“Not that it’s any of your business, but she’s getting a divorce.”
Maybe not so perfect after all.
Not that it mattered. She was still stealing my boyfriend.
I looked away, my eyes stinging with tears. Cullen had taken her on as a client last year, after they’d met at a writer’s conference in Denver. I’d been there, too, dutifully attending the meetings Cullen had set up with editors, trying to salvage my quickly spiraling career.
And I’d seen them together at the hotel bar.
They hadn’t been touching—nothing overt. But the way he’d looked at her…
Weeks later, after mulling it over for way too long, I’d asked him about it. He’d gotten mad. Accused me of not trusting him.
“How long?” I heard myself ask.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. How long?”
“Why are you making this harder on yourself?”
“Because I need to know the truth.”
He let out an irritated breath. “Denver.”
My lip trembled. I caught it between my teeth so I wouldn’t cry. I was not letting him see me cry. He’d just tell me I was being overly sensitive anyway.
I took a slow breath through my nose. “You’ve been cheating on me with Pepper Sinclair since last year?”
“You’re making it sound worse than it is. In Denver, we…”
He trailed off, looking away again. But there was no shame or regret in his posture or expression. He just wanted to finish this conversation so he could move on with his day.
“In Denver, you what?”
“Why are you—”
“I’m not making this hard, Cullen. That’s on you. I didn’t make you have an affair with a married woman who’s also your client. You did that.”
“Fine, you want to make me say it? In Denver, we didn’t sleep together, but… other things transpired. Since then I’ve been seeing her when I go to New York. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you getting all depressed. Things were bad enough after your series got dropped. I figured I’d give you some time to at least get writing again. But that’s obviously not going to happen, and I can’t keep waiting around for you to decide you’re over your writer’s block.”
It was hard to get any words out, my voice almost a whisper. “All that time?”
“What do you expect? You’re always distracted, always thinking of some plot or another, but you haven’t written anything in who knows how long. You spend all your time watching serial killer documentaries and looking up poisonous household chemicals or the best ways to hide a body. It’s disturbing.”
“I write suspense novels. It’s research.”
“It’s like living with the creepy goth girl who sat in the back of class and threatened people with voodoo dolls, only wrapped in a beautiful package. You look so normal.”
If I’d ever wondered what it would feel like to have my very existence completely rejected, apparently this was it.
“Look, you need to move out,” he said. “Pepper’s telling her husband today and she’s bringing her stuff here after.”
“You’re moving her in?”
“Well, yeah, she’s leaving her husband. She can’t exactly stay there.”
“You’re leaving me. Why don’t you move out?”
He looked at me like I’d just suggested he start eating meat again. “It’s my apartment.”
The refrigerator’s buzz ceased, leaving behind an emptiness in the air. It was his apartment. He’d lived here first. In fact, everything in it was his. It had been fully furnished, the kitchen and bathrooms fully stocked, when I’d moved in. Almost nothing was mine.
I was simply a guest who’d been here for an extended sleepover.
A guest who’d overstayed her welcome.
Calmly, I turned and walked to the bedroom. Took my suitcase out of the closet and started packing.
So calm. Deadly calm.
The beginning to a domestic suspense novel flitted through my head. A jilted wife, forced to move out of the home she loved due to her husband’s infidelity. Her husband is found dead the next morning. She’s the prime suspect, and—
“What are you doing?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the man I’d once thought I might marry. My voice sounded strangely flat. “You just broke up with me, so I’m packing.”
“You were staring at the wall.”
Turning to face him, I crossed my arms. “You know what, Cullen? Fuck you. You were never trying to make this easier on me, or give me time to start writing again, or keep me from getting depressed. You wanted to avoid telling me that you’re a cheating piece of shit. Because deep down, you know you were wrong. You know you betrayed me. And one of these days, you’re going to wake up and realize it. You’re going to realize what you lost. And when you do, I’ll be long gone. So get out and let me pack.”
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and backed away. “Fine.”
I went back to folding my clothes and placing them neatly in my suitcase. They weren’t all going to fit, and I didn’t have another bag.
I decided to take Cullen’s.
Because fuck him.
But when I pulled his suitcase out of the closet—it matched mine—I couldn’t hold back the tears.
Strands of long hair stuck to my wet cheeks as sobs bubbled up from my chest. I splayed my hand over my heart, suddenly understanding the term heartbroken with perfect clarity.
I’d thought I loved him. I’d thought he loved me.
Apparently I’d been wrong. Horribly wrong.
I needed to call my mom. I’d have to go to her place. I wasn’t the sort of girl who had many friends; I was too shy. And my best friend Ginny didn’t live nearby. Fortunately, I knew Mom wouldn’t mind.
Except I scrolled past my frequently used contacts—which was all of three people, Mom, Cullen, and Ginny—and stopped at a different number.
Dad.
Norman Stanley. Fire Chief, Tilikum Fire Department.
I didn’t know why I had the urge to call him. He wasn’t the parent I normally went to in a crisis. In fact, I didn’t even see my dad all that often.
But somehow the pieces of my cracked and bleeding heart yearned for the comfort of my father’s voice.
If he’d even answer. He was probably on duty. It seemed like that was all he ever did—work.
Still, I decided to give it a try. I brought up his number and hit send.
He answered on the first ring. “Hey, Skylar.”
A flood of renewed tears ran down my cheeks and I could barely croak out a single word.
“Daddy.”
1
Gavin
A trickle of sweat slid down my spine and the hot air around me was thick with smoke.
“How we looking up there, Gav?” Chief’s voice crackled on my radio.
I keyed the remote mic on my radio to reply. “A lot of smoke. Dirk might want to pull his crew out for a bit once we get this fireline cleared. They’re looking a little rough.”
As if on cue, the guy about ten feet down from me coughed.