Give up

"Frank? It's Mira. Can you come and get me?"

"Miss Mira?" Her father's old driver sounded half asleep. "It's five in the morning."

"I know. I'm sorry. I need you to bring the car to the Russo villa." She swallowed. "I'm going home, Frank."

There was a long pause on the line. Frank had driven her to school every day for twelve years. He did not ask a single question.

"I'll be there in forty minutes," he said.

Mira hung up and turned back to the closet.

Her suitcase lay open on the bed. Half the clothes in the closet had been gifts from Dante. She had kept every price tag in a box in the drawer, like they were love letters.

Mira touched the white coat he had bought her their first winter. Then she let it go.

'Nothing of his,' she told herself. 'If I take anything he gave me, I'll never stop looking back.'

She packed only what she had paid for herself: her old jeans, her culinary school sweater, her piping tips. The suitcase was barely half full.

She sat down on the bed with the divorce papers and a pen.

"Not now," she whispered. "You can fall apart in Frank's car."

She found the line about the five million dollars. She drew a single straight line through it and wrote her initials beside the correction. Then she turned the pages one by one and signed her name at the bottom of each.

On the last page, his three-week-old signature was still waiting beside the empty line.

This time, her hand did not shake. She signed.

Mira Beaumont Russo.

She set the pen down and twisted her wedding ring off her finger. It left a pale groove in her skin. She carried the papers to Dante's nightstand, laid the ring on top, and tucked her letter underneath.

Her phone buzzed.

'Frank,' she thought, reaching for it.

It was not Frank. It was the unknown number.

Mira's stomach dropped. Her thumb was shaking as she opened the message.

It was a photo of Dante. He was sitting at a small kitchen table she had never seen, holding a cup of coffee. His hair was messy from sleep. He was wearing yesterday's shirt, wrinkled and open at the collar.

Under the photo, the message read:

[No matter what you do, he will always come back to me. He never loved you. Give up. Celine.]

Mira read the name twice.

Celine.

Every photo for six months had come from Celine. While Mira lay awake checking his phone and driving past that building, Celine had been the one feeding her. And now she had signed her name, because she was sure she had won.

Mira dropped back onto the bed and started to laugh.

She laughed until her stomach hurt and tears ran sideways into her hair. She pressed a pillow over her mouth so the house would not hear.

When it finally stopped, she sat up and typed a reply.

[Six months of photos, and you only had the nerve to sign your name once you thought you'd won. Keep him, Celine. I'm done.]

She sent it. Then she took a screenshot of Celine's message and the photo.

For a long moment, she held her thumb over Dante's name.

'He deserves to know who he's going home to,' she thought.

She sent him the screenshot. Then she typed one more message.

[The papers are signed. I crossed out the five million. I didn't marry you for your money, and I won't leave with it. I'm a Beaumont, Dante. Hélène Beaumont raised me to stand on my own two feet. It's time I remembered how.]

She pressed send before she could change her mind.

Then she slid the letter back out from under the papers. At the bottom, under her name, she added a few lines in smaller writing, and tucked it back in place.

[P.S. The line through the settlement is not a mistake. And the screenshot I sent you is real. If you don't believe me, ask her.]

Her phone rang. This time it really was Frank.

"I'm at the gate, Miss Mira."

"Coming."

She picked up her suitcase and looked around the bedroom one last time. The wedding portrait above the bed. The ring on the papers. The white coat hanging in the open closet.

Then she turned off the light and walked out.

Three nights earlier, Dante Russo sat in the private room of the Crown Club and finished his third whiskey in one swallow.

"I'm divorcing Mira," he said.

The room went quiet. Marco lowered his glass. Luca stopped halfway through pouring a drink.

"You're serious," Marco said.

"Completely. I gave her the papers tonight."

"Tonight?" Luca stared at him. "Isn't tonight your anniversary?"

Dante did not answer.

The door opened, and Theo walked in, pulling off his coat. "Sorry I'm late. What did I miss?"

"Dante's divorcing Mira," Luca said.

Theo stopped in the middle of the room. "What?"

"I never wanted this marriage." Dante poured himself another glass. "I was twenty-six. I had plans. My father made it for me, and she went along with it. She knew exactly what she was signing up for."

"But you two seemed fine last year," Marco said carefully. "You took her to Lake Como."

"That trip was for my father. I put up with it." Dante drank. "And now he's finally stepped down, so I'm free. I'm done with her jealousy. I'm done with her checking my phone."

Theo sat down across from him slowly. "Is this about Celine?"

Dante's jaw tightened.

"Come on, Dante," Luca said. "You've been having lunch with Celine for months and never told Mira. Of course she got jealous. Any wife would."

"Who I have lunch with is my business." Dante slammed his glass down. "Are you my friends or hers?"

No one answered.

Finally, Marco spoke. "So after the divorce, what? Is Celine going to be your girlfriend?"

Dante opened his mouth, then closed it. He had brought Celine to Brookhaven two years ago for exactly that reason. But somewhere in the last two years, he had stopped counting the days until he could leave. He did not like thinking about why.

"Why not?" he said anyway.

Theo laughed, short and cold.

"What's so funny?" Dante snapped.

"You." Theo leaned back in his chair. "I've known Mira since she was a kid. So have you. She used to follow you around like you hung the moon. Celine looks a little like her, sure. But that's where it ends. Mira is kind. Mira is brilliant. Mira gave up Paris for you. What has Celine ever given up?"

"Her whole life in Lakeport."

"Did she? Or did she follow a rich man to a richer city?"

Dante set his glass down very carefully.

"I don't understand you, Dante," Theo said. "Any man in this city would take Mira over Celine. And you're throwing her away."

"Then you take her!" Dante shouted.

He swept his arm across the table. Bottles and glasses crashed to the floor. Whiskey spread across the tiles. Everyone froze.

Dante stood and grabbed his coat.

He was almost at the door when Theo spoke again, calm and clear.

"Fine. Then you won't mind if I call her tomorrow. Just to see if she needs a shoulder."

Dante stopped. Theo had dated half the women in Brookhaven. He had never kept one longer than a month.

Dante's hand tightened on the door handle until his knuckles went white.

He turned around slowly.

"Go near her, Theo, and you'll never set foot in my house again."