4. Sloan #2
She was freezing, so she accepted the jacket from him and slipped it onto her shoulders.
The warmth of it radiated onto her shoulders, but her shaking didn’t quite stop.
“So, you’re staying at the Greyrock?” She could do this.
She could manage small talk. Even with someone like Kyle.
Even when all she wanted to do was fall apart.
“No, actually. I’m at a cabin rental place a few miles out of town called Fort Paradise. ” He chuckled, his voice rich and warm. Deep. “Which, I can tell you, is anything but paradise. I mean, the mountains are. But the cabins are . . . aggressively rustic. Greyrock isn’t quite in my tax bracket.”
She watched his mouth move as he talked, and somehow, it transported her back to being seventeen again, wrapped up in his arms, watching the stars, fooling around in his truck after a Friday night football game.
Her stomach bottomed out at that thought. They’d been each other’s firsts.
Not that there had been many. She’d hadn’t dated too much after Kyle. She hadn’t been ready to let anyone in. Then after college, she’d bumped into Evan at a charity auction she’d attended for Dad’s company . . . and that had been it. Evan had set his sights on her.
A stab went through her heart.
Evan.
I can’t do this.
“I’m sorry.” She gasped and took the jacket back off, practically throwing it at Kyle. “I-I have to go.”
She turned away, then practically ran inside before he could say anything else. She made a beeline toward the elevator. Maybe the alcohol was making everything worse. Her palms were numb, her heart beating harder than usual.
By the time she’d reached the penthouse, a visible tremor shook her fingers.
A panic attack. That’s all. Just a panic attack.
She’d had them since she was a teenager.
After letting herself into the room, she hurried toward the bathroom and grabbed her medication. The cap turned in her palm, and she shook one into her other hand and turned on the faucet.
She leaned down toward the water, catching sight of herself in the mirror.
Brown eyes stared back at her. Ones she didn’t recognize. Not because she’d never stared at herself in the mirror before but something else entirely. The light . . . just wasn’t there.
She should have asked Evan about the letter and demanded an answer before they went into the rehearsal dinner. But she’d frozen because . . . it’d been too damn terrifying to process.
Some truths were too big to touch.
Blinking, she looked back at the medicine waiting for her. Calling her.
No. Not what I need right now.
She flushed it, instead, then gulped some water from the faucet, gasping for breath. This felt like a warning, which in some sense, was worse than a panic attack.
Her body was telling her something was wrong.
She dried her mouth with a towel, then made her way out to the bedroom, her chest squeezing tighter with each step, her breath growing shallower.
I need to get out of here.
Now.
Go to an urgent care, first of all. Get tested. Then . . . I’ll figure it out.
For the next few minutes, her body seemed to go on autopilot, her mind fuzzy as she hurried through the room, changing into gray chinos, boots, and a white sweater, then stuffing clothes, toiletries, and shoes into her carry-on.
Where she was going and what she was doing didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that she was moving and doing something. She’d figure it out along the way.
With a bag packed, she stopped at the desk in the living area and pulled out the explosive letter she’d been given.
She took a picture of the first page, then attached it into an email that she scheduled to send to him at midnight, so he wouldn’t get it right now.
Then she wrote him a message on a pad of hotel stationery.
Evan,
This isn’t what I signed up for.
Any of it. Not now. Not ever.
Have fun with Tasha.
Goodbye. I’m done.
Sloan
She tugged the diamond off her finger and set it on top, aware she had to hurry and get the hell out of here before Evan came back and tried to stop her.
Maybe she was making the biggest mistake of her life, but it was better than doing nothing. She’d ignored her instincts for too long.
Heart racing, she ran out the door, her carry-on strap looped over her shoulder.
As she reached the elevator, praying that no one from the dinner would be on it, she reached into the bag and pulled out a soft gray beanie and a hair tie.
She tugged her blond hair up into a messy bun, then jammed the beanie over her head.
A pair of sunglasses gave the last bit of cover, even though it was night.
Hopefully, security wouldn’t stop her. Their job was to keep people out, not keep people in. And they wouldn’t be looking for the bride.
The elevator dinged, and she hopped on, grateful no one else was on it. Thank God.
She pulled out her phone, opening the ride-share app she’d downloaded last summer but had only ever used once—when she traveled with Evan, he always had a car waiting for them. Always a black Volvo, which had once made her laugh, but she was used to it by now after being with him for four years.
Four fucking years.
You’re turning your back on four years of your life if you walk out of this hotel, Sloan.
She still had time to fix this. Cancel the ride. Go back up to the room. Get rid of the note and put that ring back on her finger.
The elevator door opened, and she started across the lobby, even as her brain screamed, go back, go back, go back.
Halfway to the door, she realized she didn’t have her coat.
Of course.
Maybe this was serendipity. Couldn’t be more than like seven degrees outside. She couldn’t go anywhere without a coat.
Her phone dinged to let her know her ride had already arrived. Had they been right around the corner?
She drew a shaky breath, watching as brake lights fractured in through the glass revolving door of the hotel.
If she went back for her coat, she wouldn’t come back down to the lobby.
Sloan blinked slowly.
The brake lights were red, like a stoplight.
Her heart pounded.
She wasn’t built for impulse. Or chaos. Or unplanned anything.
But she wasn’t the one who believed that a ring on your fiancée’s finger meant you still had “time” to play the field .
If Sloan were honest, she’d known, deep down, that Evan probably hadn’t ever been faithful. Their sex life had always been ordinary, and she’d always felt like she’d disappointed him. Is that why I stayed? Why I accepted all the red flags as nothing?
And then there was his family. Bernice barely tolerated her. Why had she accepted that as . . . her fate? She didn’t want a life where the family she married into didn’t respect her— didn’t really like her— and that it would never improve. Surely, she deserved more than that.
All she knew was that if she didn’t go out the door to the lobby, she’d always wonder what her life would be like if she’d just taken twenty steps forward.
Twenty steps.
That’s it.
Twenty steps.
Now. Or never.
Then she started forward, into the cold night, and the automatic door closed behind her.
Closing the door to her past life and leaving it all behind.