Chapter 4

Fifteen minutes later, Preston pushed open my office door.

He slammed it so hard the glass rattled.

“Sera, are you deliberately trying to fight me on everything lately?” He planted both hands on my desk and stared down at me.

I didn’t even look up. I kept packing samples into a box.

“Moving out, quitting. You’ve had that look on your face since the launch. What exactly did Vanessa do to you?”

I stopped and looked up at him.

“This has nothing to do with whether she did anything to me.”

Even now, what he cared about was Vanessa’s feelings.

“Then why are you going after her at every turn?” Preston tugged irritably at his tie. “Fine, I’ll admit the process around the proposal was sloppy. I’ll have marketing take her name off and put yours on. You’re quitting over that?”

“Preston,” I cut in calmly, “what if I’d been the one who stole the proposal?”

He frowned.

“What if Vanessa had a proposal that got rejected, and I hacked her laptop, took it, and put my name on it? And when she confronted me, I said, ‘You weren’t using it anyway, so what’s the harm?’ What would you do?”

He didn’t answer.

I answered for him. “You’d make me apologize to her publicly and say I’d used my seniority to bully her.”

Preston’s face went dark. “That’s completely different.”

I gave a short laugh and put the last file in the box.

“I’ve already given HR my two weeks’ notice. I’ll hand off my projects properly. As for Vanessa taking my work, I’ve turned that over to my lawyer and the legal department. Other than that, there’s nothing for us to talk about.”

Preston pressed his hand down on the box before I could lift it. “I’m not approving it.”

“Sorry, this is New York, not your private kingdom. In two weeks, I’m gone either way.”

The day I moved out, Preston was on a business trip in Chicago.

My new place was ready for me just in time.

I hired movers, and we packed from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon.

In the end, the only thing left was the espresso machine on the kitchen island.

We’d bought it together when we first moved in.

Preston only drank his coffee black. I liked mine with oat milk.

Later, Vanessa started coming over a lot. She had a sensitive stomach and couldn’t handle coffee.

So Preston made a point of stocking the cupboard with chamomile tea and honey.

Once, I asked him offhand, “How come you never thought to keep anything I like around?”

He didn’t even turn around. “You never said you needed anything.”

“Is the coffee machine coming too?” one of the movers asked.

I looked at it for a while. “No.”

At three, I took one last look at the living room and all its memories, set my key on the console table in the entryway, and closed the door without looking back.

I didn’t leave a note. I didn’t take a picture.

At nine that night, I was up on a step stool in my new apartment changing a light bulb when Preston called.

It rang four times before I answered.

“You moved out?” It was strangely quiet on his end, and I heard his breath catch. “Sera, what do you want?”

I screwed the light fixture back on and said calmly, “I want to break up.”

The line went completely silent.