Page 9 of The Lies I've Told
The worst thing about being married to your job?
Outside of my coworkers, business trips abroad, and the clandestine affair I was having with my boss, I had nothing.
Less than nothing.
After fleeing the meeting that was supposed to make all of my dreams come true, I put an end to my career before someone else could.
Taking the high road or what was left of it, I resigned.
Effective immediately.
Lorenzo couldn’t even look me in the eye as I tossed the hastily written letter on his desk.
I guessed I knew where that left us.
It didn’t take long to clean out my office. There wasn’t much in it that was actually mine. A few pairs of shoes I had bought but never took home, a couple of family photos, and a sketchbook I hadn’t used or opened for years.
No one said a word to me as I exited the building, but their silence spoke volumes. I knew what they were thinking.
Slut.
Whore.
Gold digger.
I would have thought all that and more if it were someone else.
But it wasn’t.
I was the slut. The whore. The gold digger.
I tried to hold my head up high as I entered the elevator for the last time, but it was hard…so damn hard.
Because, in that moment, I kind of agreed with them.
I’d become everything I loathed when I fell for my boss. The hopeless romantic sap of a girl who believed this time was different.
This time, it was real.
I’d really thought I could change him. That, after years of womanizing and philandering, I, Millie McIntyre, could somehow tame the wild Lorenzo Russo with love.
God, what a fool I’d been.
Armed with my pathetic box of mementos, I headed for the parking garage, feeling the Miami heat hit me the second I stepped off the elevator. It used to comfort me, this heat. It reminded me of home—of warm nights out on the patio, roasting marshmallows like a regular family.
We were a regular family—most of the time. If you didn’t count the steady stream of guests we had coming and going through the house. My family had come from a long line of innkeepers. My sister and I had been raised in a bustling business rather than a quiet family house. But I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Maybe it’d prepared me for the chaos of this life.
Well, maybe not this specific moment in life, but the majority of them.
I’m pretty sure nothing could have prepared me for driving home to an empty apartment with no plans of ever leaving it again.
Walking through the door, I took a cursory glance around. Not a single thing was out of place as I flipped on the lights, admiring the modern styling I’d paid a fortune for.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent more than two nights here.
I guess that was about to change.
