28. Ethan
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ethan
There are very few moments in my life where I don’t understand what’s happening.
And with Bryce Biggs, Bee, looking as blindsided as I am, his arm still loosely around his girlfriend, this is one of them.
And Addy is gone.
The front door slammed hard behind her, and I need to catch my damn breath.
“Okay,” Celeste says slowly, glancing between the three of us. “I feel like I’ve missed a very important piece of context.”
Bryce exhales, running a hand through his hair in a way I’ve seen before when something slips outside his control. “I didn’t know she’d be here.”
I look at him. “So, you know her?”
His jaw tightens. “Yeah.”
I worked out as much, but I still need clarity. “At what capacity?”
“She’s…” Bryce breathes deep. “My ex.”
Everything in me stills. The world damn near stops spinning.
Celeste’s eyes flick between us again. “Okay, so, just to clarify, you dated that Addy, who just looked like she wanted to set the building on fire?”
“Yes,” Bryce says.
“Excuse me,” I say, already moving.
“Ethan…” Bryce starts.
“No,” I cut in, not raising my voice but leaving no room for negotiation. “You’ll wait.”
There’s a tone I use in boardrooms when things have gone wrong, and I need people to stop speaking before they make it worse.
This is that tone.
Bryce stops.
Good.
I don’t wait for anything else. I turn and head out the door to find her.
She’s halfway down the hall near the private elevator lobby, standing beside the floor-to-ceiling windows with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, trying to hold herself together.
Chicago shines beyond the glass, all cold lights and sharp edges, but Addy looks wrecked enough that the entire skyline feels irrelevant.
She hears me approach and wipes furiously at her face before turning away.
“Addy.”
“I’m fine,” she says instantly, thick and uneven in a way that makes the statement objectively untrue.
“No, you’re not.”
“Excellent observation skills. Very impressive.”
Even now, upset and humiliated and clearly fighting not to completely unravel, she still defaults to sarcasm.
My chest tightens hard.
I stop a few feet away, giving her space because she looked at me as if I’d burned her in there, and I’m still trying to understand why.
Or maybe not why.
Maybe I already do.
Bryce.
Bee.
Of all the catastrophically improbable combinations in Chicago, apparently, I invited the man who broke her heart into my home for dinner.
“Addy,” I say carefully, “talk to me.”
She laughs once under her breath, but there’s no humor in it. “Honestly? I’d rather throw myself into Lake Michigan.”
“That seems dramatic.”
“So does discovering your billionaire boss is best friends with the ex who publicly dumped you in an airport.”
I exhale slowly. “I didn’t know.”
“I know that now.”
“You flinched from me.”
Her shoulders tense immediately.
She says nothing, still staring out at the city. Then she presses a hand briefly against her forehead.
“I know,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes, I do.” She finally turns toward me, eyes bright with frustrated tears. “You looked just as confused as I felt, and I still acted like you’d set me up or something.”
“I understand why.”
“No, you really don’t.”
Her voice cracks slightly on the last word, and I feel emotion dangerously close to anger stir low in my chest, not directed at her, but at the situation. At Bryce. At myself for somehow missing this entirely.
I move closer carefully this time. “Then explain it to me.”
Addy lets out a shaky breath and leans back against the glass. “He never told you about me?”
“No.”
“Not even once?”
“No.”
A bitter laugh escapes her. “Wow. That’s actually kind of impressive.”
I study her face. The humiliation there bothers me. “I haven’t called him Bryce in years. He was going by Bee when I first met him. I guess it was his persona at the time, and I’ve always just kept that up.”
“I know,” she mutters. “I figured that out approximately thirty seconds before my nervous system left my body.”
I almost smile at that, but the expression dies quickly. “What happened between you?”
She looks away again immediately. That alone tells me enough to dislike the answer.
“Addy.”
“He dumped me,” she says flatly. “At the airport. Right before we were supposed to move to Chicago together.”
My jaw tightens.
“You know that part already.”
“No,” I say quietly. “I didn’t. Not really. I mean, you mentioned something on the plane, but…”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Bryce told me almost nothing about his personal life besides vague references to girlfriends and increasingly questionable choices.”
She stares at me, then shakes her head slowly because the entire thing has become too absurd to process rationally.
“He asked me to move here with him,” she says. “I gave up my apartment, my job, basically my entire life because he wanted a fresh start in Chicago. Then we got to the airport, and he suddenly decided he was in love with someone else, and I was too much work.”
Every word lands harder than the last. Ice cold settles into place beneath my ribs. “He said that?”
“Oh, it gets worse.” She laughs again, quieter now, exhausted around the edges. “Apparently, I’m emotionally unstable and dramatic. Which was interesting feedback to receive while standing in Terminal B trying not to commit homicide.”
I close my eyes briefly.
Bryce has always had a talent for detonating his own life and acting surprised by the explosion afterward. But this…
This is cruel.
And cruel in a lazy way, which somehow makes it worse.
“So he left me, and as you know, I decided to come anyway.” She offers me a one-shouldered shrug. “And I quickly found out about the new girlfriend.”
“Celeste.”
“What?”
“Her name.”
“Oh.” Addy swallows. “Right. I genuinely thought I was hallucinating in there. Like maybe I’d finally snapped, and my brain decided to create the worst possible social scenario imaginable.”
“You didn’t snap.”
“Debatable.”
“No,” I say firmly. “Not debatable.”
She looks at me then, really looks at me, and whatever she sees softens her expression. “I hated that you saw that.”
“What?”
“That.” She gestures vaguely toward herself. “Me freaking out.”
“You were ambushed.”
“I still lost my mind.”
“You were cornered by someone who hurt you.”
Her throat moves as she swallows again. “I don’t like feeling stupid.”
“You aren’t stupid.”
“I moved across states for a man who dumped me beside an Auntie Anne’s.”
“That reflects poorly on him, not you.”
That earns the faintest twitch of her mouth.
Progress.
I step closer again, enough that if she wanted distance she’d have to actively move away.
She doesn’t.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask.
Her brows pull together slightly. “About what?”
“Bryce.”
Understanding flashes across her face. “Ethan—”
“I’m serious.”
And I am.
Because suddenly the idea of him standing comfortably in my dining room while she hides out here crying feels fundamentally unacceptable. “I can send them home.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “You’d do that?”
“Yes.”
Without hesitation.
Because whatever complicated history Bryce and I have, whatever years exist between us, none of it outweighs the look on her face right now.
Addy stares at me, trying to determine whether I mean it.
I hold her gaze steadily.
“I invited him,” I say. “You didn’t. If you want him gone, he goes.”
She says nothing. Then her shoulders loosen slightly. “I don’t want to ruin your friendship.”
That answer alone tells me more about her than almost anything else could. Even now, upset enough to run from the room, she’s worried about damaging something for me. “Addy.”
“No, seriously,” she says quickly. “I mean, tonight is already a disaster, and I’d rather launch myself into traffic than sit through awkward dinner conversation, but I don’t want you throwing people out because of me.”
“Because of you,” I repeat carefully, “or because he treated you badly?”
Her gaze flicks away.
I step closer still, close enough now to see the remnants of tears against her lashes.
“He made you move here without an apartment?” I ask.
Addy grimaces immediately. “Okay, in my defense, I didn’t know there wasn’t actually an apartment. I thought he had it all planned out. A home, a job, a life… I was going to get sorted when I got here. I wasn’t planning on being abandoned.”
Something genuinely dangerous flashes through me then. Because that’s not just careless. That’s reckless. Manipulative. Cruel in a way I’m suddenly struggling not to take personally.
“He lied to you,” I say flatly.
“Yes.”
I look back toward the apartment doors. Toward Bryce. Toward the man I once trusted to build aircraft systems with my company’s future attached to them. I feel something shift uncomfortably beneath old loyalty.
“Ethan.” I drag my attention back to her. “Don’t do the scary quiet thing.”
“What scary quiet thing?”
“The one where you look like you’re mentally calculating how difficult murder would be.”
“I’m not calculating.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
I exhale slowly through my nose.
She studies me for another second before saying, more gently this time, “I’m okay.”
I don’t believe that, but I understand what she’s trying to tell me. She’s embarrassed, overwhelmed, angry. But beneath all of it, she’s trying to regain control over the situation instead of letting Bryce ruin another thing for her.
I can respect that.
“Come on.” I grip her hand tighter. “Let’s go in there as a team so I can kick him out.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “You make that sound weirdly romantic.”
“I assure you, I mean it with hostile professionalism.”
“That’s somehow more concerning.”
But she lets me pull her toward the apartment anyway, her fingers still curled around mine.
By the time we reach the front door again, I’ve already made the decision.
This evening is over.
I open the door and step inside first.
The atmosphere in the penthouse has shifted completely. The warmth from earlier is gone, replaced by the kind of strained silence that settles over rooms moments before something expensive breaks.
Bryce and Celeste are still standing near the living area, exactly where I left them.
Celeste looks deeply uncomfortable.
Bryce looks tense.
Good.
Captain is sitting between them, as an conflicted mediator.
Bryce looks up first. His eyes flick immediately toward Addy behind me, then toward our joined hands.
“Addy,” he says carefully, “I didn’t know—”
“No,” I interrupt smoothly, shutting that down before it starts. “You didn’t.”
The room stills.
I release Addy’s hand then, mostly because I can feel her becoming hyperaware of it beside me.
She steps slightly closer to the kitchen island, putting physical distance between herself and Bryce without making it obvious.
Celeste clears her throat softly. “Okay. I know this probably isn’t my place, but I genuinely had no idea about any of this.”
Addy gives her a quick nod. “I know.”
And she does seem to know. Whatever else Bryce has done, it’s obvious Celeste walked blindly into this disaster.
Bryce exhales slowly. “Ethan, I can explain.”
I look at him for a long moment.
The strange thing is, a few hours ago I would’ve described him differently in my head. Frustrating, brilliant, reckless, self-destructive.
Now all I can see is Addy standing in a hallway trying not to cry while explaining that he convinced her to move cities for a life that apparently didn’t even exist.
It alters the architecture of a person surprisingly quickly.
“I’m sure you can,” I say evenly. “But this isn’t the time.”
His jaw tightens. “So what, you’re throwing me out?”
“Yes.”
The bluntness of it seems to catch even him off guard.
Beside him, Celeste closes her eyes briefly. She saw that answer coming approximately five minutes ago.
Bryce lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Because of a breakup?”
“No,” I say calmly. “Because tonight isn’t the night. This evening is over.”
Bryce looks at me again. “Ethan—”
“No.” I hold his gaze steadily. “You need to leave.”
Celeste exhales softly beside him. “Bryce, we should go.”
Then, finally, he nods once. “Fine.”
Relief moves through the room so quickly it’s almost physical. Especially as he exits.
Once the door closes behind them, Addy looks down briefly, blinking hard once.
And suddenly I understand something with alarming clarity: Bryce didn’t just break her heart. He made her expect less from people.