Olivia POV

My apartment had been stripped to the bone.

The rugs were rolled tight like bandages. The paintings were down, leaving pale, ghostly rectangles on the dusty walls. Every step I took echoed against the floorboards.

I was down to the last box. The "Marcus" box.

I had been avoiding it like a landmine.

I sat cross-legged on the floor and pried opened the lid.

A scarf he bought me in Paris. A playbill from *Hamilton*. A small, dried flower press.

I picked up the scarf. It still smelled like him—a heavy mix of sandalwood and expensive tobacco. I buried my face in the cashmere for a split second, inhaling the scent of a ghost, before nausea rolled over me.

Against my better judgment, I checked my phone.

Izzy had posted a story. Of course she had.

It was a close-up of her hand on Marcus’s chest. The ring was huge. A massive, ostentatious emerald-cut diamond surrounded by a halo of smaller diamonds.

It didn't just scream money. It screamed *new* money.

I stared at it until the pixels blurred.

Marcus had designed a ring for me once. On a napkin in a diner at 2 AM.

*Simple,* he had said, sketching a solitary, round diamond on a thin gold band. *Elegant. Like you. Nothing to hide behind.*

He gave Izzy a fortress. He had promised me a home.

My father’s words echoed in my head. *He treats you better than anyone, Olivia. Even his mother gets jealous.*

I laughed. A dry, hacking sound that scraped my throat.

He treated me well until I became inconvenient. Until he needed the Vance family connections more than he needed my "elegance."

I called my dad.

"I'm going to the airport in two hours," I said.

"Are you sure you don't want to say goodbye to him properly?" David asked. "He asked about you today."

"He asked about me?"

"He asked why you weren't answering his emails about the portfolio transfer."

Business. Always business.

"Tell him I'm dead," I said. "Tell him I moved to Mars."

"Olivia..."

"I'm done, Dad. I'm burning the bridge."

I hung up.

I looked at the box.

I stood up and carried it to the building's incinerator chute in the hallway.

I opened the metal hatch. The rush of air from the chute roared up like a hungry beast.

I held the scarf. I held the playbill. I held the signed photo of him winning the Entrepreneur of the Year award, where he had written *To my partner in crime* on the back.

I dropped them.

One by one.

Down into the dark.

I went back inside to grab the last bag of trash. I needed to clear out the drawers in the hallway console.

I pulled the drawer open.

My breath hitched.

I had forgotten.

When I was at his office last week, before the haircut, before the end, I had seen something in the trash bin by his desk. I hadn't processed it then. My brain had refused to accept it.

But I had taken it out. Why? Habit? Desperation?

It was the stone.

Not the one I threw away in Chapter 2. That was a duplicate he made me for my keychain.

This was the *original*. The big one. The one that sat on his desk for three years as a paperweight. The one he said was his "anchor to reality."

I had found it in his trash can, buried under a Starbucks cup with Izzy's lipstick on the rim.

I pulled it out of my bag now.

It was still sticky with coffee.

He had let her throw it away. Or he had thrown it away himself to make room for her framed photo.

It didn't matter which. The result was the same.

*You are my rock,* he used to say.

Now I was just debris.

I saw a clip of an interview Marcus gave this morning on CNBC playing on my laptop. The reporter asked about his engagement.

"Olivia Hayes has been a great friend," Marcus said smoothly to the camera. "I know she wishes us the best. She understands the industry. She's a pragmatist."

A pragmatist.

I felt a cold fury rise in my chest. It was sharper than the sadness.

He didn't know me. He had slept beside me for years, and he didn't know me at all.

I took the stone.

I walked to the window. I shoved it open.

We were on the 20th floor.

I held the stone out over the city.

"I am not a pragmatist," I said to the wind. "I am an artist. And I am leaving."

I dropped the stone.

I didn't wait to hear it hit the ground.

I grabbed my suitcase. I walked out the door. I left the keys on the counter.

The Uber was waiting.

"JFK," I told the driver.

As the car pulled away, merging into the yellow stream of taxis, I felt my chest loosen.

The heavy weight was gone.

I looked back at the building one last time.

I turned forward.

I didn't look back again. The stone was dust. And so were we.

Olivia POV

Coming to the gallery opening was a mistake.

I definitely shouldn't have come. My flight was scheduled for midnight, leaving me with four agonizing hours to kill, and my friend Sarah had begged me to stop by her exhibition in Chelsea.

*Just one drink,* I had told myself. *A final toast to New York before I burn the bridge.*

I didn't expect the universe to play such a cruel, cosmic joke on me.

I was standing by a sculpture of twisted metal—a jagged, chaotic piece that mirrored exactly how I felt inside—sipping sparkling water, when a sudden hush fell over the room.

The atmosphere shifted instantly. The air became charged, electric, sucking the oxygen right out of the space.

I turned.

Marcus and Izzy walked in.

They looked like royalty descending upon the peasants. Marcus was in a tuxedo—why on earth was he in a tuxedo at 8 PM?—and Izzy was wearing a silver dress that shimmered like liquid mercury.

I tried to shrink into the shadows. I tried to will myself into becoming part of the drywall.

"Olivia!"

Izzy's voice was a homing missile, locking onto my coordinates with terrifying precision.

She waved, a frantic, performative gesture, and dragged Marcus toward me.

He looked... arrested.

He stopped dead in front of me. His eyes swept over my black turtleneck and jeans. I wasn't dressed for this high-society tableau; I was dressed for a six-hour flight to Montana.

"You're here," Marcus said. His voice was low, rough around the edges.

"I was just leaving," I said.

"We just came from a pre-wedding shoot," Izzy gushed, clinging to his arm as if she were afraid he might float away. She flashed the ring. It caught the harsh gallery lights and blinded me with its calculated brilliance. "Marcus insisted we stop by. He loves supporting local art."

She looked at me with a triumphant smirk. Her eyes screamed it: *I won. You lost. Look at us.*

But Marcus wasn't looking at the art. His gaze was anchored on me.

"I heard you resigned from the research position," he said, ignoring her. "My assistant told me."

"Yes," I said.

"I have a position open in Marketing," he said, the words rushing out a little too fast. "If you need a job. It pays well. You wouldn't have to leave the city."

He was doing it again. Trying to fix my life. Trying to keep me within arm's reach, like a pet he could visit on weekends to assuage his guilt.

"I don't need a job, Marcus," I said.

"Don't be stubborn," he snapped, a flash of his old impatience surfacing. "You can't live on air."

"I have a plan."

"What plan?"

"A new direction."

A man walked by us—someone from our old circle, holding a martini like a weapon. He leaned in, his voice dripping with faux-sympathy. "Rough night for a reunion, isn't it? You two were the golden couple. Shame."

Marcus stiffened visibly.

I looked the man dead in the eye. "Marcus and I were strictly business partners. The contract expired."

Marcus flinched.

It was a small movement, a tightening around his eyes, but I saw it. It was the reaction of a man who had just been slapped. I had reduced our entire history—the late nights, the secrets, the love—to a transaction.

"Is that all it was?" Marcus asked quietly, his voice barely audible over the gallery chatter. "A contract?"

"You tell me," I said, my voice steady despite the trembling in my hands. "You're the one marrying the merger."

Izzy's smile faltered, cracking at the edges.

"Well," she said, her voice sharp and brittle. "We should go. People are waiting."

She tugged on his arm, harder this time.

Marcus didn't move for a second. He looked at me, really looked at me, with a confusion I had never seen before. He reached out, as if to brush a stray hair from my forehead—a reflex, a ghost of muscle memory.

I stepped back.

His hand dropped to his side, empty.

"Goodbye, Marcus," I said.

"Take care, Olivia," Izzy said. "Hope you find... whatever it is you're looking for."

They turned and walked away.

I watched them go. He was tall, broad-shouldered, the man I thought I would spend my life with. But he was walking away with a woman he didn't love, marching toward a future that was nothing but a beautifully wrapped lie.

I checked my watch.

Olivia POV

I stepped out of the gallery and onto the pavement.

It was raining again. Of course it was.

I remained on the sidewalk, letting the water soak through my clothes. I didn't bother looking for an umbrella.

I thought about Marcus and his attempt to offer me a job. The arrogance of it. He thought he could buy my presence. He thought I was merely a problem to be solved.

I raised my hand and hailed a cab.

"JFK," I repeated as I slid into the backseat.

The car sped through the wet streets. The city lights blurred into streaks of neon color against the glass.

I rolled down the window. The wind hit my face, cold and wet and smelling of ozone.

It felt like freedom.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the icy air.

"I am not a business asset," I whispered to the wind. "I am Olivia Hayes."

The skyline receded behind me. The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the tower where Marcus lived—they all shrank until they were just toys in the distance, insignificant and small.

I closed the window.

The rest was a blur of motion. I arrived at the terminal, checked my bag, and swept through security.

Finally, I sat at the gate.

Boarding Group 1.

I stood up.

I walked down the jet bridge, leaving New York behind with every step.

I found my seat. Window.

The plane taxied. The engines roared to life.

We lifted off.

I looked down at the black void below. The rain lashed against the plastic window, weeping for a city I no longer called home.

I pressed my hand against the cool surface.

*Goodbye.*

The plane punched through the cloud layer.

Suddenly, the turbulence stopped. The rain stopped.

Above the clouds, the moon was shining. It was bright and clear and blindingly beautiful.

I leaned my head back against the seat.

I closed my eyes.

I was flying toward a new world. No Marcus. No Izzy. Just me.

And for the first time in years, the silence in my head wasn't lonely. It was peaceful.

I smiled.

The nightmare was over. The dream was just beginning.