Chapter Thirty-Six
EVERETT
Three days since Aria went to Christian's office to sign the annulment papers, and I still haven't asked whether she did.
Three days of not knowing if I'm divorced. If Aria still carries my last name. If any of it is still real or if I'm just a man sleeping in his brother's guest room mourning a marriage that already ended on paper while I wasn't brave enough to check.
Pathetic is the word.
Also accurate.
Colston's penthouse is too nice to be temporary and too temporary to be home.
I've spent the last three nights in his guest room sleeping badly, waking up angry, and moving through my days with the kind of flat, mechanical focus that makes people think I'm functioning when really I'm just delaying collapse with caffeine and spite.
My briefcase is on the kitchen island.
The invitation from Gabriel is still inside it.
I still haven't sent it.
That alone should tell me everything I need to know about how badly I'm handling any of this.
Levi is at the counter making coffee when my phone rings.
Christian.
My pulse kicks once. Hard enough to hurt.
I answer before the second ring.
"Tell me."
There's a pause on the other end.
"She didn't sign."
I'm already on my feet before I register what that means.
"What?"
"She came in, looked at the papers, and refused." His tone is careful in the way it gets when he knows I'm one wrong word away from doing something reckless. "I told her to take them home and think about it. She took them. She hasn't signed."
Relief hits first.
Hot. Immediate. Sharp enough to make me angry at myself for feeling it.
"Why not?"
Christian is quiet for half a beat too long.
"There's something else."
Every muscle in my body tightens.
"What."
"Everly called me this morning. Aria left for the airport three days ago. The papers are on the kitchen counter at the estate. Unsigned."
The room narrows.
"Where did she go?"
"Cannes."
Fuck.
For one second, my vision goes strange at the edges. Not black. Not exactly. Just that familiar tightening, and then my body deciding oxygen is suddenly optional.
Not now.
I brace one hand on the back of a chair and focus on the grain of the wood beneath my palm.
Breathe in.
Hold. Out again.
"She left the papers at the estate," Christian says. "On the kitchen counter. Didn't sign anything. Everly doesn't know when she's coming back. Or if she's coming back."
Cannes.
She left. She actually left, and I shouldn’t be surprised.
Levi is looking at me now. I don't know what my face is doing, only that it must be bad enough to kill whatever joke was halfway to his mouth.
I swallow against the pressure building in my throat and force my voice flat.
"Three days," I say. "You've known for three days and you're telling me now?"
"I found out this morning. And I wanted to have all the facts before I called you, because the last thing any of us need is you making decisions with half the information."
I close my eyes.
The panic is still there—chest tight, hands wrong, the whole thing trying to climb—but there's no room for it now.
Not with Aria on another continent. Not with Gabriel already there.
Not with the invitation still sitting in my briefcase because I couldn't bring myself to let her future out of my hands.
I straighten.
"I need to borrow your jet."
Levi mutters, "Finally," into his coffee.
Christian exhales.
"Are you sure you should go alone? You might fuck this up again."
"I’ve got it under control. Can you bring me the divorce contract to the airstrip."
I hear Christian pause. "That’s not exactly how I thought this was going to go."
"Just meet me with them. Please."
Then, resigned, "Alright, I’ll see you there, and I'll text the pilot."
He hangs up.
I'm moving before the line even fully disconnects.
"Where are you going?" Levi asks, though we both know that isn't really the question.
"Cannes."
He blinks. "That was fast."
"She didn't sign."
"I heard that part."
"She left."
"That part I also heard."
I yank open the guest room door and grab the backpack I still haven't fully unpacked because apparently some detached part of me already knew this arrangement wasn't going to last.
Levi follows me to the doorway and leans against the frame while I start shoving clothes into the bag with no real plan beyond not arriving in France dressed like a man who lost a fight with his own nervous system.
I throw in two shirts, a pair of pants, toiletries I don't remember using, my passport from the desk drawer, and the extra charger tangled around itself like it's personally offended.
Levi watches all of it with the long-suffering expression of a man who knows better than to tell me not to do the one thing keeping me upright.
"So," he says carefully, "you're just getting on a plane."
"Yes."
"And what's the plan when you get there?"
I zip the backpack hard enough that the sound cracks through the room.
"I'll tell you when I have one."
"That is not a plan."
"It's more of one than I had ten minutes ago."
He nods once, accepting that for what it is.
I grab the briefcase from the kitchen island on the way out. The weight of it shifts in my hand, and for one second I think about the envelope still tucked inside.
Aria Kauffman.
Cannes.
There is a place for you here when you're ready.
I know I’m the asshole for breaking things off and then chasing her out to France where she’s probably trying to build a new life for herself, but I don’t know what else to do. I at least need to see that she’s happy there and that I need to let her go.
I need to see her happy with Gabriel because I can believe it. Then I’ll accept my fate. Living a life without the woman I love.
Levi opens the front door before I reach it, then I glance over at him.
"What if she doesn't come back?"
The question slips out before I can stop it. Levi's face changes.
Not pity. Never that. Just recognition. Like he knows exactly how close I am to coming apart and is choosing not to name it out loud.
"Then it's a good thing you're going to her," he says.
I nod once, because if I say anything more, I may actually lose whatever hold I still have on myself.
I get in the back seat, shut the door, and drop my head back against the leather.
Breathe in. Hold. And then back out again.
Aria left for Cannes three days ago, without signing the papers, and without a plan to come back. That last one sits heavier than the rest.
Because if Aria left Seattle and never intended to return, then this isn't about paperwork anymore. It's about me figuring out too late that I should have been fighting for her instead of setting her free.
The pilot is waiting by the time I reach the airport.
I see Christian drive up, he hands me the divorce papers before I walk up the stairs.
"Plane is fueled. Call me when you land. And Everett — do not do anything stupid in France."
One short breath through my nose. Might count as a laugh in a different life, and then I board the jet.
As the engines start and Seattle falls away beneath me, I finally let myself think the thing I've been refusing to name since Christian said the word Cannes.
I have no idea what I’m going to say when I get there.
This is the first time in my life I’ve been this underprepared.
Love makes you do stupid shit.