31. Kate
Kate
The morning felt off before I even opened my eyes.
No scent of coffee brewing. No heavy arm wrapped possessively around my waist. No husky morning whisper against my neck.
Just silence.
I sat up, heart thudding. On the nightstand was a note in his jagged scrawl:
"Business to handle. Be good, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow. Driver will pick you up. Wear red. — M"
That was it.
Nothing more.
All morning, my phone stayed maddeningly still. No check-ins. No teasing texts. By noon, I sent a quick message: Lunch?
His reply was clipped. Swamped. Tomorrow night, wear red.
The pit in my stomach only grew.
Still, I got ready the next evening. Slipping into the deep red velvet gown I’d been saving. Hair done in glossy waves. Diamonds on my neck and ears—gifts from him. I even wore the white fur stole he’d said made me look like old Hollywood.
And when the black car pulled up, I told myself everything was fine.
Until I saw him.
Michael stood by the main ballroom entrance in a custom black tuxedo, the very picture of ruthless elegance. But when he kissed my cheek, his eyes were glacier-cold. Not once did they soften.
He barely looked at me the rest of the night.
I was arm candy—nothing more.
He chatted with investors, laughed with foreign dignitaries, raised a toast with the tribal council.
And I stood there.
Silent.
Smiling.
Dying inside.
Then the music stopped. A microphone squealed. Michael raised a hand to quiet the crowd.
"Thank you all for joining us tonight. Your support means everything."
Krystal emerged from the side like a damn snake in sequins, sauntering up next to him in a silver gown so tight it looked sprayed on.
"I’d also like to share some personal news," Michael continued. "As of today, Krystal and I are officially?—"
He paused, jaw tight.
"—engaged."
Applause.
My world tilted.
Krystal’s smirk cut like a blade. She leaned into me, her voice sugar-coated venom.
"Guess what? You’re out. And I’m back in."
I couldn’t move.
Michael didn’t look at me. Not once. Just stared straight ahead like he was already somewhere else.
Later, I heard whispers. That the tribe council demanded the engagement. That Krystal was the niece of the most powerful tribal elder, and losing that land deal—losing face—meant Michael had to atone.
And this was his penance.
Me?
Collateral damage.
Discarded.
Replaced.
I couldn’t see the floor beneath my feet. Just red velvet pooling around my ankles and diamond earrings that felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.
Tears blurred the lights of the ballroom, but I kept walking. Past the murmuring guests, past the too-loud music, past the gilded celebration of my public execution.
He didn’t even flinch. Didn’t stop me. Just stood there as Krystal wrapped herself around his arm like she was born there.
I found my way to the elevator and hit the button for the top floor, his private suite of rooms I once thought of as ours. My vision swam, my heart pounding, the pain a living thing clawing its way through my chest.
The doors opened.
Brett was already there.
Boxes stacked. Garment bags zipped. Shoes lined up with military precision.
My things. All of them.
Waiting.
He didn’t even try to hide the disgust in his face.
“Well, well. If it isn’t the scheming bitch herself,” he muttered, arms folded. “You must’ve thought you were real slick, huh? Playing both sides? North Star Holdings? The Feds?”
I couldn’t breathe. “Brett?—”
“No. Shut up. Don’t speak unless you’re gonna own it. You think we don’t know? You think we didn’t dig? You were always too careful. Too clean. That’s what made me look twice.”
“I never—” I tried again, voice cracking. “I never meant for this?—”
“Oh spare me the ‘I didn’t mean it’ tears. You’ve been carving us up with a steak knife while faking orgasms in the boss’s bed.” He shook his head, laughing bitterly. “And he—he was gonna marry you. You know that, right? He was this close.”
The door slammed behind me as I walked into our bedroom for my blow dryer it was an excuse to stay longer— to deny this was really happening. Then Michael entered. I felt his presence around me like smoke.
He didn’t look at me.
He paced. Breathing like a dragon trying not to scorch the world.
Then his fist slammed into the wall next to the fireplace—followed by the lamp.
Glass shattered everywhere.
I flinched as shards exploded across the floor, the base ricocheting off the stone. The jagged sound echoed in my bones.
“You want to come clean now?” His voice was a roar. “Now? After the land deal is dead? After the council’s breathing down my neck? After I’m being told who to marry like I’m some fucking medieval prince?”
“Michael—please,” I whispered. “Let me explain?—”
“No. No more pretty words. No more fucking lies wrapped in red velvet.” He pointed at me like I was poison. “This is why I don’t fall in love. This right here. You are why. You ruined me.”
“I was trying to protect?—”
“You had chances!” he shouted. “Do you understand me, Kate? Plenty of them. Every single time I held you. Every night you fell asleep in my arms. I asked you. I gave you my trust. And you fed me smiles while you stabbed me in the fucking back.”
Tears streaked my face. My voice was barely a whisper. “You don’t understand what that land means to me?—”
His eyes snapped to mine, wild and blazing.
“I do! That’s the fucking problem. I do understand.
I saw it in your face on that cliff, remember?
I wanted to help you, Kate. I would’ve built a music hall in your grandmother’s name.
A Julliard-sponsored conservatory. You think I didn’t love you enough to give you all of it?
I saw the plans you never shared. The bid…
your proposal the one you slaved over while lying to me and submitted without even trusting me with your truth. ”
I dropped to my knees, fingers trembling. “Take it. The land. I’ll sell it to you. For a dollar. Please, let me fix this.”
He froze.
Then he laughed. Bitter and broken. “A dollar?” His eyes locked on mine, pain etched into every line of his face. “That’s what it’s worth now? Is that what tying my life to Krystal’s is worth?”
“I didn’t know?—”
“They’ll kill me if I don’t marry her,” he spat. “Do you get that? This isn’t some high school breakup. This is mafia chess, Kate. Arranged marriages and backroom deals or bodybags. And you—you sealed both our fates with your silence.”
He turned, walked straight to the built-in wall safe near the fireplace, yanked it open with a flick of his wrist. He reached in, pulled something small and black from the velvet box, and then?—
He threw it.
The diamond ring hit the floor at my feet.
I gasped. My whole body curled in on itself.
“I was going to put that on your finger tonight,” he growled. “I had the whole night planned. A string quartet. A rooftop dinner. Roses. The works. Instead, I put a different ring on a different woman.”
My tears choked me.
He pointed toward the door. “Get out.”
“Michael, please.”
“Get. Out.” he shouted.
And when I didn’t move fast enough, he turned his back on me completely.
And then Brett. The best friend who would’ve been the best man.
My breath caught. His eyes weren’t cold. They were empty.
“Where were you the night you met with Mulligan?” he asked flatly.
I shook my head. “Please, Brett, listen?—”
“Answer the damn question.” His voice didn’t rise. That made it worse.
“I wasn’t working against you. Not like that. I—I was trying to?—”
“To what?” Brett snapped. “Undermine his deals in secret while keeping your legs spread at night?”
“Don’t. Not like that.”
But his eyes never left mine.
“You lied to us,” he said, voice low and rough. “You knew what that land meant. You knew what you were risking. And all the while, you were feeding them—him—information?”
“I never gave the Feds anything.” I stepped forward. “I swear to God, I’d never betrayed him?—”
“You went behind my bosses back and torched his heart, Kate.”
And that was the worst cut of all.
“I didn’t ask him to love me,” I whispered.
He flinched. A real, visible recoil like I’d slapped him.
“Then why the fuck did he?” he said, his voice cracked open for the first time. “Why did he want to build a new empire with your name in every corner of it?”
He turned away.
“You need to go,” he said tightly. “Before I forget the part of me that still wants to protect you from his wrath. I have to dump Claire now. You wrecked four hearts tonight, Kate. I hope your singing land deal is worth it.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Brett’s jaw flexed, Vito looked like he wanted to drag me out by my hair, but Michael—he was still in our room. I heard more things breaking against the wall.
“I love you.” I whispered through tears as the door clicked shut behind me.
Two days had passed.
Two days since the ball.
Since the lie unraveled and the man I loved slammed a ring into the ground instead of onto my hand. Since my world—no, our world—shattered into pieces too sharp to hold.
I hadn’t eaten. I couldn’t sleep. My phone stayed dark, though I checked it every hour like a fool. Not even a breadcrumb from him. No late-night text. No demand to come home. No I miss you.
I sat curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket too thin to warm me. Heavy November rain clawed down the windows like grief itself. The fire had long since gone out, but I didn’t move. I just watched the storm eat the sky.
Grief doesn’t feel like drowning. It feels like floating. Like watching your life from behind glass, weightless and numb.
On the third day, I couldn’t sit still anymore. The silence inside Claire’s guest room was unbearable. Amber paced restlessly, mirroring the ache in my chest. So I left.
The streets were brittle with cold, leaves caught in gutters and sidewalk cracks. I pulled my coat tighter and wandered aimlessly. Every block, every storefront, was a haunted house of memories.
The coffee shop on King Street—he used to order for me. The bagel place by the corner—I remembered his laugh echoing off the walls as I fed him bites of mine. The bookstore— we’d spent an entire rainy afternoon there once.
And then I saw her Krystal.
The diamond ring he bought her glittered cold and cruel on her left hand. She smiled like the cat that swallowed the canary, draped in fur and power.
I couldn’t breathe.
My knees gave out right there on the sidewalk.
Claire found me an hour later, crying into Amber’s fur in a side alley. She didn’t ask questions. Just got me into her car, called in a private nurse, and held my hand while I shattered.
The meds dulled the edges of the pain, but not the truth.
"What the hell have I done?" I whispered into the quiet.
I couldn’t stay and watch him marry her. But if he didn’t, he’d be punished. Permanently.
I couldn’t watch him suffer.
So I did the only thing I could.
I ran.
Again.
Four days later, Gertie packed the car. Amber jumped into the backseat like she knew the plan. I hugged Claire tight. She was dealing with her own doomed love affair. But she was still a good friend not blaming me for the fallout.
"Newport, Rhode Island," I said. "Same harbor feel. Different ghosts."
I needed a place where the wind didn’t carry his name.
Newport was quiet in late fall. Tourists gone. Locals bundled in scarves. The gray sky kissed the cold ocean like an old love. It didn’t make the ache disappear, but it gave me room to breathe.
Gertie and I settled into a rented house tucked behind a row of windswept hedges. Amber claimed the front porch like a sentry. I buried myself in work. Charity events. Quiet meetings. Land inspections for my holding companies. Anything to keep my hands busy.
But at night…
I still saw his face.
His eyes.
The way he said my name like a prayer and a curse.
And every morning, I woke wondering if he hated me.
Or if he was as broken as I was.
Amber’s curled up by the fire, snoring softly. Gertie’s gone full Martha Stewart, unpacking groceries and fussing over me like I’ve come back from war. Maybe I have.
I’m curled on the couch in yoga pants and one of Michael’s old hoodies I swiped weeks ago, pretending it doesn’t still smell like him. My phone buzzes. Claire.
I hesitate before answering. I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to hear how I’ve ruined everything.
But I answer anyway.
“Hey,” I say softly.
“Gertie get you all tucked in like a proper fugitive?”
I smile despite myself. “More like a broken porcelain doll, but yes. We’re safe. It’s quiet here.”
“Good.” She exhales into the phone. “You need that.”
There’s a pause, the kind only best friends share, where a million unspoken things pass through the line.
“I still can’t believe it,” Claire finally says. “He really just… replaced you like that?”
I close my eyes. “It’s politics, Claire. It's bloodlines and backroom deals and things I don’t even have a language for. And it’s not like I was innocent in all of it.”
“You didn’t deserve it,” she snaps. “None of it.”
“I’m sorry Brett dumped you because of me. I know you were into him.”
Silence again, until she says, voice wicked and sugar-slick, “Don’t worry, babe. I’m not exactly crying into my wine over here either.”
“Oh no,” I groan. “What did you do?”
“You remember that silver fox from Rosewood River? The one who owns the rival casino?”
I blink. “Claire…”
“Yup. Had dinner with him last night.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. At the tower suite in the Glenmont. Caviar, Dom Pérignon, and a view of Brett’s turf so wide it might as well have been a middle finger.”
I sit up straighter. “Are you insane?”
“Probably,” she says brightly. “But I’m also not going to sit here crying while Brett punishes me for loving the wrong best friend. He ghosted me, Kate. Like I meant nothing. So, let’s see how he likes it when I become Rosewood River’s first lady.”
I rub a hand over my face. “This isn’t a soap opera, Claire.”
“No. It’s a turf war with cocktails. And trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
I want to believe that. I want to believe we’re both going to come out of this unscathed. But I also know the men we’ve gotten tangled up with don’t lose well—and they never let things go.
I glance out the frosted window at the empty harbor, waves crashing against the rocks like angry fists.
I say it aloud, mostly to myself.
“This isn’t over.”
Claire’s voice is calm. “No, babe. It’s just the end of Act One.”