Page 92 of Yours to Keep

“Goddammit,” I muttered.

My grip tightened around the phone. Before I could think better of it, I hurled it across the room. It smacked into the far wall and shattered against the hardwood floor, pieces skidding like startled insects.

The sound was loud. Then that dissolved into silence too. I dragged a hand down my face, the sting of regret already creeping in.

Not for the phone. That was replaceable.

Everything else? Significantly less so.

I pushed myself off the couch and grabbed my laptop from the kitchen island, flipping it open with more force than necessary. The screen glowed to life and I pulled up my email, quickly typing out a message.

Need a replacement phone delivered first thing in the morning. Transfer data if possible — S.

Part of me wondered about the clipped tone, but I hit send anyway. My assistant was used to it. The laptop stayed open on the counter as I leaned against the marble, staring at nothing while the bourbon warmed my bloodstream in slow, unhelpful waves.

I should never have left the notes out.

The thought looped through my mind for the hundredth time since she’d walked out of that conference room. It had been a rookie mistake. I didn’t get careless with sensitive information. Not with acquisitions or restructuring and certainly not with personnel decisions, but I’d been distracted.

By a chocolate muffin, of all fucking things. Although it hadn’t really been the muffin itself. It had been the ridiculous hope that maybe she was easing toward letting us exist as a couple in public, but then she’d seen the screen and now we didn’t exist at all.

My jaw tightened as I thought back to her hard expression, her eyes bright with betrayal and her words sharp enough to draw blood. No matter how many times I’d told myself she just didn’t understand the bigger picture, I couldn’t stop seeing the way she’d looked at me like she didn’t know me at all.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Plus, she shouldn’t have been reading my private files. The defensiveness rose fast and familiar from deep within. What she’d seen were executive decisions. Confidential.

She had no business digging through them, no matter whose name she’d recognized on the list, but even as the irritation flared, it fizzled out just as quickly. She would’ve found out eventually. The layoffs weren’t a secret. They couldn’t be.

Structural changes never stayed hidden for long, and I hadn’t intended to hide them in the first place. I’d expected pushback. Anger. Maybe even distance. I just hadn’t expected her to go nuclear like that, detonating our entire relationship in under two minutes.

The ache in my chest grew sharper as I pictured her standing across the conference table, her hands shaking as she shoved her bag over her shoulder and her voice cracking when she’d said we were done.

The finality in her eyes had been worse than the words. Like she’d already mourned whatever we were before she’d even walked out the fucking door. I drained the rest of my drink and set the glass down harder than necessary.

Short-term pain for long-term reward.

The phrase had guided half my career, the sentiment rational, necessary, and proven, but it sounded hollow now. Just about as hollow as I fucking felt.

I stared out over the city lights, trying to convince myself this was just another consequence to absorb and move past. Another sacrifice on the altar of forward momentum.

Instead, all I could think about was the way she’d looked at me like I’d shattered something sacred and the fact that I hadn’t even seen it coming.

A loud knock sounded at the door, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone trying the handle before knocking again, louder this time. “Sullivan, I know you’re home.”

Liana.

I closed my eyes briefly and scrubbed a hand over my face before pushing away from the counter. My head throbbed, whether from the scotch or the emotional whiplash of the last twenty-four hours, I didn’t know.

Probably both.

As I crossed the apartment, I stepped over the scattered remains of my phone and I pulled the door open, barely having time to register the worried crease between her brows before she launched in.

“You weren’t answering your phone and I needed to talk to you about—” She stopped mid-sentence.

Her eyes flicked past me, taking in the disarray, the glass on the counter and the half-empty bottle, the fractured pieces of phone visible from the entryway. Then her eyes snapped back to my face, widening slightly with instant, brutal comprehension.

“Oh,” she said softly. “That’s why you weren’t picking up, and why my code for your elevator didn’t want to work.”

She stepped inside without asking, kicking the door shut behind her with her heel like she’d done a thousand times growing up, back when we’d still been in the house where we’d hidden from thunderstorms together and shared contraband junk food after our parents had gone to sleep.