesn’t already have enough to last several goddamn lifetimes.
Thankfully, the door opened immediately and my dad filled the frame. He frowned when he saw me, blinking hard and still wearing a rumpled button-down he probably hadn’t changed out of since he’d gotten home from his shift.
He looked tired but still tough. For the first time ever, I realized that he looked like exactly what he was—a grizzled old detective who had been worn down by a world that had also dared him to stay standing.
Even when he’d lost his wife, the love of his life, and had been left to raise a daughter who had always valued her own independence over his advice.
Dad didn’t say anything as his gaze dropped to the tear tracks on my face. He glanced at Jack next, but he didn’t ask a single question. He just stepped aside and let me in.
I walked through the door and into the familiar space that enveloped me like a comforting hug. My feet hit the floor with heavy thuds, like they were turning into lead now that I’d finally made it home.
The door clicked shut behind me and I turned to my dad. I tried to talk. I really did. I knew I had to find the words to explain what had happened, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. Instead of words, a broken, ragged sound slipped out before I swallowed it down.
Dad shook his head and waved a hand toward the hallway. “Don’t, Laney. You don’t have to say anything right now. Just go lie down. It’s fine. I’ll handle it.”
For a moment, I couldn’t move. I just stood there, trembling and clutching Jack tightly in my arms. He blinked up at me like this was all a massive inconvenience, but one he’d be willing to forgive me for if I scratched his ears later.
“Dad—”
“Go rest,” he said, his voice firm but gentle. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Lane. Just breathe and we’ll talk later.”
In the end, I just nodded. It was about all I could do with the energy I had left in me. Somehow, I managed to make my way down the hall to my old bedroom. I didn’t know why I had expected it to feel different, being back in here, but it didn’t.
The walls were still the same soft blue I’d painted them in junior year. There was still a creak in the floorboard just before the bed and the dresser still didn’t close properly. Everything was still exactly the same as it had been when I’d left.
Everything except for me. I had changed. Perhaps irreversibly. Definitely not for the better.
I set Jack down gently and collapsed on the mattress without even taking my shoes off. My heart was hammering against my ribs and my entire body, inside and out, was sore. I was exhausted but not tired. Drained of energy but restless.
The next thing I knew, my phone started buzzing. I pulled it out of my pocket on instinct but silenced it when I saw who it was. Sterling.
It buzzed again. Sterling.
I flipped the phone over and ignored it. When it started up again, I tossed it to the other side of the bed. I knew what the contract said, but I needed space. I needed time to breathe. To think. To consider.
Because the sad truth of all this was that I wasn’t even sure I had the right to be this upset. Sterling hadn’t lied to me. I felt like he had—with his actions. Some of his words. The way he’d made me believe things that weren’t true.
At the same time though, I’d agreed to this. When I’d signed the contract, I’d known exactly what it was—a marriage of convenience. A business transaction. A year of my life in exchange for a ridiculous amount of money, a baby, and my business.
Going into it, I hadn’t been naive. I hadn’t expected romance, fairy tales, or forever. I’d understood exactly what I’d been getting myself into, but somewhere along the line, my perspective had changed.
When he’d started looking at me like maybe I was more than just a name on a dotted line, I’d thought… God, maybe I have been na?ve.
I honestly didn’t know. The only thing I knew for certain was that it sure had started to feel real. To feel like more.
But that was all blown to hell now. I wasn’t sure what was real anymore. I didn’t know what I was allowed to feel or how he actually felt—if he even felt anything at all, which I was desperately uncertain about.
I rolled onto my side and curled into a ball. Jack jumped onto the bed as if the fetal position was a personalized, embossed invitation, and pressed his warm, furry bulk into my stomach, purring like a revving engine once more.
All the while, my phone kept buzzing, and buzzing, and buzzing where I’d tossed it, but Sterling was going to have to wait until tomorrow.
Tonight, I was just a girl in her childhood bedroom, sobbing quietly while the man she’d married and had only subsequently fallen in love with called, and called, and called.
As much as I wanted to demand an explanation, I couldn’t talk to him. Not yet and maybe not ever.
“I ordered Chinese,” Dad called from the kitchen a little while later. “Come eat. I’ll put on a movie for you. Did you bring food for the cat?”
It took all the strength I had, but I finally forced myself to get up and serve myself some food I doubted I would eat. Jack, however, dined like a king on the expensive, specially formulated diet food Sterling had ordered for him.
As Dad, Jack, and I settled in to watch the movie, a text came through on my phone and I checked it. Just to make sure all hell wasn’t breaking loose again.
Sterling W: Please just let me know that you’re someplace safe.
I sent him a thumbs-up emoji in response, then switched off my phone. I’d todayed enough for today. Tomorrow, well, I’d figure out what to do in the morning.