Page 6 of Love.V2
“Thank you. They put some tricky stipulations in the contract, but we can make it work. I talked them down on a few things.”
“I know you put together a bang-up deal. I wanted to say congratulations to Tess, too. Is she there?”
My steps slowed as I turned a full 360 in the living room.
“Tess?”
“Yes! Her big promotion! Put her on.”
“Promotion?” My search ground to a halt at the threshold of the open-concept kitchen. Tess had gotten a promotion? I hadn’t even known she was up for one. She complained about her work in the creative department at Worther so much, I wasn’t sure she’d even take a promotion if it was offered to her.
“You don’t know yet? Oh, damn, I bet she was waiting to tell you once you got home from Tokyo. Don’t tell her I said anything.”
I turned, trying to take in the news and the state of my house at the same time. Unease pricked across my skull. “Tess got promoted?” Maybe she was out celebrating?
“Long overdue, if you ask me. Jinx couldn’t ask for a better creative director.”
A pit lodged in my stomach as I surveyed the living room. White designer couches arranged beneath intricate iron chandeliers and recessed lights. The massive, antique coffee table was free of its usualclutter—Tess’s books or my workout bag. The flowers she liked to buy at the farmers’ market weren’t there either. “Tess got the Jinx job?” I hadn’t even known she was applying for that. She’d been excited when our company acquired the infamous little boutique agency based in Chicago, but she hadn’t told me she wanted to work there.
“Ah, shit, me and my big mouth. I’m gonna hop off the phone before I ruin anything else. Act surprised when she tells you! Great work in Japan, Dylan. Keep it up.” He ended the call.
I stared around for another beat. “Tess?” Only silence answered. “Tess?” I tried again, looking into my home office and even jogging to her paint studio above the garage. Her easel was empty, paints lined up in a precise row. A lump rose in my throat. Tess was never that neat when she painted.
I paced, scrolling through my phone to find our last messages.
Had it really been four days since I’d texted her? When I was out of town, I usually tried to check in once a day, but the Tokyo meetings had gotten intense fast. I’d barely had time to plug my phone in at night before collapsing on my hotel bed. In our last exchange, I’d told her the trip was being extended again. She’d just replied, “Be safe.” The messages before that were equally transactional.
I tapped her name, but her phone went straight to voicemail. I shot her a text, immediately receiving an “Undeliverable” error message.
The oven pre-heat alert beeped, drawing my attention back into the kitchen where I’d dropped my laptop bag. There. I skidded on the slick marble tiles as I bent to retrieve the paper I’d dislodged earlier.
At the sight of Tess’s handwriting, the sharp clenching in my gut eased. There was an answer for why she wasn’t here. A reason.
But any relief I felt plummeted as I scanned the words.
Dylan,
We both know this is long overdue. I’m sorry it had to happen like this, but the truth is, I wasn’t sure I could do this if I had to say it to your face. By the time you get back to Nashville, I’ll be gone.
Please don’t try to contact me. It’s for the best that we both just move on.
- Tess
Bile rose in my throat as I re-read the words, brain spinning in a million directions at once. What was overdue? What did she mean, “gone?”
How the fuck did such an earth-shattering, life-altering, seismic shift in my life boil down to a few sentences? Tess was gone?
I looked around the house as if the white walls would give me any answers. Distantly, I felt a harsh shiver through my chest, like something had cracked open.
Tess was gone?
The paper fluttered from my numb fingers, once more the only thing out of place in the pristine white room.
Tess was gone.
Chapter 1
Tess
