003: Moving on

Anastasia's POV

I drove aimlessly around town after listening to the voicemail. My hands would not stop shaking on the steering wheel. Every red light felt like torture because it gave me time to think and thinking was the last thing I wanted to do right now.

I called my best friend Sara three times before she answered. I really needed someone.

"Ana? Where are you? Why do you sound like you're crying?" Sara said and I could hear the concern in her voice.

"I need to come over," I managed to say and my voice cracked. "Can I come over?"

"Of course, get here now. Are you okay to drive?"

"I'm already on my way."

"Ana, what happened?"

I could not get the words out because if I started talking I would start crying again and I was barely holding myself together as it was. "I'll tell you when I get there."

Twenty minutes later I was standing outside Sara's door. I could not even knock because my hands were shaking too badly. The door opened anyway and Sara stood there in her pajamas with her hair in a messy bun.

She took one look at my face and pulled me inside. "Oh my god, Ana."

That was all it took and I completely fell apart. I collapsed against her and sobbed so hard I could barely breathe. Sara wrapped her arms around me and held me up because my legs felt like they might give out.

"What happened? Did someone die?" Sara asked. Her voice was panicked.

I shook my head against her shoulder but I could not speak. The sobs were coming too fast and too hard.

Sara half walked, half carried me to her couch and sat me down. She disappeared for a second and came back with a box of tissues and a glass of water. I tried to drink the water but my hands shook so badly it spilled on my shirt.

"Breathe, Ana. Just breathe," Sara said and she sat next to me with her hand on my back.

It took me about ten minutes to calm down enough to talk and when I finally did, the words came out in broken pieces. "Lucas. Jennifer. Bed. Together."

Sara's face went pale. "What?"

"I came home early to surprise him," I explained. "They were in our bed, Sara. My cousin and my husband were having sex in my bed."

"That son of a bitch," Sara said, her voice low and angry. "I'm going to kill him."

"There's more." I said between sobs.

"How can there be more?"

I told her everything that happened. About the papers Lucas showed me, how our marriage was never legal, how he knew for six months and never said anything. The way Jennifer laughed at me and Lucas calling me pathetic and him saying he would take my bakery from me.

Sara listened to all of it with her mouth open in shock and her hands balled into fists. When I finished, she stood up and started pacing.

"I never liked him, Ana. I told you from the beginning something was off about that guy but you wouldn't listen," she said.

"I know." Fresh tears ran down my face. "You were right and I was stupid."

Sara stopped pacing and looked at me. "And Jennifer? Your own cousin? That's sick."

"I let her stay in my home because I felt sorry for her when her boyfriend dumped her. I gave her a place to sleep and food to eat and she repaid me by sleeping with Lucas."

"She's trash and so is he," Sara said. She sat back down next to me and grabbed my hand. "But Ana, what did he mean about taking your bakery? How can he do that?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "Maybe he just wants to destroy me completely."

Sara squeezed my hand. "We'll figure it out, okay? You're not alone in this."

I nodded but I did not believe her because how could anyone help me now?

"You're staying here tonight," Sara said and it was not a question. "Actually, you're staying here as long as you need to."

"I can't do that to you."

"Yes you can and you will. The couch is comfortable and you're not going anywhere until we figure this out."

I wanted to argue but I was so tired and I had nowhere else to go. "Okay. Thank you."

Sara made me tea that I did not drink and tried to get me to eat something but I could not. My stomach was in knots and every time I thought about food I felt sick.

That night I lay on Sara's couch staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of her snoring in the bedroom. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Lucas and Jennifer together and I heard his voice moaning her name.

Around three in the morning I finally dozed off but I woke up an hour later from a nightmare about Lucas laughing while my bakery burned down. My heart was racing and I was covered in sweat.

I could not do this and I could not lie here feeling sorry for myself. I had to face reality.

When Sara woke up at seven, I was already dressed and ready to go.

"Where are you going?" she asked and she rubbed sleep from her eyes.

"The bakery. I need to open."

"Ana, you can take a day off. The world won't end if Sweet Seasons is closed for one day."

"I can't," I said. "It's all I have left and it's already failing. If I don't fight for it, Lucas wins."

Sara looked at me and then nodded. She hugged me tight before I left. "You're stronger than you think, Ana. Don't let that bastard make you forget that."

My mother had opened this bakery twenty years ago when I was eight years old. I used to sit at the counter doing homework while she baked. She taught me everything about pastries and baking. She used to say that baking was like giving people a little bit of happiness.

She and my dad died in a car accident when I was nineteen and left the bakery to me. I tried so hard to keep it running the way she would have wanted but it was harder than I ever imagined. I could barely meet my mortgage payments and customers kept going to the big chain bakeries with their cheap prices. Last month I barely made enough to cover costs.

Three months ago the bank sent me a letter telling me that I had three months to catch up on my loan payments or they would foreclose. I was already halfway through that deadline.

I had an apartment above the bakery. It had been empty for months and I used it mostly for storage. It was not much but it was mine and Lucas could not kick me out of it.

I decided to use the morning to go get my things, taking advantage of the fact that Lucas should be at work by now. It was not surprising to see that he had already packed up my stuff and left them in the living room.

I was filled with rage but when I checked and saw that nothing was broken, I calmed down and just took the stuff and left.

By the time I carried the last box up the narrow stairs to the apartment above the bakery, my whole body ached. I tried to unpack but I only made it through one box before I had to sit down.

I felt so lonely and pathetic and I cried all over again. I thought I had run out of tears but apparently I had not.

I cried until I was empty and then I just lay on the old couch staring at the cracks in the ceiling.

It was already night when I got the space to look liveable. Sleep did not come easy and when it finally did, I had nightmares again. I had terrible eye bags by the time I woke up in the morning. The bakery had to open and sitting here feeling sorry for myself was not going to save it.

The morning passed in a blur and only three customers came in.

I was wiping down the counter when the bell above the door chimed and I looked up expecting to see another regular.

But it was not a regular.

A tall man walked in wearing a dark suit. He had sharp gray eyes and perfectly styled dark hair. He moved with the kind of confidence that came from money and power.

I stared at him for a second because he looked familiar but I could not place him. Then he looked directly at me and my heart stopped.

I knew who it was. The boy who had asked me out six years ago in college and told me he loved me.

The boy I had rejected for Lucas.

Leon Hart, my billionaire Ex boyfriend.