Iris POV
She reached for him before she opened her eyes.
Her hand moved across the sheets to the side of the bed that had been empty for two years until last night and found nothing but cooling warmth.
She opened her eyes.
The bedroom was full of morning light. Gabriel's pillow still held the shape of his head. He had been there minutes ago. But the room had gone silent in the specific way rooms go silent when the person you were listening for is already gone.
There was a note on his pillow.
She picked it up. One fold. His handwriting. Three words.
I am sorry. Goodbye.
She read it once.
Then again.
Then five more times sitting perfectly still in the middle of the bed with the sheet pulled around her, hoping the words would rearrange into something she could breathe through. They didn't change. They never changed. They were just three words that meant she had been exactly as stupid as she had always been afraid of being.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Transfer received. Five million dollars.
No message. No explanation. Just a number.
She sat with both things in her hands, the note and the phone, and understood completely. Last night was a mistake he had already decided to pay for. He had the amount ready. He probably had it ready before they even left the gala. Gabriel Stone did not do anything without preparation. Even this. Especially this.
She set both things down and went to the bathroom and stood under cold water until her hands were steady.
Then she packed.
One suitcase. The same one she arrived with two years ago. She put in her own clothes, the ones from before. Not the Chanel suits or the gowns or the jewelry or the perfume lined up on the vanity. None of what belonged to the woman she had been performing. She moved through the apartment quickly and without looking at anything too carefully.
She did not look at the couch.
She did not look at the wine glasses still on the coffee table.
She left the penthouse key on the kitchen counter beside the empty coffee machine and walked to the elevator.
The lobby was quiet. Gerald the morning doorman looked up from his desk and his face shifted when he saw the suitcase. She smiled before he could say anything.
"Have a good morning, Gerald."
She was through the door and at the curb before she let her expression drop.
A taxi pulled over. She got in. Gave the driver the address of the temporary apartment she had quietly arranged three weeks ago, back when she still believed she was prepared for this.
The penthouse tower grew smaller through the rear window.
She pressed her fingers against her mouth and breathed through her nose and absolutely did not cry. Not here. Not in a taxi at seven in the morning.
She thought about the notebook in the kitchen drawer. All those small careful entries written in his handwriting over two years. She fixes things quietly. She laughed and I didn't know she laughed like that. I feel like I'm missing something I never had.
She thought about the way he had kissed her last night. Like a man who had been holding something back so long it hurt to finally let it go.
Then she thought about three words on a folded piece of paper and five million dollars delivered before she even woke up.
Whichever one of those things was real, she knew which one he had chosen to act on.
Her phone buzzed.
She almost didn't look. She expected Emma, who she hadn't told yet and who was going to say something both comforting and furious in equal measure.
It wasn't Emma.
It was Gabriel.
One message. No call. Just a text sitting on her screen like it was a simple thing.
I made a mistake. Please come back.
She stared at the words.
The taxi was moving through morning traffic. Outside the window the city was fully awake now, all movement and noise and people who had no idea her entire chest had just turned over.
She read the message four more times.
Please come back.
She looked out the rear window. The penthouse building was still visible, smaller now, a tower of glass catching early light. She could tell the driver to turn around. She could be back in that elevator in six minutes. She could walk through that door and see his face and demand an explanation that was better than a note and a bank transfer.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
Then she thought about the notebook. He had written those entries for two years and never once acted on them. He had felt things for two years and managed them into a drawer. Whatever he felt, when the moment came to choose, he wrote three words on a piece of paper and walked out.
One text message after the fact was not the same as staying.
She typed two words. Goodbye, Gabriel.
She pressed send.
Then she turned off her screen and put the phone in her bag and looked straight ahead.
The taxi crossed into the next neighborhood. The penthouse disappeared behind other buildings.
Iris sat with her hands folded in her lap and told herself she had done the right thing. She had protected herself. She had walked away with her dignity and her twenty million and her mother's life secured and that was what she came for. That was always what she came for.
She was going to be completely fine.
Her stomach turned.
She pressed her hand flat against her middle and breathed slowly. Just nerves. Just grief sitting in her body like it had nowhere else to go. She hadn't eaten this morning and she had barely slept and her whole life had just quietly collapsed. Nausea made sense.
She closed her eyes.
She didn't know yet.
She had absolutely no idea.