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CHAPTER 45
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2026-05-19 07:41:24
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DEAR EX, THE VERSION OF ME YOU LOST. CHAPTER 45
Author’s POV Sandra’s phone rang at eleven thirty.She was still at her desk — she often was at this hour when something was moving that she needed to stay ahead of — and she picked up on the second ring. Her contact spoke for about four minutes. She listened without interrupting. When he finished she asked two questions, got two answers, and thanked him and hung up.She sat alone in the quiet office for a moment.Then she called Vivian.Vivian picked up on the second ring sounding like someone who had been awake. “Sandra?” she said. “It’s almost midnight.”“I know,” Sandra said. “I need to tell you something and I need to tell you tonight.” She paused. “Lyon Stark made a bet three nights ago. At a dinner with his friends.”The line was quiet.“What kind of bet?” Vivian said.“The kind that involves you,” Sandra said. “Three months. His friends bet him that he cannot make you fall in love with him.” She paused. “And then walk away afterward.”The line stayed quiet for a long moment.
DEAR EX, THE VERSION OF ME YOU LOST. CHAPTER 44
Author’s POV Vivian was at the kitchen table when Daniel got there.He let himself in with his key and found her sitting with a cup of tea gone cold beside her and that particular quality of stillness she had when something was turning over in her head that she hadn’t finished with yet. He put his jacket over the back of the chair and sat across from her and waited.She looked up. “Hey,” she said.“Hey,” he said. “How was it?”She wrapped her hands around the cold cup “Different,” she said.“Different how?” he asked.She looked at the window. “He said something honest today,” she said. “Not managed. Not constructed.” She paused. “Just — honest.”“What did he say?” Daniel asked,She told him. The exact words. The way Lyon had looked at his coffee when he said it and then looked back at her. The way he hadn’t rushed to fill the silence after. Daniel listened to all of it without moving.When she finished he was quiet for a moment. He looked at the table. Then at her. “How did it land?”
DEAR EX, THE VERSION OF ME YOU LOST. CHAPTER 43
Author’s POV Patricia Hale’s board meeting was on a Monday morning.Sandra knew about it before it started because Patricia called her at eight fifteen to say she was going in and she would call after. Sandra put her phone on the desk and looked at it and drank her coffee and waited. She had four other things to manage that morning and she managed all of them with her usual precision and the phone sat on the desk the whole time like a thing she was pretending not to watch.Patricia called at eleven forty. “It went well,” Patricia said.Sandra picked up her coffee. “How well?” she asked.“Two board members want to act immediately,” Patricia said. “I held them back. I told them we move when the full picture is ready not before.” A pause. “But Sandra — the appetite is there. When you’re ready the room will be ready.”“Good,” Sandra said. “Give me two more weeks.”“Two weeks,” Patricia said. “Then we move.”Sandra hung up and made a note and moved on to the next thing. She called Vivian
DEAR EX, THE VERSION OF ME YOU LOST. CHAPTER 42
Author’s POV The dinner was at James’s house on a Wednesday evening.Seven of them around a long table in a dining room that James had decorated with the particular enthusiasm of someone who had recently made a great deal of money and wanted the room to know about it. Good wine. Good food. The kind of evening that started easy and got complicated somewhere around the third bottle.Lyon had almost cancelled.He had been sitting in the study at six o’clock looking at his phone thinking about a reasonable excuse when Jessica appeared in the doorway already dressed and said. “You should go. You’ve been distracted for weeks. Go and be with your friends.” She said it pleasantly. Like it was nothing. He had looked at her for a moment and then got up and put his jacket on and gone.He understood now why she had said it.Marcus was there. Derek. James obviously. Two others whose names Lyon knew but whose company he had never particularly sought. They were the kind of men who moved through the
DEAR EX, THE VERSION OF ME YOU LOST. CHAPTER 41
Author’s POV Lyon was already at the corner table when Vivian walked in on Saturday.She saw him through the window before she pushed the door open — sitting with his coffee and his phone face down on the table and that particular quality of stillness he had when he was waiting for something and trying not to look like he was waiting for something. She pushed the door open and the warmth of the café came at her and he looked up.She sat down across from him.“You’re early again,” she said.“Traffic was light,” he said.She looked at him. “Lyon.”“I left early,” he said. “Fine.”She almost smiled at that. She took her coat off and the waiter appeared and she ordered tea without looking at the menu and when the waiter left she wrapped her hands around the empty space where the cup would be and looked at him.“How was your week?” he asked.“Busy,” she said. “Richard’s production is moving faster than expected. We start shooting in six weeks.”“Are you ready?” he asked .“I’m always read
DEAR EX, THE VERSION OF ME YOU LOST. CHAPTER 40
Author’s POV Daniel was on the sofa reading when Vivian got home.He looked up when she came in and read her face the way he always did. She put her bag down and took her coat off and sat on the other end of the sofa and he closed his book and put it on the table and waited.“How was it?” he asked.She looked at the proper window. The city outside doing its Saturday afternoon thing. “Strange,” she said. “Good strange. I think.” She paused. “He said he didn’t know about the bet. That it was happening without his knowledge.”“Do you believe him?” Daniel asked.She thought about it honestly. “Yes,” she said. “I think I do.” She paused. “But I also think he felt something was wrong and chose not to look at it.” She looked at Daniel. “And I told him that.”Daniel held her gaze. “What did he say?” he asked.“That it was its own kind of knowing,” she said.Daniel was quiet for a moment. He looked at his book on the table. “That’s honest,” he said.“I know,” she said. “That’s why it landed t
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