Page 76 of So Close

Auburn sat up, took another spoonful. The soft chocolate melted on her tongue, and the contrast between the hot of the cake and the cold of the ice cream took her out of her own misery for the first time that day.

“So. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

She did. How the other financing option had fallen through. How the Bootstrapper, even with James’s help and all the advertising support, hadn’t moved the needle. How she and Trey had looked down into the mouth of the cannon and made the best call they could.

“It’s over,” she told her sister. “We did everything we could, but it wasn’t enough to save Beachcrest. Or each other.”

And there it was—she burst into tears. Ugly, snotty tears. But Chiara, being Chiara, didn’t care, just found the box of tissues in the bathroom and passed them, one by one, to Auburn, until she could talk again.

“You didn’t tell me how the breakup went down.”

“No. I didn’t.”

So she told that part, too. His high-handedness, his arrogance, his insistence on doing it his way, telling his story to Carl, icing her out, deciding their fate without her, seeing the whole thing through the lens of his actions. And when she was done, she said, “I wish—I wish I’d stuck to my guns. I knew as soon as I smelled that fucking cologne. A zebra doesn’t change its Armani stripes. Not every guy in a suit is Patrick, but every asshole who dons a suit, even if he’s willing to wear beach clothes for a few days to get what he wants, isstillan asshole.”

She went through a few more tissues then, because she was so angry at herself for doing it again. Sex, money, power.

“If you want, Mason and Levi could probably have him killed,” Chiara said.

That made Auburn smile through her tears. “They’re pretty self-sufficient; they’d probably do it themselves. But no. I think it’s too late for that. Wish I’d thought of it earlier this week.” She snickered, then sobered up. “Truly, I think the Beachcrest sale was always inevitable. But acting like a self-righteous douche bag? He did that.” She crossed her arms. “It probably doesn’t deserve death. Just an ice cold ghosting.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Chiara said. She tilted her head, indicating Auburn’s now dormant dessert, melting into a big mess. “The romance writers are playing Pandemic in the dining room—want to go join them?”

“I couldn’t even save Beachcrest; how am I supposed to save the world?”

“You saved a hundred and fifty jobs.”

“And lost Luz’s and Sarah’s and mine. And Carl’s legacy.”

“I’m sorry, Auburn. I’m so sorry. But Levi’s still hiring, so Luz and Sarah will be fine. And you’ll be fine too. If you don’t want to work for Levi—”

“I don’t think Cape House needs two managers.”

“Me neither.” Chiara sighed. “At least you’re in the right part of the world to find another position.”

Auburn smiled, an effort, but it felt good to do it. “I’m going to give myself just a little while to feel sorry for myself, and then I’ll get back on my feet. I’ve done it before—” More times than she wanted to think about, but she was good at it. “And I’ll do it again. The truth is, it’s just a building. It’s not actually an enchanted castle in a fairytale.”

Chiara looked stricken at that, but Auburn just shook her head. “There’s no such a thing as magic, in the end. I’ll start again somewhere. Abracadabra, new life.”

She took a last bite of the molten cake and ice cream soup—she’d hit that stage of eating where the taste had gone out and she was just spooning it into her mouth reflexively—and said, “You know what, let’s go play Pandemic. Feels like the end of the world, so why not?”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Asia’s a mess. Look,”Priya said, indicating the heaps of red cubes on the Pandemic game board. “We spent too much time trying to cure and not enough time trying to treat.”

“We don’t have the medic card this time, which was a bad move,” Lindsey said.

“Where’s your hot billionaire?” Aria demanded. “Get him. If I’m going to lose this stupid game and decimate the world’s population, I should have something pretty to look at while I do it.”

Chiara and Auburn exchanged glances.

“He left,” Auburn said.

“What?!” A chorus of romance writers.

She sat down and brought them up to date on the events of the day.

---