Page 10 of The Quiet After The Fall

“Sawyer Thorne?”

“Of course,” she says before laughing lightly. “What other Sawyer do we know?”

“Why?” I ask, keeping my voice careful when all I want to do is spring fifty questions on her.

“She reached out, emailed me, I don’t know, maybe a week ago. Maybe more. We’ve been meaning to get together forever, you know how it is. I figured with everything that’s happened it would be⁠—”

My phone rings. I pull it from my pocket and sigh.

My father.

I stare at his name for a second, jaw tight, the questions I haven’t asked yet sitting right behind my teeth.

What exactly did she say in that email? Did she talk about me? What does she want?

Sawyer doesn’t do anything without a reason, especially this. And whatever her reason is for reaching out to Ella weeks after watching me propose, it has nothing to do with wanting to casually catch up over lunch.

My phone keeps ringing.

“You should get that,” Ella says, glancing at the device in my hand.

I jab at the screen.

“I’ll be there,” I say before my father can utter a word.

He pauses, probably caught off guard, then says, “Good. Don’t be late,” before hanging up.

Fucking appointment with our lawyers. The last thing I want to be doing, especially now.

I slip the phone back into my pocket and look at Ella, who’s gone back to scrolling, completely at ease. Unaware of the storm that’s brewing in my head.

“Have fun at lunch,” I say.

The words come out in a normal tone. I almost impress myself.

The drive to Harris and Associates takes twenty minutes. I spend nineteen of them in a spiral thinking about Sawyer sitting across from Ella at whatever restaurant she picked, smiling but hiding venom in the back of her throat. I spend the last minute sitting in the parking garage talking myself out of texting her. It doesn’t work.

Why are you having lunch with Ella?

Thorne, talk to me.

You can’t avoid me forever.

Fuck.

This shit is what I deserve but I still can’t let go. And what if she tells Ella about us? Moretti will chop off my cock and shove it down my throat.

I wish Owen was here. He’s the only other person who could even slightly understand what I’m dealing with.

Then I laugh, probably looking like a maniac to anyone passing by. Owen may have been privy to the arrangement with Moretti, but he’d never have understood what I’m going through because everything always went right for him.

He even got away with fucking Ella while having Sawyer. I still don’t have proof, but I’m close.

I check my phone again. Still on delivered. And pound my fist on the wheel to expel some of this pent up anger.

I get out of the car before I decide to toss the phone at the windshield.

The lawyer’s office sits on the outside of town, occupying the entire fifth floor of the older building. There’s marble in the lobby, gleaming polished fixtures, and top-of-the-line computers. They’re trying too hard to look like Ashford money without paying Ashford taxes.