He Chose His Ex, So I Chose My Empire novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Last Night

Hugh didn't open the envelope on the steps.

He held it against his chest with both hands.

Sabrina touched his sleeve.

"Hugh. The car."

He didn't seem to hear her.

He was looking at me.

"Not like this," he said.

"It's already like this," I said, and went down the steps to Imogen's car.

...

I went to the penthouse at eleven that night.

I told myself it was for my things.

It was mostly true.

There wasn't much that was really mine in that place.

Three years of marriage, and almost everything I touched there had been bought by him or chosen by a designer he paid.

But in the back of the bedroom closet, behind his winter coats, there was a cardboard box.

It had come with me from Sacramento when I was eighteen.

A sweater with holes in the cuffs. Two paperbacks. A photo of a woman I barely remembered.

And the faded blue ribbon I'd hung my first key on, before I started carrying it loose in my pocket.

I let myself in with my code.

The lights under the cabinets were on.

He was sitting at the kitchen island in his shirtsleeves, with the envelope open in front of him and a glass of whiskey he hadn't touched.

He'd read every page.

I could tell from the way they were stacked.

"I came for my box," I said.

"I know which box."

"Then you know I'm not staying."

I walked past him to the bedroom.

He followed me.

He stood in the closet doorway while I dragged the box out from behind his coats.

"The money was for you," he said.

I stopped with my hands on the cardboard.

"I gave it because of you. Because I watched you build that plan at our kitchen table for two years. I wanted it to happen. I wanted it to be yours."

I stood up slowly.

"Then why did you let a whole building believe otherwise for a month?"

He didn't answer right away.

He didn't take off his watch either.

That was almost worse.

"Because I'd rather you hate me," he said, "than hear people say you'd bought it."

There it was.

The truest thing he'd said in weeks, and it made me want to throw the box at him.

"That's a decision you made for me," I said.

"Laurel."

"No. Listen. You decided I couldn't handle a few people whispering. So you let them whisper something worse. You let them watch me lose my husband in public, every day, at my own desk."

"You haven't lost me."

"Hugh, I filed."

"I read it."

"Then sign it."

He came into the closet.

It was a big closet, as closets go.

It still felt very small with him in it.

"I'm not signing anything tonight," he said.

"Then I'll leave, and you can sign it tomorrow."

I picked up the box.

He took it out of my arms and set it down on the shelf behind me, gently.

"Don't you dare," I said.

"Dare what?"

"Look at me like that."

"How am I looking at you?"

"Like you think you still get to."

His hand came up and brushed the scar through my eyebrow with his thumb.

He used to do that every morning.

I hated how fast my breath went.

I hated how my body remembered him faster than my head could stop it.

I was so angry.

I was so tired of being the calm one.

I grabbed his shirt in both fists and pulled his mouth down to mine.

He made a sound.

Then his hands were on my hips, and my back was against the shelves, and a row of his folded cashmere went over onto the floor.

"One night," I said against his mouth. "It doesn't change anything."

"Then make it count," he said.

He didn't kiss me back so much as take the kiss over.

One hand went to the back of my neck, the other slid up my thigh and under my dress.

I made a sound I didn't mean to make.

"You started it," he said against my mouth. "Now you finish it."

"Fuck you."

"That's the idea."

He pulled the dress up over my hips and shoved it to my waist.

Then he yanked the black lace down my legs and let it drop.

His thumb found my clit without looking.

He'd always known exactly where.

I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn't moan.

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