Page 156 of What Goes Around

We hung up.

A month later, I was back in this damn city.

The Richards Group’s twentieth anniversary was held in a private event space overlooking the river. Floor-to-ceiling windows. White stone walls. Soft, flattering light designed to smooth age and polish wealth. Everything about the evening was curated to signal stability, success, legacy. Valet parking. Discreet security at the entrance. No mistakes allowed.

I arrived alone.

I wore a fitted black silk dress, sleeveless, clean lines, elegant without effort. The hem fell just below my knees. Black four-inch stilettos. My makeup sharpened my features, intensifying the cold blue of my eyes.

My hair hung loose down my back, straight and pale blonde, reaching my waist. I’d only ever trimmed the split ends since my rebirth.

Over the past weeks, I had tried to ignore the elephant in the room. After the phone call. After vomiting in the hotel gym. I had spiraled for a while. Overthinking. Replaying. Obsessing over questions that had no clean answers.

Then, abruptly, something in me snapped into place.

Why was I still dwelling on this?

Even if Nick had slept with Apple, what did it matter now? Why was I allowing the actions of two people who had already destroyed me in another life to bleed into this one?

I had survived worse. I had rebuilt myself from ash. Letting this linger felt like self-betrayal.

The back and forth with Nick, the constant what ifs, wasn’t healthy. It never had been.

So I cut it off.

I ignored every call. Every message. I didn’t block him. I simply removed myself. A week ago, the messages stopped.

I had a pretty good idea why if things were unfolding anything like they had in my past life.

For the event, I was seated at a round table reserved for “family.”

The proud picture of success. The Richards family, complete.

I sat to Brandon’s left. Marissa sat to his right, Apple beside her, and then me again on the other side.

Apple kept glancing toward Nick’s table behind me, where he’d been placed strategically among key partners and legacy families.

Every time I shifted, every time I lifted my glass or leaned forward slightly, I felt his stare press into my back.

I didn’t turn or acknowledge him.

Wine was poured. Speeches began. Applause rose and fell on cue.

I listened with half an ear as Brandon spoke about growth, resilience, legacy. The familiar mythology men like him built around themselves. Marissa watched him like a proud wife. Apple nodded at the right moments, smiling when she was meant to smile.

Between courses, Apple lifted her phone.

She angled the camera toward her plate first, capturing the scallops before they were touched. The symmetry. The foam. The garnish placed just so. Then she tilted the phone outward, panning slowly across the room. She was careful with her angles. She leaned a fraction of an inch away from me, barely perceptible, but intentional.

Her thumb moved with instinctive precision, cropping, reframing, curating. Years of muscle memory at work.

Then she panned the table. Marissa smiled for the camera without missing a beat. Brandon didn’t even notice he was being filmed. Apple lingered there, then stopped short.

As if the space beside her were empty.

As if I wasn’t sitting right there.

It amused me.