CHAPTER 7: THE INTERVIEW THAT WAS ALREADY LOST

I skipped breakfast to save four dollars.

That was the math I did at seven a.m., standing in room twelve with my navy blazer buttoned over a body that no longer felt like mine. A banana, one fifty. A coffee, three. Nausea made the decision for me anyway.

I swallowed half a vitamin dry, checked my résumé for the fifth time, and tucked the phone into my purse. Sophia's text still glowed on the screen. I will be fine, I had written back.

Fine. I locked the door and rattled the knob twice, because the lock never trusted me.

The bus took forty minutes. I stood the whole way, one hand on the pole, the other pressed against my side, praying no one would notice me swaying.

Hartwell Partners sat on the fourteenth floor of a glass tower, all marble and silence. I walked through the lobby with my spine stiff, my heels too loud.

The elevator mirror showed a pale woman with a smile that looked borrowed.

"Do not touch your stomach," I whispered. "Do not touch your stomach."

My hand was already there. I yanked it away.

The doors opened on fourteen. A receptionist with a headset glanced up. "Name?"

"Amelia Hart. Nine o'clock, with Ms. Dalton."

“Have a seat. She will call you.”

I sat on a leather bench beside a potted fern and a stack of glossy magazines. Two minutes. Five. I smoothed my skirt and stared at the ceiling to keep the dizziness down while the clock ticked louder than my heartbeat.

You can do this. You earned this.

“Ms. Hart? She will see you now. Please follow me.”

She led me to an office.

Ms. Dalton was fifty, maybe, with a silver bob and reading glasses pushed into her hair. She shook my hand firmly and gestured toward a chair.

"Tell me about yourself."

I had written Hart on the résumé. A coward's armor, or a survivor's, I had not decided which.

"I spent five years supporting a corporate executive," I said. "I organized events for three hundred guests, negotiated vendor contracts, and managed a household budget bigger than most small businesses."

"And before that?"

"I studied marketing. Waited tables. Learned to read a room faster than a spreadsheet."

A small smile. "Go on."

So I did.

I talked about retail trends I had tracked in the margins of my husband's life. I described a subscription model I had sketched at midnight, a partnership structure that would cut costs by a third. My voice steadied. My hands stopped shaking. For the first time in weeks, the fog in my head cleared, and what remained was sharp, hungry, and mine.

"Walk me through the numbers."

I did. She asked follow ups. I answered before she finished. At one point she laughed, a short surprised sound, and wrote something down.

"That is not an entry level answer, Ms. Hart."

"I am not an entry level thinker."

"Clearly." She tapped her pen. "You may be the strongest candidate I have seen this month."

My heart leapt so hard it hurt.

Then she glanced at my résumé again. At the line near the bottom, the old address I had forgotten to remove. Her pen stopped.

"Hart," she said slowly. "Is that your married name?"

My stomach dropped.

I could have lied. The words rose in my throat. But a lie would only cost me later.

"No. My maiden name." I made my voice level. "My married name is Sinclair."

The silence landed like a slammed door.

Ms. Dalton set down her pen. Her face did not harden. It closed, polite and careful, like a woman stepping back from a hot stove.

"I see."

My mouth went dry. I wanted to ask. Did he call you? Did he already reach you, this morning, with one phone call? But the words stuck behind my teeth. If I said them out loud, I would sound exactly like the woman he had told them I was.

"Is there a problem?" I asked instead.

"We will be in touch, Ms. Sinclair."

Not Ms. Hart. Not Amelia.

I stood. My knees held, barely. "Thank you for your time."

"Of course."

She did not walk me out.

The elevator doors closed on my own reflection, white faced and dry eyed. I held it together all the way down. Across the lobby. Through the revolving doors, into the thick afternoon heat.

Then my phone buzzed.

Subject: Your application at Hartwell Partners.

Dear Ms. Sinclair, thank you for your interest. We have decided to move forward with other candidates.

Two hours. They had not even waited to pretend.

My chest tightened. The sidewalk tilted. I leaned against a concrete planter and breathed through my nose while the nausea rose, sour and relentless.

When did I last eat? Yesterday morning. Half a cracker.

I had been rationing food like medicine, and my body was sending the bill. I crouched, head between my knees, until the world stopped spinning.

The phone buzzed again.

A news alert.

CHARITY GALA RAISES MILLIONS: SINCLAIR GROUP CEO AND FAMILY ATTEND.

I should have swiped it away. My thumb pressed it instead.

Damien in a black tuxedo, one hand at the small of Vanessa's back. Vanessa in blue silk, glowing, serene. Between them, Lucas in a tiny suit, holding both their hands.

A perfect family. A magazine cover. The picture I had once believed I would be in.

My eyes dropped to the comments.

Vanessa is such a devoted mother. He is lucky to have her. Where was the first wife though? Probably a gold digger, good riddance.

Gold digger.

A sound tore out of me, half laugh, half sob. A passing woman glanced over and quickened her step.

Five years of my life, erased. And not one person was asking where I had gone.

Something inside me cracked. Then something colder took its place. Not hope. A decision made at the bottom of a well.

"You do not get to throw me away and call it a love story," I whispered to the screen.

Tears blurred the photo. I let them fall. Then I wiped my face with my sleeve, hard, and stood.

I would not call him. I would not beg for money, or an apology, or even a glance. Whatever came next, I would survive it without Damien Sinclair ever acknowledging my name.

I locked the phone and stared down the long, bright street.

I had four hundred dollars, a baby I could not afford, and one more door I did not yet know how to open.