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"No," he says, too quickly for a man who’s fast tracking our divorce. "Keep it just in case you need to pawn it for something."

"Pawn it? A ten million dollar ring? Are you insane? What would I need that kind of money for?"

"I don’t know Aria but keep it just in case. Call it insurance, just keep it."

I can’t believe he won’t just take this boat anchor, like he’s taking this marriage. But what I do know is that I can’t keep standing here listening to him make zero sense of this.

I get three steps past him before his hand closes around my wrist.

His fingers warm and familiar, the same damn hand that traced my hip in the dark last week.

We both freeze.

I turn my head just enough to look at him over my shoulder.

"Don't," I say softly. "You don't get to touch me while you're doing this."

He release me instantly but I see the moment that he realizes I’m not longer his to touch freely like he used to.

I walk away before he can say anything else.

Across the foyer and up the stairs.

I don't run. I want to. But I don't.

By the time I make it into the bedroom, I'm shaking hard enough that I have to brace one hand on the dresser. The room smells like him and that makes this so much harder. Because I slept in his damn shirt last night and the sheets still carry him and this whole house is a monument to a man who just called me beneficial.

I hear the front door open and then shut behind him, the car revving up as it backs out of the driveway. And then I let myself cry.

Not the pretty kind. Not the single-tear-rolling-down-the-cheek movie version. The kind that folds you in half and doesn't leave room for pride or dignity or anything except the sound of your own breathing going wrong.

And even through the tears, even through the confusion and the humiliation and the ache of everything he would not say, one thought keeps circling back:

He didn't just leave me.

He made damn sure I’d be still stuck in a world where I can’t forget him.

Chapter Thirty-One

ARIA

Morning comes slow and ugly.

I wake up feeling like I haven't slept at all, even though I must have at some point because the light through the windows has changed and the clock on the nightstand says 7:14 like that's supposed to mean something.

For a few disoriented seconds, I don't remember why my chest already hurts.

Then I turn my head.

His side of the bed is untouched.

And it all comes back at once.

The foyer. His suit still on. The papers on the entry table. The way he said the arrangement like that word was big enough to cover everything that had actually happened between us.

It wasn't.

I shut my eyes again.