Page 5

“The leftovers?” Harper repeats.

“You heard me perfectly well.”

“I thought living in the fashion capital for five years would have refined your vocabulary a bit.”

“It has. You bet it has,” Victoria retorts, closing the distance between their faces to barely an inch. “It taught me to be painfully precise.”

“Well, someone in France should have warned you that barging into a newsroom where people have been working their asses off—sacrificing their health and their lives—for four years, only to call their work ‘leftovers,’ isn’t exactly a sign of sophistication. It’s unbearably arrogant.”

Victoria swallows the retort that’s burning on her tongue. Five years ago, she would have jumped at her throat without a second thought. With Harper, self-control was always a pipe dream. Because that woman has the power to bring out a temperamental, passionate Victoria who would argue before considering the consequences. But she’s not that woman anymore.

Or, at least, that’s what she’s wanted to believe.

“I’m not dismissing your effort or your dedication,” Victoria clarifies. “What I’m saying is that I didn’t leave my position in France to come to New York just to take a job. If Eleanor Sterling offered me this co-directorship, it’s for an important reason.”

Harper bursts out laughing.

“What a relief. I’ll sleep much more soundly tonight.”

“I wasn’t trying to put your mind at ease.”

“You haven’t changed a bit in that regard. You’ve always had an incredible talent for ruining my day.”

Victoria feels a sharp twinge in her diaphragm, but she forces herself to keep a straight face.

“Are we really going to play this game, Harper?”

“What do you mean?”

“Talking with hidden agendas, sarcasm, and backstabbing until one of us says the word ‘divorce.’”

Harper freezes.

Victoria regrets the impact of the word the very instant the last syllable leaves her lips. As if she could sum up in three syllables the sleepless nights, the shouting matches in the kitchen, the silences that lasted for days, and the pain of watching their home become too big for them because they no longer knew how to live in it without hurting each other.

Harper is the first to break eye contact, turning her gaze toward the floor-to-ceiling windows on the forty-second floor. This small rhetorical victory brings Victoria not a shred of satisfaction—only a bitter aftertaste.

“I have no intention of debating our marriage in this room,” Harper states.

“I think that’s an excellent decision.”

“Nor the exact reason you packed your bags and left.”

This time, Victoria finds it all too hard to respond. The pause drags on for several seconds. Harper fixes her gaze on hers again, and in that look there’s an indecipherable mix of emotions.

“You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about, Harper.”

“Of course not,” her ex-wife replies. “You were never particularly good at sharing your thoughts. It was always easier for you to put up a wall or hop on a plane than to sit down and talk about how you felt.”

“And you were never good at listening to anything that didn’t fit into your perfect picture of how things should be,” Victoria counters. “You’d rather turn any uncomfortable conversation into a war than admit you might be wrong.”

Harper flashes a sad smile, lacking the sparkle Victoria remembered from their happier days.

“There she is. The same old Victoria Vance,” Harper mutters. “The one who always has one more excuse up her sleeve to justify any escape.”

Victoria breaks the closeness between them and walks over to the window.

“You don’t have the faintest idea of the person I’ve become over the past five years.”