His Fake Ring, Her Real Runaway

The door opens.

Standing in the doorway, the whole room fawning over him, is the billionaire heir.

He's also the ex I walked out on three years ago. I took a quarter-million-dollar check to do it.

My boss claps me on the back and shoves me forward, ready to introduce us.

The ex doesn't so much as glance my way. He lifts his water and drains the glass.

"Huh." To my boss. Not to me. "I figured I'd be drinking at your wedding by now."

Chapter 1

A few of the executives snapped upright and traded looks.

I was the company's top-earning host. Point me at any product on any shelf and I'd have it sold out by morning. Right then I was also face-down on the banquet table, sleeping like a baby, having missed whatever the boss just asked.

Around me, my coworkers caught the scent of drama and shook me by the shoulders.

"Don't pass out now, Autumn. Keep going!"

I dragged my head up. "Keep going with what?"

"Your ex. His family's loaded?"

"Loaded." I threw my arms wide. "Their kitchen has a whole row of fridges. Packed with seafood people mailed him. The expensive kind."

"So how'd you two even meet?"

"He was my high school classmate."

I mumbled it and sat there a second, letting the room settle.

My body found the camera before my eyes did. Reflex kicked in, and I snapped into my on-air face, chin up, smile set.

Then I clocked who was holding the phone.

The big boss himself, up at the head of the table, filming me. Not hiding it, either. Just grinning behind the screen like he was collecting evidence.

"Mr. Sinclair. What exactly are you recording?"

Maddox Sinclair. Good-looking, and the subject of more gossip than anyone else in upper management. Around the office they called him the second son. There'd been an heir-apparent above him, an older brother, until the brother got shipped off a year ago and Maddox took over the company.

By rank, I had no business at his table.

But it was the year-end gala, and management let the top scorers sit up front as a reward. That was the only reason I'd landed at his table at all.

So there I was. Reward-seated, and drunk enough to be telling the CEO about my ex.

Maddox pressed his lips together and waved a hand for me to keep going. "It's nothing. Go on. I'm actually enjoying this."

"I'll skip the dating part." I dropped a cherry tomato into my wine glass. "Too humiliating."

A beat later I remembered I wasn't entertaining a client, fished the tomato back out, and ate it. Sour.

Maddox hissed through his teeth. "Humiliating?" He looked like he was fighting a laugh and losing. "Dating this ex of yours was humiliating?"

I shook my head. "Not him. Me. I was a disaster back then."

"Doesn't track." He nudged the thread along. "If you were such a disaster, why'd he stay with you?"

I didn't answer.

He cut a glance at the people beside him. A couple of the half-drunk execs stood right up, muttering about making the rounds at other tables. My own coworkers took the hint and peeled off one by one.

I didn't get it, but I figured I'd drift off with them.

Maddox's eyes snapped up. He cleared his throat. "Where do you think you're going? Your numbers last year were excellent. Let's talk about a raise."

That sobered me. I slid back into my seat, topped off my glass, and thanked him on muscle memory. "Thank you for the recognition, sir. I'm in."

"Sit. Sit. And stop drinking." He pinned my glass to the table and leaned in like he'd been waiting all night for this. "Your ex's mother. How'd she talk you into the breakup? Did she scream at you? Threaten you?"

No.

She was very kind.

By then I was a senior in college. Sebastian and I had made it official sophomore year, and every winter and summer break I'd spend a few days at his place.

His mother came on an ordinary afternoon.

I was asleep on the couch when a knock woke me. I thought it was Sebastian, home early, and padded over to open the door.

A woman I'd never seen was standing there. She had a faint, three-parts resemblance to him.

She looked at me and wasn't surprised.

And she didn't look like she'd come for Sebastian at all.

Chapter 2

"Hello, ma'am," I said, slow and careful.

"Hello, Autumn." She smiled. "Why don't we go in and talk?"

I knew why she'd come the second I saw her.

She told me her family were the Whitlocks. As in Harborline Shipping. She'd married Sebastian's father, an alliance that fused two houses, two industries that happened to complement each other. A merger sealed with vows.

Years in, the marriage was civil enough. Sebastian was the only son.

Maybe his father had children elsewhere. Didn't matter. Sebastian's seat was secure. As long as he didn't do anything stupid. As long as no outsider found the soft spot and pried it open.

"I trust Sebastian's abilities. He doesn't really need a marriage to secure himself." Mrs. Ashford folded her hands over her purse. Then came the turn. "But an alliance is a way to pull in support. If he won't make one, someone else will. And if people notice his wife's family brings nothing to the table, if they come looking to ally against him, well. That gets ugly."

Every sentence she spoke, my spine locked another notch.

I was sitting on a bed of needles. Better to make it quick.

I kept my head down. "Mrs.Mrs. Ashford. What do youwhat do you want from me?"

She watched me pick at my hands, and something like pity crossed her face.

"Autumn, I've known about you since you were in high school. Back then, Sebastian couldn't get through a single visit home without your name slipping out." A pause. "So I looked into you. I know your parents are... old-fashioned. I know you clawed your way out of a poor mountain town on a hardship scholarship, and then tested into Crestview on grades alone."

"A remarkable girl. Smart. Lovely."

"But a daughter-in-law in our family doesn't have to be extraordinary. She just can't come with a weakness this size."

"I didn't want to pull you two apart so soon." Her voice stayed gentle the whole way through, which was somehow the worst part. "But Sebastian's about to graduate. You're staying in the country, and he won't leave it while you're in it. So. For his sake, Autumn. And for your own. Think about it."

She opened her purse.

She set a thin slip of paper on the coffee table.

A check.

I scrubbed my face fast and didn't dare look up. "Okay. Okay, I understand. Would it be all right if Iif I don't walk you out?"

Her soft shawl brushed my fuzzy pajama sleeve as she rose. The scent lifting off it was faint. Sandalwood, warm and costly.

Then the sandalwood was gone.

She shut the door behind her like she'd never been there.

I went to the bedroom to pack.

It was only when I started that I saw how much of me had piled up here. Clothes and socks filling a whole corner of the closet. The jewelry and hair ties and skincare Sebastian had picked up for me without a second thought. The plants I'd raised. Throw pillows, stuffed animals, little ornaments. A half-used box of pads.

None of it fit in the single suitcase I'd first shown up with.

I packed and unpacked in the same breath.

Anything so expensive I couldn't even guess the price, I left.

The skincare I had to take. Living alone, I'd never have let myself buy anything that nice.

A few extra sets of pajamas.

The cashmere wrap. The long one, the same style some celebrity had. Sebastian used to tease that I was too short to pull it off, that I looked like a stingray drowning in it whenever I tried to be cool. Take it.

His speakers were the brand I'd chosen. Supposedly amazing. Turned out to be internet hype, wildly overrated. I loved them anyway. Those I couldn't carry out.

The plants on the balcony. I'd kept them two years. What was I supposed to do with them now? Start over somewhere new, spend another two years coaxing them back to life?

I sat down beside the wrecked-open suitcase, and all at once I couldn't hold it in.

Out in the living room, the front door opened and shut.

Footsteps. The soft rustle of shopping bags going down on the table.

"Autumn?" Sebastian called from the other room. "Let me make you something to eat?"

I didn't answer.

Chapter 3

He said something to himself, confused.

Then his footsteps went ragged. He must have spotted the check on the coffee table.

The bedroom door twisted open.

"Who from my family came to see"

Sebastian's face was terrible. He had that thin slip of paper pinched between two fingers.

I turned to look at him and swiped my sleeve across my face, fast.

"Okay. Don't cry. Don't cry." He dropped into a half-crouch and gathered me against him. "Who came here? Tell me."

His fingertips were cold. The front of his coat was cold. I burrowed past the coat into the warm wool sweater underneath.

But his sweater carried the sandalwood too.

They were family.

Was I supposed to cling to him and force him to stand between us?

I tried to pull back, breath catching, and he dragged me in again. His knuckles pushed up into my hair and, without asking, pressed my head to his chest.

"Talk. The person who came here. Man or woman? How old?" His head was bent, the bridge of his nose against my temple, his breathing rough with anger.

I shook my head.

"I. We should talk."

"Talk about what?" His eyes went hard. "Autumn. What is it you want to talk to me about? Breaking up?"

"When we got together, didn't you promise me you wouldn't just give up on it?"

I wanted to say I was sorry. I didn't dare.

When he'd confessed, he told me, he had thought it all the way through. That was why he'd asked me to weigh every obstacle I'd have to face before I gave him my answer.

I promised him. I promised I would stay, and stay well.

But I was young. I always weighed the obstacles too light.

The day I finally stood in front of one, I learned that a single sentence was enough to cancel out everything.

I flinched.

So wouldn't he, at some point, flinch too?

"Then maybe we should... break up?" I met his eyes and my voice kept shrinking. "I'm scared. That one day you'll regret this. That you'll look at me and see... dead weight."

"Enough!"

He cut me off. Swallowed, hard, more than once.

For three years of high school, I barely spoke.

At first, when classmates asked me things, I said nothing and just wrote out the solution for them. They thought I was putting on airs. The whole grade called me the stuck-up test-ace who wouldn't talk.

Then teachers started calling on me in class. Enough times that someone finally understood I had a speech disorder.

After that I got an exemption. No one made me talk. Once in a while somebody would gently suggest I practice, open my mouth more.

Classes all day, dorm at night, barely time to wash up. I couldn't find a window to practice. I didn't want to.

It was only after Sebastian that I began, now and then, to open my mouth.

He always waited until I finished. Even when describing one small thing took me ten minutes.

He had never once cut me off like this.

I clamped my mouth shut.

"Autumn." He drew a breath and framed my face in both hands. "Do you still like me?"

I looked at him. I nodded.

"Then don't say the word breakup. Do it for me. Practice speaking, properly. I'll practice with you, at home." A little pressure in his hands. "You hear me?"

I nodded again.

He pulled me into his chest and locked his arms around me.

"Good girl."

After that day, neither of us ever brought up the quarter-million check again.

He hired a live-in housekeeper to run the place, and spent whole days just keeping me talking.

Sometimes I'd surface in the middle of the night and hear him out on the balcony, on a call. Whoever was on the other end didn't sound kind. He would go quiet a long while, then answer low, a word here and there.

Usually the next morning he'd apologize. Say he had to sit in on some upper-level meeting, that he'd be gone a few days.

I saw the papers on his desk once. Meeting files. Industry reports. Financial statements.

How classified they were, I couldn't say.

Chapter 4

I didn't dare look closely.

All I knew was that maybe I really was dragging him down.

When he was away, I practiced alone, into my phone. I'd open a voice-chat stream and force myself to talk, audience or not.

A few people who wandered in got spooked and left. A classmate who ran into me out in the campus woods walked off sure I wasn't right in the head. For a stretch there, screenshots of my strange little stream landed on a forum and got kicked around for a while.

I went into the comments and answered every one, explained the reason. I didn't expect anyone to be kind about it. Some of them came back just to keep me company.

But God, it hurt.

The room kept growing. Some cheered me on. Some laughed. Some fed me ugly lines on purpose, waiting for me to read them aloud.

I still tripped over my words. And one day I sounded out something that landed too close to a slur by accident, and the platform pulled the whole thing down.

I couldn't take it anymore.

Why was I putting myself through this, and dragging Sebastian into it with me? A thing I'd carried for years wasn't going to heal on anyone's schedule.

I wanted to quit.

Only this time, I didn't have it in me to face him.

I left everything behind and took only the clothes I needed. At a hotel, I told him I wanted to break up.

He flew back to Miami that same night. He wouldn't do it any way but in person.

I opened the door to a Sebastian who looked like he'd been dragged through a storm. Bloodshot eyes. Standing there rigid.

Neither of us said a word.

I couldn't stop the tears. I cried and I cried.

And when I had cried myself empty, I got out the most fluent sentence I had ever spoken in my life.

"Sebastian. The pressure is crushing me. I really can't keep doing this."

He pressed his lips flat. "You really can't keep going? We can't try again?"

"I'm so tired," I said.

He set the gift bag down on the floor and lowered his eyes. "If it's hurting you this much, then let's leave it."

I sank into a crouch and watched him turn his back on me.

"Sebastian!"

He stopped. Looked back, only his eyes.

That was when I saw his had gone red too.

"Can we still be friends?" I asked.

Will I ever see you again?

He let out a soft laugh. "Sure. Reach out if you ever need anything."

Reach out if you ever need anything. Which meant he never would.

And he didn't. We never spoke again.

Three years and change, since we split.

If he knew how clear my speech had gotten now. Every word crisp, landing exactly where I meant to put it. I wondered whether he'd be glad for me.

Drink drags the old things back up. A rush of something unreal takes over your head, and the present stops mattering.

I was slumped over the table, having completely forgotten I was at the company's year-end gala. That the man across from me was my boss's boss's boss.

Maddox frowned and patted at me. "Autumn. Autumn, wake up. Your majesty, please do not have alcohol poisoning on me right now. Because I am done for. Sebastian will show up at my door and carve me into pieces."

I let him shake me awake and turned my face out of the crook of my arm, showing him one eye.

"Hm? Mr. Sinclair?"

Maddox let out a breath, relieved. He handed me a tissue and jerked his chin. "Wipe your face. Look at you, crying like this."

"Sorry. Had too much. I get sentimental." I dragged up a smile. "That stuff is strong. Really couldn't hold it." Then it caught up with me. "Hey. Mr. Sinclair. Weren't we going to talk about my raise?"

He waved a big hand. "Done. Fifty percent. But tomorrow. No. Day after tomorrow. You're coming with me to a little cross-company mixer."

"My rank's high enough to sit in with you?"

"Relax. It's just a simple dinner."

"Oh." Then it snagged. "Wait. Day after tomorrow is the holiday."

Chapter 5

"I'll count it as triple overtime. The people at this thing are connections you don't get twice. I'm only bringing you because you've got drive."

Maddox said it like it was gospel.

I didn't think twice about it. I flashed him an okay sign.

He let out a breath and smiled like a fox that had just raided the henhouse.

"I'll have the driver take you home. Get some rest. I'll pick you up the day after tomorrow."

I slept off the booze until two the next afternoon