You Were My Sunset, Not My Forever

Two years into my divorce battle with Dennis Whitney, I ran into my first love, Mick Sanchez, at a high school reunion.

Over dinner, more than a few classmates brought up how perfect we'd been together back then, sighing over how we'd fizzled out without a proper ending.

Outside the restroom, Mick stopped me.

"The case still isn't settled?"

"Would you mind having your ex-boyfriend as your lawyer?"

I smiled and didn't refuse.

After that, Mick threw everything he had into winning the divorce for me. I walked away with fifty percent of Dennis's assets.

On the day of the signing, I overheard a conversation between Mick and Dennis outside the door.

"Stealing critical evidence under the guise of opposing counsel, hiding assets. Impressive tactics, Attorney Sanchez."

"If Sarah Sullivan ever finds out you're working for us, that her so-called fifty percent is pocket change compared to the real fortune, you think she'd lose her mind?"

Mick's face was stone cold. He dropped his voice to a warning.

"Dennis, I don't work for you."

"Everything I've done is for Jane's happiness. If you ever betray her, I'll make you pay a hundredfold."

My knuckles went white around the door handle. A sharp, needling pain shot through my chest.

The "Jane" they were talking about was Jane Henson.

Dennis's secretary. His mistress on the side.

I drew a long breath and pushed the door open.

Both men turned toward me at the same time. Neither face showed a trace of anything wrong.

"Sarah, come sit over here."

Mick spoke first, waving me over.

Their conversation still echoing in my ears, I tightened my grip on my purse strap and walked toward him.

Mick pulled out a handkerchief and gently dabbed the water stains from my clothes.

"I should've picked you up, but the car broke down halfway."

"It's pouring out there. You didn't get caught in it, did you?"

I shook my head. He kept explaining as he pulled out my chair.

All four years of college, Mick had taken care of me exactly like this. Attentive to every detail.

In the months since our reunion, while he handled the case, he'd been even more devoted.

Friends around us teased him constantly. "Mick, you're going to spoil her rotten."

"This is the real deal. He was just waiting for her to be free."

Others weren't as kind. They laughed behind his back, called him a fool picking up another man's leftovers.

They'd dredge up the ugly details of our breakup, all those stale old stories, and say Mick was pathetic, a lovesick dog who'd forgotten the scars she gave him.

But Mick acted like he heard none of it. He covered my ears with his hands.

"I already lost you once."

"This time, I will never let myself lose you again."

I believed he still carried a torch for me, that he genuinely wanted us to start over.

Now I knew. All of it had been my own delusion.

The tenderness in front of me was a trap, custom-built and sweetened just for me.

I looked at the chair he'd pulled out, set my purse down on it, and leaned a little closer to his side.

"Pull the documents together first. Let me take a look."

Mick nodded and highlighted the key sections one by one. When he leaned in close, a crisp, cool cologne drifted off him.

I tilted my head, listening carefully.

Every now and then I smiled and leaned toward his ear to whisper something.

Dennis lounged against the back of his chair, eyes half-lidded, a flicker of scrutiny cutting through the lazy pose.

"Attorney Sanchez really does go above and beyond with the complimentary services during a case."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you and my ex-wife had something going on."

The two remarks slid out of Dennis, flat and unhurried, like a blade drawn slow.

He was far from pleased.

The two people in front of him were too close.

Even the way their gazes met and lingered was enough to set his teeth on edge.

No one answered. I simply looked, quietly, at the man across the table and the one beside me.

"Sorry I'm late."

The sweet voice landed just as the door swung open.

Jane Henson.

This time, both men didn't just turn their heads. They stood up.

"Jane, what are you doing here?"

Dennis rose and walked to Jane's side, wrapping his arm around her waist without an ounce of shame.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Mick's fist clenching tight.

"I was worried about you..."

"And this is a major life event. I figured I should be here with you."

Halfway through her little speech, Jane turned to look at me.

I smiled faintly, lowered my gaze, and twisted the ring on my finger, pretending I hadn't noticed.

"A mistress clawing her way to the top with this kind of Oscar-worthy performance. Who's the audience supposed to be?"

"When Dennis dies, who knows whose body will be lying next to his."

The moment those words left my mouth, Dennis's eyes went dark, every trace of his smile wiped clean.

"Sarah, watch your mouth."

"I know you can't bear to divorce me. That's why you've dragged this out for two years."

"What, having second thoughts now that we're at the finish line?"

I let out a cold laugh and lifted my gaze to Jane, who stood there wearing her best wounded expression.

"Not this time."

"Dennis, you used to hound me about my first love, remember?"

"Well. He's sitting right in front of you."

I looked toward Mick, one seat away from me.

"You're Sarah's first love?"

"The one she dated for four years? The one who made a whole scene when they broke up?"

Dennis spoke rapidly, his stare fixed on Mick turning strange and sharp.

There was something bitter threaded through every word. Something that tasted like losing.

Mick's spine went rigid. He glanced at me, confused.

I shrugged with a small smile. "Five years of marriage, and you were a thorn in his side the entire time."

"But I kept my mouth shut. He spent five years digging and never found a thing."

Mick raised his eyes slightly, his gaze flicking to Jane for a fraction of a second.

Then he nodded. "A pleasure, Mr. Whitney."

Dennis's face turned ugly. His eyes darted between me and Mick, back and forth, searching.

"Stop looking. You won't find anything."

"Just sign the papers. Don't keep your true love stuck as a dirty little secret forever."

I leaned forward and took the documents from Mick's hands. A thick stack. I signed every page without stopping.

Two years of legal warfare with Dennis. Three, maybe five rounds of mediation.

Every single time, right at the end, I'd backed out.

Not because I loved Dennis. Because I refused to lose to a woman like Jane Henson.

The first time I saw Jane was in Dennis's office.

She'd just graduated, looking for a job.

A clean, high ponytail. A plaid button-down. Canvas sneakers. Youth radiating off her like a glow.

The moment I laid eyes on her, I thought of Mick.

Freshman-year Mick had that same unpolished look, as if he'd wandered into Ashford from some other world entirely.

And I'd fallen for him anyway. Hopelessly, recklessly. Chased him for three solid months.

In the end, he agreed with a scowl. "Sarah, you're like a bandage I can't peel off. You're exhausting."

"Sarah, one year. We date for one year, and then we break up."

We lasted four.

I was the one who ended it. The night before graduation, the day before his birthday.

Mick knelt in the rain and begged me the entire night. I stayed in my dorm upstairs and never went down.

The whole campus talked about how heartless I was. How the rich girl had played Mick Sanchez like a toy and kicked him to the curb when she got bored.

After the breakup, I never saw Mick again.

So when I first met Jane Henson, something in my chest softened without reason.

Dennis was flipping through a stack of resumes in front of me, and his fingers paused on hers.

"You've seen this one. HR says she's decent."

"But I think she looks frumpy."

"I'm hiring a secretary, not a charity case."

Dennis had a vicious tongue.

He'd always been drawn to things that were flashy and beautiful, to people who were easy on the eyes.

Like me. He'd been fixated on me since we were children.

Because I was pretty, and because I never gave him the time of day.

That was exactly why he'd come sniffing around when the Sullivan family went bankrupt and everyone else ran the other direction. He showed up and offered to marry me.

I placed my hand over his before he could flip to the next page. "Her. I think she's good."

"She seems genuine, and she's capable."

"Nothing wrong with molding someone from scratch."

Dennis kept Jane on, just to make me happy.

Back then, I still had that new-toy shine for him. Every day after work, he'd drape himself over me and refuse to move.

And every time afterward, he'd pester me with the same questions. "What was your college boyfriend's name?"

"How far did you two go? Did he ever get this far with you?"

"Who's better, me or him?"

"Sarah, do you still love him?"

Dennis was painfully immature.

From the day he rushed into this marriage, he'd planted a thorn deep inside himself.

Everything he saw reminded him of Mick. Everything he did became a competition with Mick.

But I never breathed a word.

The next time I saw Jane, she was sitting outside Dennis's office in a tailored tweed suit.

Her makeup was immaculate, making her look young and striking enough to turn heads.

"Ms. Sullivan."

"Mr. Whitney is still in a meeting. You can wait out here for now."

Everyone in that building called me Mrs. Whitney. She was the only one who called me Ms. Sullivan.

Every secretary in the office knew better than to make me wait outside. She was the only one who told me to sit.

My gaze settled on the red marks along her neck and the expensive necklace resting just below them.

"You're doing well for yourself, Ms. Henson."

"Less than six months at Harmonia, and you're already buying six-figure necklaces on a whim."

"It was a gift."

Jane's delicate face flushed scarlet in an instant.

In that moment, I knew she'd gotten her hooks into Dennis.

That necklace had been a purchase-with-purchase from one of my handbag orders. It had been sitting untouched in my jewelry box for months.

A few days earlier, Dennis had asked me for it.

I'd assumed it was for a client. Turned out it was for Jane.

In the two years since Dennis and I married, he hadn't gone back to his old ways of chasing every pretty face in sight the way people expected. He'd stayed put, right by my side, for two whole years.

By my count, the clock was about to run out.

A man like him didn't stay for anyone.

This marriage was never more than decoration to me, a tool to keep the Sullivan family from collapsing entirely.

So I wasn't heartbroken. What occupied my mind was how to stretch this hollow marriage a little longer, or, failing that, how to walk away with a piece of the Whitney fortune.

What I hadn't expected was that the woman would be Jane Henson, the same girl he'd dismissed as beneath him.

And Jane, as it turned out, was not the type to stay in her lane.

She sent me those photos and videos while I was at a Whitney family dinner, smiling and playing the perfect daughter-in-law.

I was fielding his parents' questions about when we'd have children with one hand and figuring out how to deal with Jane with the other.

Ms. Sullivan, I'm carrying Mr. Whitney's child.

What Mr. Whitney and I have is real love. Please, do the right thing and let us be together.

I pretended I never saw them. Pretended none of it happened.

But I didn't expect Dennis to come home that night, falling-down drunk, and confess.

"Jane's pregnant. The baby's mine."

"I want her to have the baby."

I stared blankly at Dennis sitting across from me. My mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. The hand resting on my lower abdomen clenched involuntarily.

"You're sure about this?"

"If you really are, I'll make room for her."

Dennis looked up at me in disbelief. He probably hadn't expected it to go this smoothly.

But the flicker of relief vanished almost instantly. He grabbed my hand, his voice cracking.

"Sarah, did you ever love me? Even once?"

"Is it still him? That damn first love of yours?!"

"The affair, the divorce, even if I brought her home today to carry the baby to term, you wouldn't care at all, would you!"

I watched Dennis spiral. Watched him hurl an entire cabinet's worth of liquor to the floor.

I let him pin me down and take what he wanted, over and over, without resisting once.

"Sarah, could you just... even a little... just love me a little, that's all I'm asking..."

I said nothing.

In the days that followed, Dennis rarely came home at night. Jane was on his arm at every occasion.

At events where I wasn't present, he shielded her from drinking toasts, held her umbrella, drove her to and from work. They looked like any couple drunk on new love.

The tabloid rumors spread like wildfire, and every time, I was the one who stepped in to clean it up, buying out every planted story.

I sat securely in my seat as Mrs. Whitney, mopping up Dennis's messes. But Jane was getting restless.

Or maybe it was the baby in her belly that couldn't wait.

"Ms. Sullivan, when exactly are you going to agree to the divorce?"

"I don't want my child born without being on the family register."

I stirred my coffee slowly, caught somewhere between a laugh and a grimace. "The registration is easy to solve. One word from Mr. Whitney and it's done."

"You're too naive, Ms. Henson. A marriage like ours between two powerful families involves too many entangled interests to end simply."

"Think about it. Does a family like the Whitneys really have room for a mistress and an illegitimate child?"

"Besides, it's not that I won't divorce him. It's that your Mr. Whitney refuses to let me go."

Perhaps my words cut too close to the bone.

That night, Jane tried to kill herself.

The baby didn't survive.

Dennis came storming home, eyes shot through with red. His hand closed around my throat, and he nearly took my life with it.

"Sarah, who told you to go to her!"

"Do you have any idea she almost died! A few words from you, and the baby is gone!"

"Sarah, is this how badly you want this divorce?"

"Fine! We'll divorce!"

I found out later that Jane had slit her wrists to force Dennis into divorcing me, and the baby was lost in the process.

She told him I was the one who sought her out.

One sentence from her, "I love you that much," was enough to keep Dennis's heart.

And one more, "Sarah never loved you," was enough to sever the last thread between us.

"Jane Henson was never actually pregnant."

"She's just a kept woman trying to claw her way up. The whole thing was a performance she staged herself."

"You have to hand it to Mrs. Whitney, though. Agreeing to divorce just like that. If it were me, I wouldn't rest until I'd made that cheating bastard and his little tramp suffer for years."

By the time those words reached my ears, the hand I'd been using to sign the divorce papers went still.

"I'm not signing."

"Dennis, you're the one at fault. I want you to walk out of this marriage with nothing."

And so the lawsuit dragged on for two years.

Long enough for Mick Sanchez to appear at my side.

The truth was, I didn't care how much money I got out of the Whitney family. I just wanted to make Jane's life miserable.

But Mick showing up, the scheme Mick had orchestrated, suddenly made the whole thing feel pointless.

I couldn't even be bothered to dig into whatever connection the two of them shared.

"Sign it."

I pushed the papers across the table to Dennis's side.

But Dennis still hadn't picked up the pen. Jane watched from beside him, anxiety written all over her face, looking like she wanted to sign it for him.

"Dennis, I have my prenatal check-up this afternoon."

Jane lowered her head with a wounded expression, her voice soft and coaxing.

So she was pregnant again.

The tip of Dennis's pen hovered over the paper, trembling but never touching down.

After a long silence, he tossed the pen aside. "I'm not signing today."

"I'll go with you to your appointment."

Jane hadn't expected her own words to backfire. She grabbed Dennis's arm. "I'm not in a rush. Let's take care of this first."

Dennis paused and glanced at me, then at Mick.

"I'm not signing. Period."

"Sarah, you're just waiting to divorce me so you can run back to him, aren't you?"

"Keep dreaming."

He turned and walked out without looking back.

Jane's eyes were rimmed red. She shot a glance at Mick, then hurried after Dennis.

Before I could say a word, Mick was already heading for the door. "Let me go find out what's going on."

That anxious look on his face seemed like it was for me, but I knew better. It was for Jane.

Sure enough, around the corner, Jane was pressed against Mick's chest, crying softly.

"Mick, what am I supposed to do?"

"What am I going to do?..."

Mick patted her back in slow, steady strokes, murmured a few comforting words, then asked, "You told me before that Sarah was the one refusing the divorce, but from what I saw today, it's not that simple."

"When you get a chance, find out what Dennis is really thinking."

"Jane, you know me."

"As long as you're happy, I'll take care of everything."

...

Those earnest, solemn promises drifted into my ears, and my skin prickled.

Mick had once said the same kind of things to me.

Even when we reconnected, he was still saying them.

Only now, the words grated like nails on glass.

I didn't stay to hear the rest. By the time the elevator brought me down to the lobby, the rain still hadn't stopped.

I stared at the steady drizzle beyond the doors and the Uber app spinning endlessly on my phone, and let out a long breath.

A few short honks cut through the rain. Mick's car pulled up right in front of me.

"Sarah, get in."

I looked at the rain, then canceled the ride on my phone.

"Cold?"

"There's a blanket back here."

Mick reached into a bag behind his seat and handed me a blanket. I unfolded it and recognized it immediately. Jane had the exact same one.

I'd seen this blanket before, in Dennis's car.

He'd told me then, "That's Jane's. She's from the South. Always cold. She takes a blanket everywhere she goes."

I peeled back one corner, then folded it up again.

Mick looked over, surprised. "What's wrong?"

I drew in a slow breath and watched the raindrops slide down the window, one by one.

"Mick, why did you come back to Ashford?"

"What's your relationship with Jane?"

The tires shrieked against the wet asphalt. The car lurched to a stop.

Mick stared at me, shock and something close to fear in his eyes. His throat worked, as if the words were burning on their way up.