Chapter 5

Nora's POV

My stomach went cold.

"Help you how?"

"I just need you to post a statement. Tell everyone the call was—"

"A script. Something I cooked up in advance to drive traffic. Right?"

I cut him off, my voice shaking with how worked up I was. "Your assistant Phoebe already came to find me today. I turned her down."

I said it coldly. "Everyone knows my show only takes real stories. You want me to lie? Not a chance."

"Nora." There was a weary patience in his voice now, like he was reasoning with a child.

"It's just a statement. Why are you making such a thing of it?"

"Phoebe has depression. Those comments yesterday had her crying all night."

A sharp ache went through me, and my stomach knotted.

"Is that so?" I asked. My chest felt like it was caving in.

I'd cried all night too. I'd spiraled into the worst kind of self-doubt too.

"So she has depression. Does that mean she gets to do whatever she wants? Depression gives her the right to steal someone's boyfriend, to lord it over me to my face?"

Ryan sighed and laid his big hand over mine. The warmth of his palm only made me angrier.

"Come on, Nora. Don't be like this."

"She was wrong to go to you, fine. But you hit her, didn't you? You've made your point. Surely you've cooled off by now."

He took my hand and rubbed my palm gently. "Let me see. Did you hurt yourself slapping her?"

I yanked my hand back.

"So that's it. You came home tonight for her."

"Ryan, we haven't spoken in two weeks, and the day you finally come back to make peace, it's for another woman."

My voice broke and my eyes burned.

He visibly panicked. "Nora, you've got it wrong. It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

My voice trembled, waiting for his answer.

All I got was silence.

I let out a cold laugh. It felt like a giant hand had reached in and ripped my heart straight down the middle.

There was something pleading in the way he looked at me. In two weeks he hadn't reached out once, and now this proud man was bowing his head in front of me, for another woman.

Eight years of love. What a joke.

My voice came out hoarse as I fought the tears back down.

"Fine," I said quietly, something final hardening in my eyes. "I'll clear it up."

Call it the last thing I ever do for Ryan. Call it the period at the end of eight years.

I'd agreed faster than he expected, and for a second he just stared.

Then he stroked my hair and said, "There's my good girl."

"Let me get through this stretch, and I'll make it up to you properly. Okay?"

His voice was tender, as if the two weeks of silence had never happened, as if everything Phoebe said on my show yesterday had never happened.

I pushed his hand away. "Don't bother."

"From now on, you go be with your Phoebe. We're done."

"Now please. Please get out of my house."

He gathered me into his arms, all that gentleness in his eyes. "Don't be angry. This is our home."

A sob caught in my throat.

There was a time I'd loved nothing more than hiding in Ryan's arms.

Now it felt like he was covered in thorns, tearing me open until I bled.

I summoned everything I had and shoved him off.

Then I bolted out the door, gasping like a fish out of water, and still I couldn't breathe.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

I heard Ryan come running out after me, calling my name into the wind.