Page 11 of The Owner's Temptation

“You’re going.”

Yeah. I’m going.

Iused to have a plan.

Arealplan.

I was supposed to be someone. Someone important. Someone powerful.

The kind of woman who walked into a room and made people nervous.

The kind of woman who handled chaos like it was her job—because, once upon a time, thatwasthe plan.

Law, PR, crisis management. High-profile reputation fixing. Something where I could control the narrative, smooth out disasters, make impossible problems disappear.

That was who I wassupposedto be. A problem solver.

Instead, I spent years running damage control forBen.

I let him convince me to put my dreams on hold—ourfuture came first, he’d said. And somehow, along the way, I becamehisfixer.Hiscrisis manager.Hispersonal fucking PR rep, handling his life instead of my own.

Until he cheated.

And left.

And suddenly, I wasn’t justBen’s girlfriendanymore.

I was nobody.

It’s funny how you don’t notice losing yourself in the moment. It happens so slowly, piece by piece, until one day you wake up and realize you have nothing that’s trulyyours.

For years, we did whathewanted to do. Hung out withhisfriends. Moved tohiscity. My life was built aroundourrelationship, and when he was gone, I had no idea what was left ofme.

I’m glad to be free of him, but Ihateour fucking apartment.

Everywhere I look, I still seehim.

Us.

The couple we used to be.

The barstools at the kitchen counter–we picked them out together. The rug in the living room when he spilled wine on it and blamed me. The spot on the couch where we sat, tangled up, pretending like forever was real? It’s still there, like a ghost of something I can’t shake.

I’m already working on erasing the past, one paycheck at a time.

The ugly framed photos, replaced.

The hideous curtainsheliked? Burned in a metaphorical funeral of bad taste.

By the time my lease is up, this place will be nothing but a shell—nothing left ofhim, nothing left ofus.Just an empty apartment for the next idiot in love.

And when I walk into my next home, it will bemine.

Notours.

Nothis.

Justmine.

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