Chapter 3

“Claire.”

I’m halfway out of the car when Adrian calls me back.

I turn.

He rests one hand on the steering wheel, his expression unreadable.

“If anyone from my family contacts you, don’t answer.”

I blink.

“What?”

“The Russos. If any of them call, text, or send someone to see you, stay away from them.”

The warning should make me nervous.

Instead, the first voice in my stomach gives a bitter little laugh.

“Because Bianca’s back. Guess who gets to meet the family now?”

My face goes cold.

Adrian notices.

His brows pull together.

“Did you hear me?”

Normally, I would demand an explanation.

Why can Bianca stand beside him while I’m kept outside?

Why does the woman who just came back get the place I never had after three years?

Tonight, I only nod.

“Got it.”

Adrian stares at me.

“That’s it?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

His mouth tightens.

“Nothing.”

I close the door and walk toward the building.

Behind me, his phone rings.

I shouldn’t listen.

I do anyway.

Adrian answers, and the hard edge in his voice disappears.

“I know,” he says quietly. “I’m coming.”

The baby groans.

“Bianca.”

I keep walking.

By the time I reach the elevator, my eyes burn.

Fine.

If Adrian wants his first love, he can have her.

I just want to stay alive.

That night, he never comes over.

By midnight, I’m running a fever from standing in the rain.

In every other life, according to the twins, I call Adrian over and over until he comes to take care of me.

This time, I don’t call once.

At two in the morning, I open my work email instead.

A message from my manager is still sitting there: a two-year assignment in the Los Angeles office. He offered it to me last week.

I turned it down because I didn’t want to leave Adrian for two years.

Now I stare at the screen through a fever haze.

Then I hit Accept.

The next morning, I wake to thirteen missed calls.

All from Adrian.

I call him back.

He answers on the first ring.

“Where the hell have you been?”

I pull the blanket tighter around me.

“Sleeping.”

“Get to Russo Holdings. Now.”

The line goes dead.

An hour later, I step into Adrian’s office with a fever and a pounding headache.

My manager is there.

So is Bianca.

She’s sitting beside Adrian’s desk in a cream suit, looking perfectly at home.

When she sees me, she smiles.

“Claire. It’s been forever.”

Ten years, actually.

We were friends in high school.

That feels like another life now.

“Hi, Bianca.”

Adrian drops his phone onto the desk.

The sound makes me flinch.

“This isn’t a reunion.”

His eyes move to me.

Then he slides a file across the desk.

“The Los Angeles account is no longer yours.”

For a second, I forget I even have a fever.

I stare at him.

“What?”

“I’m giving it to Bianca.”

The room goes silent.

I spent six months building that account.

Late nights.

Client calls.

Every proposal revised until it was right.

Adrian knows that.

He knows exactly what this costs me.

And he does it anyway.