He Bet I Wanted Nothing, So I Left Him Nothing novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Lounge
Carrying a wine crate past the club's private lounge, Ellery hears her boyfriend and his friends fix her birthday gifts and plan to dump her; she accepts a placement in London, and a new date is named for her exit.
I was carrying a crate of wine past the club's private lounge when I heard my name.
"Poor little Ellery. You really sold her the wounded-boyfriend act, didn't you?"
Laughter came through the half-open door.
"You won the bet, Tristan. So when are you dumping her? Or are you getting attached?"
I stopped walking.
Tristan made the small, impatient sound he makes when a traffic light stays red.
"She's crazy about me," he said. "Getting rid of her will take some finesse."
The crate dug into my hip. I could not seem to put it down.
Inside, somebody brought up my birthday.
"You used to drop five figures on a bag without blinking. You can't do that this time. Give her something insulting. Five hundred. No, make it three."
"Three hundred," Tristan said. "Not a cent more."
The warmest laugh came from Hugh Kinsman, who has been Tristan's best friend since they were nine and once drove me home in a snowstorm.
"Let me. My housekeeper swears by this discount site."
A chair scraped. I could picture him taking out his phone, grinning.
He whistled.
"A whole bouquet for less than a sandwich. And look, a necklace. Silver-plated. Very fancy."
The others crowded around him.
"Imagine wearing that around your neck," somebody said.
Tristan took the phone. Through the gap in the door I watched his thumb move across the screen.
"Order them. Send them to my place."
"It'll go on your card?" a man asked.
"Mine." Hugh pulled a black card out of his own wallet and held it up. "Tristan's. I handle his accounts. He hates looking at statements."
"That's what friends are for," Tristan said, and they all cheered.
Tristan was the heir to Brevoort Holdings, and three women before me had left him wary of every hand that reached for his.
When we started dating, he told me he couldn't be generous anymore.
He needed to know that somebody wanted him for himself.
I had not asked for proof.
His money was his. He could spend it on anyone he liked. He didn't owe me a designer bag for being his girlfriend.
But I had not known I was the evening's entertainment.
"And when she cries?" a man asked. "Because she will."
"Then I'll be sad about it," Tristan said. "For a minute."
They loved that.
Someone suggested a way to make the breakup feel like my idea.
Tristan smiled.
It was a cruel smile. On anyone else, I would have known it at once. On him, with that dimple I used to kiss, it had taken me a year.
"Do it before the Hunsicker dinner on the fourteenth," Hugh said. "Margot's father signs the merger after that dinner. You can't have a girlfriend in the way."
"I know," Tristan said. "I'll handle it."
A server rounded the corner and reached for the crate.
"You okay?"
I nodded too quickly.
"You look pale."
"Just tired."
She took one end, and together we carried it into the storeroom. I checked the bottles on the shelf while she read the slip. Twelve whites. Six reds. Ordinary numbers I could trust.
My phone buzzed in my apron.
Tristan: Working late? I'll wait up.
I turned the screen against my leg.
Behind me, the men were still working out how to make me leave.
I had worked at this club three nights a week for a year to pay off my tuition.
I knew its back stairs, its service lift and the smell of its walk-in cooler.
I did not know the man I had been sleeping next to.
I took out my phone again and opened the email I had left unanswered for nine days.
It was from a university in London, offering me a funded graduate placement in public health history.
A part-time research post came with it.
I had put off answering because saying yes meant leaving him.
The message said to confirm by Friday and to arrive in two weeks.
So I stepped out.
I typed with my thumb, in the cold of the storeroom, between the whites and the reds.
I accept. Thank you. I'll be there.
I pressed send before I could think about the dimple.
Then I opened Tristan's text again and answered it.
Yes. Late shift. Don't wait up.
He wrote back at once.
I'll wait anyway. Love you.
I stared at the last line.
The fourteenth was twelve days away.
I had nine hundred dollars and a flight to price.
I had twelve days to walk out of a lie I had only just been allowed to see.
I picked up another crate and kept walking.
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