Lexi

Walking away from Lucian was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Every step toward his office door felt like I was tearing a piece of my heart out and leaving it behind. But I couldn't look back. If I looked back, I'd run straight into his arms and damn the consequences.

The elevator ride down felt endless. My reflection in the polished steel doors showed a woman I barely recognized, hollow-eyed, pale, broken. Three weeks ago, I thought I'd found my fairy tale. Tonight, I was living in the ashes of what could have been.

Mia was waiting for me in the lobby, her face creased with worry. "Lexi? How did it go?"

"It's over." The words came out as a whisper. "I ended it."

She wrapped her arms around me as I finally let myself fall apart. "Oh, honey. I'm so sorry."

"Take me somewhere," I sobbed into her shoulder. "Anywhere but here."

Mia drove us to her apartment in silence while I stared out the window at the city lights blurring through my tears. Every billboard, every building reminded me of Lucian. This was his world, and I'd been foolish to think I could ever truly belong in it.

"You know this is exactly what she wanted," Mia said finally as we sat on her couch with cups of tea neither of us was drinking.

"I know." I pulled my knees up to my chest. "But knowing that doesn't change anything. The damage is done."

"What damage? Some tabloid articles and mean comments from strangers who don't know you?"

"It's not just that." I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the tears. "You didn't see his board members' faces today. You didn't hear what they said about me. I'm toxic to him, Mia. I'm poison to everything he's worked for."

"That's ridiculous and you know it."

"Is it? His stock price dropped because of me. Investors are pulling out because of me. His own board wants him to choose between me and the company." I laughed bitterly. "What kind of choice is that?"

"The kind where you trust the person you love to make the right decision for both of you."

"I did make the right decision. I saved him from having to choose."

Mia set down her mug and turned to face me fully. "Lexi, listen to me. In all the years I've known you, you've never backed down from a fight when something mattered. You worked three jobs to put yourself through college. You spent months researching corruption in the mayor's office even when everyone told you to drop it. You've never let anyone intimidate you into giving up something important."

"This is different."

"How?"

"Because this time, fighting back hurts someone I love more than it helps." I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "Lucian spent decades building Cross Media Entertainment. He doesn't deserve to lose it because he fell in love with the wrong person."

"You're not the wrong person. You're the person who makes him happy."

"Happiness doesn't pay the bills or keep investors from jumping ship."

My phone buzzed with another text from Lucian. I'd stopped reading them hours ago, but I could see enough of the preview to know he was begging me to come home. But his penthouse wasn't my home. It never really had been. I'd just been a guest playing dress-up in a life that was never meant for me.

"I need to find my own place," I said suddenly. "Somewhere far from here. Maybe I'll take that job offer from the Portland Tribune."

"You're running away."

"I'm being practical."

"You're being scared."

I stood up abruptly, anger flaring through the grief. "Of course I'm scared! Do you know what it's like to have your name dragged through the mud by every gossip site in the city? To have complete strangers calling you a whore and a gold digger? To know that every time someone googles your name, the first thing they'll see is articles about how you seduced your boss for money?"

"Yes, it sucks. But it's not true, and eventually people will move on to the next scandal."

"Will they? Because Giselle Laurent has connections everywhere. She could make sure this follows me for years." I paced to the window, looking out at the city that suddenly felt hostile. "I can't live under that shadow. And I can't ask Lucian to live under it either."

"So that's it? You're just giving up?"

"I'm being realistic about what love actually costs." I turned back to her, feeling older than my twenty-six years. "Sometimes loving someone means letting them go."

But even as I said the words, they felt like lies. Because walking away from Lucian didn't feel noble or selfless. It felt like cowardice.

My phone rang. Lucian's name flashed on the screen again. I stared at it until it stopped ringing, then immediately started again.

"Answer it," Mia said softly.

"I can't."

"Lexi..."

"I can't!" I snapped. "Because if I hear his voice, if he tells me he loves me one more time, I'll break. I'll go running back to him and we'll both pretend everything is fine until the next crisis hits. And there will be a next crisis, Mia. Giselle won't stop until she's destroyed us both."

The phone finally stopped ringing. In the silence that followed, I felt the weight of my decision settling over me like a burial shroud.

I'd walked away from the only man I'd ever truly loved. And for the first time since making that choice, I wondered if I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life.