She is gone Larry

The heavy doors to the private suite closed with a soft click, but the impact it had on Larry felt thunderous.

He sat there in stunned silence, eyes locked on the space where June and Xander had just walked out hand-in-hand. Her perfume still lingered faintly in the air. Her smile the one she had worn when she turned and kissed that stranger was burned into his memory, and it clawed at his pride like a thorn beneath skin.

Larry’s jaw clenched.

The night had started perfectly: calculated, sharp, and meant to break her confidence. But now he sat in the wake of an unexpected counterattack. She had fought back no, worse, she had won. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not from June.

Not from the woman he had once left behind.

Audrey reached over and softly touched his arm. “Babe,” she said gently, “don’t let her get to you. She’s gone.”

He yanked his arm away, eyes flashing.

“Can’t you just stop?” he snapped, louder than intended.

Audrey blinked, startled. “What?”

“You should learn to read the room,” he spat, his voice sharp and raw. “You keep pushing yourself onto me like some overexcited child.”

Her face fell. “I. I was just trying to comfort you. I thought maybe”

“Oh, spare me the sermons, Audrey,” Larry cut in bitterly, standing up so abruptly his chair scraped against the floor. “You think because of the little show we put on moments ago, you can act like you know me? Like you own me?”

Audrey sat there, stunned into silence.

She had seen this part of him before when things didn’t go according to plan. But tonight was different. Tonight, the wound was deeper.

“I should’ve known,” she said quietly after a moment. “You’ve never really moved on from her, have you?”

Larry didn’t answer. He just stood there, pacing, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair now starting to fall out of place.

Audrey’s voice was laced with pain, but it didn’t waver. “I thought… after the divorce… that she was finally gone. That I could finally have you. But the moment she walked in tonight, everything changed.”

He stopped pacing. His back was to her. His shoulders were tense.

Audrey stood up, slowly. “Is it because of June that you’re acting like this?” she asked, voice trembling now. “Larry, she’s moved on. You saw it. We all saw it. You should move on too.”

The words struck something in him. He turned around slowly, his face twisted with something that resembled pain but buried under it was rage. Quiet, poisonous, and growing.

“You don’t tell me what to do,” he growled.

Then, in a moment that caught her completely off guard, Larry closed the space between them in two strides and grabbed her harshly by the neck.

“You don’t ever tell me what to do!” he barked, his face inches from hers.

Audrey gasped, her hands instinctively reaching for his wrist. “Larry what are you let go—”

“June is mine,” he snarled, his grip tight but not yet suffocating. “And she will always be mine. That little stunt tonight? That guy? A distraction. That wasn’t real. She’s just trying to hurt me. Trying to make me jealous. And guess what? It worked.”

Audrey’s eyes welled with tears, her voice cracking. “Larry, please… you’re hurting me—”

Something shifted in his eyes then, like the flicker of a flame losing fuel. Realization. Shame. Or maybe just the memory of being watched.

He released her suddenly, as if burned by the contact. Audrey stumbled back, clutching her throat, trying to catch her breath. She looked at him, shocked, her tears now falling freely.

Larry stepped back, staring at his hands as though they didn’t belong to him.

“I didn’t mean…” he started, but the words felt empty.

Audrey didn’t speak. She only shook her head slowly, her voice barely a whisper.

“She’ll never come back to you.”

That sentence sliced through the air like a blade. Larry didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. He stood there alone, silent, raging and watched the door as if he could will it to open again and bring June back.

But it didn’t.

Because she had already left with someone else.

And for the first time in years, Larry couldn’t control that.

Audrey stood by the table, her chest rising and falling in rapid breaths, mascara slightly smudged beneath her eyes, but her tears had long stopped. Now there was only rage raw, blistering rage

that bubbled beneath her carefully manicured surface.

Her throat still ached from Larry’s grip, the sting of humiliation etched into her skin like a warning. But more than pain, more than fear, she felt betrayed. She had spent too long sacrificed too much

just to stand by and watch June waltz back into the picture like a goddess reclaiming her throne.

Audrey stared at the empty doorway where June had left with Xander, her lips curling into a sneer.

“June…” she muttered through clenched teeth. “You should’ve just stayed silent. You should’ve just disappeared like you were supposed to.”

Her voice echoed faintly in the grand, now-quiet suite. She turned and looked at Larry, who had sunk back into his chair with a drink, brooding, staring blankly at the untouched dessert on the table.

Audrey’s fists tightened at her sides.

Everything had been going perfectly until June showed up. She and Larry had finally begun to live publicly, no longer in the shadow of a secret affair. The whispers, the guilt, the taboo all of it had been worth it. Audrey had fought hard to win Larry, to pry him from his cold, calculated marriage to June. She had consoled him on late nights, fed his ego when it bruised, and let herself be molded into the woman he said he wanted.

She had let herself believe she’d won.

And now, June had the audacity to show up, reclaim her power, and walk out with a stranger like she wasn’t broken just months ago?

Audrey turned toward the mirror at the far end of the suite, her own reflection sneering back at her beautiful, furious, betrayed.

“I didn’t come this far just to lose,” she whispered. “I didn’t give him everything, ruin his marriage, build this entire life with him… just to watch him go crawling back to her.”

She began to pace, high heels clicking like drumbeats on the polished marble floor.

“No, June,” she continued, eyes blazing. “You had your chance. You left him. You moved on. You came here thinking you could show off and ruin me? You think because you kissed some random guy and walked out with his jacket on that suddenly Larry’s not mine anymore?”

She laughed bitterly, shaking her head.

“You must be joking.”

Audrey’s hand brushed over her bare collarbone, still red from Larry’s grip. The pain only fueled her further.

“You don’t know what I’ve done to be here,” she hissed, voice trembling with hatred. “You don’t know the lies I’ve told… the secrets I’ve kept for him. You don’t know how many nights I stayed up listening to him rant about you. You don’t know how many times he compared me to you in bed, how many times he said your name in his sleep. I swallowed it all. I stayed.”

She turned back toward the empty seat June had occupied.

“Everything was fine… until you came back.”

Her face twisted, the glamor of the evening now replaced by something cold, something obsessive. Her eyes—sharp, dark, calculating glittered with cruel resolve.

“I will do anything everything to keep Larry. And I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to crush anyone who stands in my way. Not your little charade of happiness. I will burn it all to the ground before I let you take him back.”

Behind her, Larry stirred slightly, glancing up. “What are you talking about?”

Audrey turned to him slowly, her expression morphing back into sweetness calculated and artificial.

“Nothing, baby,” she said softly, kneeling beside his chair, brushing his arm. “Just thinking out loud.”

Larry didn’t respond. He downed the rest of his drink, eyes clouded with confusion, frustration, and something darker.

Audrey stood and smoothed her dress, her mind already racing ahead.

June thought she had won tonight. But the game wasn’t over.

If June wanted to play with fire, Audrey would make sure she got burned.