INSTEAD OF GOING TO ONE OF MY FRIENDS’ HOUSES, I checked into a hotel and paid for the week with cash. I didn’t want Dominic tracing my whereabouts via my credit card. Luckily, I had my own money from Floria Designs and the foresight to stash an emergency bundle at home when the business took off. It was enough to cover the hotel and hold me over while I figured out what to do.
Was leaving without a word the coward’s way out? Probably. But I needed time alone to think, which was why I didn’t update my friends immediately either.
I’d turned my phone off after leaving the penthouse, and I left it off while I unpacked, showered, and tried not to think about the past few hours or the sharp ache in my chest.
“Dom!” I laughed when Dominic stepped into the shower and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. “You’re supposed to be ordering room service.”
“I did order room service.” His mouth trailed over my shoulder and up my neck. Despite the steam clouding the bathroom, goose bumps of pleasure pebbled my skin. “But I decided I want dessert first.”
“What if I don’t agree?” I teased. “Maybe I want to follow the normal order of things. Not all of us can be rule breakers.”
“In that case…” Dominic’s mouth reached the corner of my lips. One hand palmed my breast while the other dipped leisurely between my legs. Pleasure spiraled in my stomach, and I couldn’t hold back a soft sigh. “I’ll just have to find a way to convince you, won’t I?”
I closed my eyes, letting the hot water wash away my tears. We were miles and years away from our first weekend getaway as a couple, but I could almost feel the phantom strength of his embrace. We’d had s*x twice in the shower; by the time we came out, our room service meal had been cold, but we hadn’t even cared. We’d devoured the food like it’d been freshly made.
I stayed in the shower longer than I should’ve, but the water, heat, and emotions of the night conspired to pull me under. The moment my head hit the pillow, I was out.
When I woke up the next morning and finally turned on my phone, I had dozens of missed texts, calls, and voicemails from my friends and Dominic. He must’ve reached out to them after he came home and found me missing.
I sent a quick message to the group chat assuring my friends I was okay and that I would tell them everything later before taking a deep breath and opening Dominic’s voicemails.
My heart instantly squeezed at the sound of his voice, which grew increasingly panicked with each message.
Dominic: Where are you?
Dominic: Ále, this isn’t funny.
Dominic: I’m sorry I missed our flight. A work emergency came up and I had to deal with it. We can still make the rest of the trip.
Dominic: Dammit, Alessandra. I understand if you’re mad, but at least let me
know you’re okay. I don’t—fuck.
A string of curses blended with the unmistakable patter of rain against concrete in the background. The message’s timestamp read 3:29 a.m. What the hell was he doing out so late?
Looking for you.
I squashed the thought as quickly as it popped up, partly because I didn’t believe the new Dominic would do something like that and partly because it hurt too much to think he would.
His last message was two hours ago at 6:23 a.m.
Dominic: Call me back. Please.
The squeeze in my chest became unbearable. I wasn’t ready to face him, but sleep had cleared last night’s emotional fog, and the desperation in his voice eroded my earlier vow to avoid him until I had a plan. It was better to see him and rip the Band-Aid off, so to speak, than let the uncertainty fester. “Violet Hotel.” I didn’t give him a chance to speak when he picked up.
“Lower East Side.”
I ended the call, my stomach a mess of nerves. I hadn’t eaten dinner last night, but the thought of food made my stomach revolt further. Nevertheless, I forced down some trail mix from the minibar. I’d need the energy. If there was one thing Dominic was good at, it was persuading people to do what he wanted.
I was already second-guessing my choices. In the bright light of day, my ring finger felt impossibly bare and my decision to leave seemed impossibly rash. Should I have waited and talked to Dominic before walking out? What if—
Someone knocked at the door.
My stomach pitched again. I suddenly regretted telling him where I was, but it was too late.
It’s like pulling off a Band-Aid. Just get it over with.
Still, no amount of internal pep talk could’ve prepared me for the sight awaiting me when I opened the door.
“Oh my God.” A gasp escaped before I could hold it in.
Dominic looked like hell. Disheveled hair, rumpled shirt, purple smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes. His clothes were plastered to his body, and his usually pristine shoes looked like they’d gone through a Tough Mudder obstacle course.
“What— ” I didn’t get a chance to finish my question before he grabbed my arms and swept his eyes over me.
“You’re okay.” Relief softened the rough edge of voice. He sounded like he was either recovering from a horrible cold or he’d been shouting all night.
“I’m fine.” Physically. “Why are you all wet?”
He was dripping water all over the floor. Nevertheless, I pulled him inside and shut the door behind us. It was a low-key hotel, but I didn’t want to risk people seeing or overhearing us. Manhattan was a small island, and Manhattan society was smaller still.
“I got caught in the rain.” Dominic’s eyes swept over the room and stopped on my open suitcase. “And it’s hard to see puddles at four in the morning.”
“Why the hell were you wandering around Manhattan at four in the morning?”
His disbelieving eyes snapped back to mine. “I come home from work to find my wife gone and her wedding ring in our damn housekeeper’s pocket. She’s not answering my calls, and none of her friends know where she is. I thought you— ” He took a deep breath and released it in one long, controlled exhale. “I went to your usual places until I realized they were all, of course, closed that late at night. So I had my security team sweeping the city while I checked your favorite neighborhoods. Just in case. I didn’t know…”
My breath stuck at the mental image of Dominic wandering the streets in the rain looking for me. It was so incongruous with the cold, disinterested man I’d become used to that it almost sounded like he was spinning a fairy tale instead of telling the truth.
But the evidence was there, and it sent a fresh, crippling wave of pain through my chest.
If only he cared that much all the time. If only it didn’t take me leaving to unbury a piece of the person I’d fallen in love with.
“When did you get home?” I asked quietly. Dull red tinged his cheekbones. “Eight thirty.”
Two and a half hours after our scheduled departure time. I wondered whether he’d forgotten about our anniversary or whether he remembered but ignored it anyway. I couldn’t decide which was worse, but it didn’t matter. The end result was the same.
“I didn’t mean to miss the flight,” Dominic said. “There was a work emergency. Ask Caroline. The SEC— ”
“That’s the thing.” My earlier concern melted away, replaced with a familiar exhaustion. Not the type that followed a sleepless night, but the type built over years of hearing the same excuse. “There’s always a work emergency. If it’s not the SEC, it’s the stock market. If it’s not the stock market, it’s some corporate scandal. No matter what it is, it always comes first. Before me. Before us.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened. “I can’t ignore those things,” he said. “People depend on me. Billions of dollars ride on my decisions. My employees and investors— ”
“What about me? Do I not count as people?” “Of course you do.” He sounded baffled.
“And when I was depending on you to show up like you promised?” Emotion clogged my throat. “Was that less important than a multibillion- dollar corporation that’ll probably be just fine if you took one weekend off?”
Tense silence mushroomed and nearly choked us until he spoke again. “Do you remember our senior year of college?” Dominic’s gaze burned
into mine. “We barely saw each other outside of school because I had to work three jobs just to cover basic living expenses. We ate fucking instant ramen on our dates because I couldn’t afford to take you out to nice restaurants. It was miserable, and I promised myself that if I ever made it out, I would never be in that situation again. We wouldn’t be in that situation again. And we haven’t.”
He gestured between us. “Look at us. We have everything we’ve ever dreamed of, but the only way to keep it is to do my job. The penthouse, the clothes, the jewelry. All of it goes away if— ”
“What good is any of that if I never see you?” My frustration bubbled over to its tipping point. “I don’t care about the fancy penthouse or clothes or jet. I would rather have a husband. A real one, not one just in name.”
Maybe I didn’t understand because I came from a well-off family and therefore could never fully empathize with the obstacles Dominic had to overcome to get to where he was. Maybe I was too out of the loop to understand the stakes of the Wall Street game. But I knew myself, and I knew that I’d been a thousand times happier eating ramen with him in his dorm room than I’d ever been attending some fancy gala draped in jewels and a fake smile.
Dominic’s eyes darkened. “It’s not that simple. I don’t have a rich family to fall back on if things go to shit, Ále,” he said harshly. “Everything is on me.”
“Maybe, but you’re Dominic Davenport. You’re a billionaire! You can afford a weekend off. Hell, you could retire this minute and still have enough money to live in luxury for the rest of your life!”
He didn’t get it. I could tell by the stubborn look in his eyes.
The fight bled out of me, and my exhaustion returned tenfold. My voice dropped to a whisper. “It was our ten-year anniversary.”
Dominic’s throat flexed with a hard swallow. “We can leave now,” he said. “We have almost two full days left. We can still celebrate our anniversary like we’d intended.”
No matter how much I tried to explain, he didn’t get why I was upset. It wasn’t about physical, tangible things like flights and dinner reservations. It was about a fundamental disconnect in our values and what we deemed important for a good relationship. I believed in quality time and conversation; he believed money could fix everything.
He’d always been ambitious, but I used to think he would hit a point when he’d be content with what he had. I realized now that point didn’t exist. He would never have enough. The more he acquired—money, status, power—the more he wanted at the expense of everything else.
I shook my head slowly. “No.”
I hadn’t known what my plan was when I woke up that morning, but it was now crystal clear.
Even if it killed me, even if the easiest thing was to fall into his arms and sink into the memory of what we used to be, I had to go through with it. I was already a shell of myself. If I didn’t get out while I could, I’d dissolve into dust, nothing more than a collection of lost time and unrealized dreams. The stubborn gleam in Dominic’s eyes faded, replaced with confusion.
“Then come home with me. We’ll talk it out.”
I shook my head again, trying to breathe through the needles stabbing at my heart. “I’m not coming back.”
He stilled. Confusion melted into realization, then disbelief. “Ále— ” “I want a divorce.”
