Chapter 6
Tyler and the others rushed in just as I let Ava go.
She came up dripping, mascara running, and threw herself into Tyler’s arms.
“Your girlfriend attacked me!”
Tyler looked stunned. “That can’t be right. Claire wouldn’t—”
“Are you serious?” one of Ava’s friends snapped. “We all saw it!”
Ava sobbed harder. “She shoved me into the sink!”
Every eye turned to me.
Tyler straightened and tried to look authoritative. “Claire. Apologize.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
In my hand, the fruit knife caught the light.
I took one slow step forward.
Then another.
The whole room went silent.
Tyler instinctively backed up until his knees hit the couch and he dropped onto it. I planted one heel between his legs, close enough that his face drained of color.
The knife brushed lightly against his cheek.
He shivered.
It would have been funny if I hadn’t been so disgusted.
“We should settle a few things,” I said.
Nobody breathed.
“You used me to make your ex jealous. I’m not even mad about that anymore. Luckily for you, what I wanted from you was money, not love. So in that sense, we’re even.”
Tyler stared up at me, wide-eyed.
“But from this moment on, we’re done.”
The knife sank into the couch beside him.
He flinched so hard the room gasped.
“Claire—”
“Don’t.”
I looked down at him, utterly calm.
“Don’t show up near me again. Don’t call me. Don’t act like any of this was real.”
For a second, he just sat there in shock.
Then he grabbed my ankle.
“What do you mean you only wanted money?”
“Exactly what I said.”
“You didn’t like me?”
“No.”
His face changed.
Not anger at first.
Confusion.
Real, stunned confusion.
“That’s impossible,” he said. “You were always so good to me.”
I leaned down and pulled my ankle free.
“I needed your money. That’s all. Even coming home with you was about your family’s money. Don’t flatter yourself.”
The room had gone dead still.
Then I felt it.
A shift in the air behind me.
I turned.
Ethan was standing in the doorway.
He had heard everything.
The lighting in the private room was dim enough that I couldn’t fully read his face, which somehow made it worse.
He stepped forward, took off his suit jacket, and draped it over my shoulders.
Only then did I realize how badly my dress had been torn in the fight.
Then he reached down and helped Tyler up from the couch.
Someone nearby whispered that Ethan had been at the same restaurant for a blind date and had just arrived at the perfect moment.
Ava, of course, recovered enough to sneer at me as she passed.
“You’re finished,” she said quietly. “Ethan Crawford hates gold diggers.”
I almost smiled.
She didn’t need to tell me.
That was exactly why I knew I had to leave.
I wasn’t stupid enough to believe Ethan would choose me over his own brother, not in real life. Whatever strange thing had happened in those dreams, it was not enough to build a future on.
Dreams were dreams.
Blood was blood.
So when the room’s attention shifted, I set Ethan’s jacket on a nearby chair, turned, and walked out without a backward glance.
That night I snapped my SIM card in half and got on the first train home.
I had too much to do.
My mother’s surgery.
Work.
Survival.
Healing.
There was no room in my life for brothers named Crawford.
In June, one of my classmates told me Tyler had shown up looking for me at graduation and found out I hadn’t even come back to campus.
Apparently he looked wrecked.
I didn’t understand why.
Was regret supposed to be attractive now?
Either way, it didn’t matter.
As for Ethan—
After I left, I never dreamed of him again.
Months passed.
Then more.
I stayed in my hometown, worked, took care of my mother, and built a life so ordinary it almost felt safe.
Until the company I worked for got acquired by Crawford Group.
And one morning, when the elevator doors opened, I looked up and saw Ethan standing inside surrounded by executives.
The world tilted.
He looked exactly the same.
Cold. Sharp. Controlled.
And suddenly every dream I had buried came rushing back.
The elevator was nearly full. One of the department heads said, “Claire, catch the next one.”
I had already stepped back when Ethan spoke.
“There’s room.”
It was only two words.
But nobody ignored him.
So I got in.
And in the crowded silence of that elevator, with his shoulder almost brushing mine, one of the executives said brightly, “Mr. Crawford, this is Claire Bennett from design. Top school. One of our best.”
Ethan looked down at me.
Then he said, out of nowhere, “You’ve lost weight.”
Every executive in that elevator stopped breathing.
So did I.