Chapter 5

Scarlett POV Delaney came back in less than five minutes. She literally shoved the door open. The first thing out of her mouth was, “What did he say?” I just looked at her. Her eyes went straight to my empty finger, and her entire face changed. “He took your ring?” I nodded. “Yeah. Then he told me to move out. And he reminded me about the prenup.” Her mouth got all tight. “And?” “He said I’ll leave with whatever actually belongs to me. That I’ve basically been living on his money for years.” She just stared at me. “You’re seriously going to walk away with nothing?” “I don’t know,” I said. And the second it came out of my mouth, it surprised both of us. Until that moment, I’d been picturing divorce as if it were this simple thing. Sign the papers, walk out the door, start over. I hadn’t really thought about what “starting over” actually looked like. For three whole years I’d been living inside Jaxen’s world: his house, his car, his company accounts, even his last name. My entire position as Luna only existed because I was Mrs. Hale. And now I was just supposed to peel myself out of all of it as if it had never happened. Delaney sat down next to me on the bed. “You can stay with me. As long as you need.” I looked at her and said, “Thank you.” “You don’t have to prove anything to him.” She looked at me seriously. I gave her this tiny, little smile. “Maybe I do. Not to him, though. I need to prove it to myself.” Three days later, the doctor finally cleared me to leave the hospital. The admin person brought in the bill,l and it was five hundred twenty-one thousand, two hundred thirty dollars. I just stared at that number while Delaney stood next to me. She said, “You don’t have to pay that today.” I shook my head. “I do.” “Why?” “Because Jaxen told me to. And I’m going to make damn sure he never gets to say that about me again.” I pulled out my card and paid. The payment went through. I sat there, looking at the receipt for a long time. Half a million dollars is a ridiculous amount of money, but for the first time since I married Jaxen, watching that money leave my account didn’t feel like losing something. On the drive to Delaney’s place,ce I was staring out the window, and I just said, “I’m going back to Hale Group tomorrow.” She almost slammed on the brakes. “What?” “I need to finish my resignation. I worked there for two years. I want my last paycheck and my quarterly bonus.” She stared at me for a second, and then she actually started laughing. “There she is. The old Scarlett would’ve left everything behind the second Jaxen told her to.” I turned back toward the window. “The old Scarlett still loves him.” Delaney got quiet. Then she said softly, “So do you.” I didn’t deny it. Because love doesn’t just disappear the second you finally accept that it’s not coming back. I still knew the exact sound of Jaxen’s footsteps outside our bedroom door. I still knew the way his clothes smelled. I still remembered those rare, insignificant moments when he actually smiled. Leaving him didn’t erase any of that. It just meant those memories didn’t get to decide what I did next anymore. That night I slept in Delaney’s guest room. The bed was small; the room was plain, nothing matched.No expensive flowers on the nightstand, no designer furniture, no giant windows looking out over the Hale estate. But when I lay down, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years. The room was mine. If I wanted to leave, I could. If I wanted to stay, I could. If I wanted to change something, I could do that too. Nobody was waiting for me to become some unique version of myself. I closed my eyes and thought, tomorrow I’m going back to Hale Group. I’m going to resign, collect what I actually earned, and start figuring out who Scarlett Ravencroft is without Jaxen Hale standing next to her. What I didn’t know was that when I walked into his office the next day, I was going to see something that would hurt way worse than the divorce papers ever did. Some endings don’t happen when you say goodbye. They happen when you stop waiting for the other person to ask you to stay.