Chapter 9
At the civil affairs office, I wore a camel coat, subtle makeup, and my real face.
Cole arrived five minutes late.
The second he saw me, he stopped walking.
Actually stopped.
One foot mid-step, body gone rigid, eyes fixed on me like he was looking at a stranger wearing my voice.
For several seconds, he said nothing at all.
Then, very quietly, “Ava?”
I signed the final page without answering.
He sat across from me, but his gaze never left my face. He looked stunned in a way that would have felt satisfying if I hadn’t already gone so cold where he was concerned.
When we finished and the clerk handed us the certificates, Cole still didn’t move.
Finally he let out a humorless laugh. “So this is what you really look like.”
I slipped the divorce certificate into my bag.
He kept staring. “If you had dressed like this earlier—”
I looked up.
He stopped.
“No,” I said. “Don’t do that.”
His brows drew together. “Do what?”
“Try to make this my fault.”
His mouth tightened.
I stood up.
Cole did too, suddenly. “Ava.”
I paused.
His eyes searched mine with something I had never seen there before. Not love. Not even longing exactly. More like disbelief mixed with panic. Like a man who had tossed something away thinking it was worthless and only afterward discovered it was rare.
“If things get hard after this,” he said, voice low, “you can come to me.”
I almost smiled.
He was still generous enough to imagine I might need him.
Still arrogant enough to think I would.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “That day will never come.”
I walked out into the sunlight.
Five minutes later, a black Aston Martin pulled up to the curb.
The driver’s door opened.
Ethan Vale stepped out.
Tall. Lean. Black overcoat, dark hair, ridiculous face. My oldest friend. My first almost-love. The man who had spent the last ten years quietly waiting in the spaces between my bad decisions.
His eyes found me instantly.
Then he saw the red rims around my eyes and his expression changed. Not dramatically. Ethan was never dramatic. But something in him tightened.
“Did he touch you?” he asked.
I laughed through the sudden sting in my nose. “Hello to you too.”
He walked over and stopped in front of me. “Ava.”
I held up the divorce certificate.
“I’m free.”