Everything seems different, now that there’s a gaping wound in the center of my life that wasn’t there last Tuesday.

One week, and the world still looks colorless and dull. That should be impossible, considering I’m in New York City and everything keeps moving around me—cabs pulling up to the curb and speeding away, people stalking down the sidewalks, drivers fighting with each other in the middle of the intersections. I move, too. I get into my town car and back out again. I ride the elevator up to my office and back down. I go to my penthouse. 

There’s only silence there, and if it’s not silent, it’s endless reruns of television on Netflix, the sound a river that does its best to block out the endless rehashing of the fight we had, the way the elevator shut so definitively behind Isabella when she left.

I can’t believe she hasn’t texted me.

I can’t believe she hasn’t called.

I can’t believe I haven’t called.

I could crack up at any moment, but I haven’t yet, something that registers in the middle of Tuesday afternoon, when Mike Ford is going through two new potential properties with me.

He points at different lines on the paperwork, taking out the renderings and moving them back as he moves through the options. There are photos, too, taken from outside on the street.

There’s a long silence.

Oh. Shit. It’s me who’s supposed to be talking.

“Sorry, Mike. What was the question?”

He leans back in his chair. “What do you think?”

I look back at the papers spread out in front of me. “What’s the tenant situation?”

“The final leases would be up in October, and we could move on demolition after that. For this first one, at least. The second one—” He leans forward, choosing one of the pages and twisting it so he can read the numbers. “November.”

An image floats up in my mind of Isabella’s eyes at that very first meeting, a split second of fear in the middle of her barely contained rage. She wasn’t even the one in danger of having to find a new apartment. How many of these people are dying to find a different place to live so that I can make their former homes into luxury condos? Some of them. Maybe. But not all of them. In each of the buildings on the table in front of me, there’s going to be some version of Isabella’s mother. They definitely won’t all have daughters with the brass to confront me about it.

“I don’t know, Mike.”

He nods, not taking his eyes off me. “I’m happy to look for alternatives.”

It’s not that I don’t want to keep making money for Pace, Inc. I’m good at that, and the last thing I’m going to do is give up my career over a bad breakup. But this—the more I look at these buildings, the less I want to move forward.

At least in the same way that we always do.

And when Mike says he’ll look for alternatives, I know he means more to choose from, without necessarily discounting these. There’s no way I can table every single property he brings me because there are people living in them. It would be a disaster for the business.

“Hey, I’m not trying to stick my nose in your business…” Mike interrupts the silence, which has gotten away from me again. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I say it too quickly and I know it. “Yeah, I’m fine. I—I’ll need a minute with these.”

“It’s almost lunch.” Mike sweeps the papers together and puts them back in the folder, pressing it neatly down on the surface of my desk. “I’ll stop in later and check in.”

I can’t help looking past his shoulder. I can see the corner of Christine’s desk outside the door. Isabella walked through that same door, and everything changed. Now she’s not going to walk through it again.

“Thanks.” But the word lands in the empty air. Mike is already gone.

“Not straight home tonight, okay?”

Terrence meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”

The names of three different clubs come to mind, but I don’t really want to go to any of them. “Hamilton Heights.” 

He wrinkles his forehead. “Is there a new club there?”

“No. Just someplace I wanted to stop by.” I give him the address to the building that was briefly mine, and is now in Isabella’s hands. Or at least it will be when the closing finally goes through. I’ve put all that firmly with the Real Estate department. I told them I didn’t want to hear another thing about it. I meant it when I said it. Now I want to go haunt those offices and hover over their shoulders, looking for anything with Isabella’s name on it. It’s a very attractive quality in a man, to be hovering. Or so I’ve heard.

I stop paying attention until Terrence pulls up by the curb, the car coming to a gentle stop. “We’re here, boss.”

“This is it?”

“Yep.”

I don’t know why I asked. I’ve been here before, for at least a few minutes. It looks utterly unfamiliar, though.

A burst of laughter next to the door of my car makes me jump back, and I look at the rearview mirror. Terrence isn’t focused on me—he’s looking out at the people on the sidewalk—so at least he didn’t see that embarrassing display. 

The woman next to the car laughs again, stepping into view as she moves toward the building. She’s petite, with dark hair in a bun at the nape of her neck. The way she moves is achingly familiar.

“…my daughter!” Her voice rises enough for me to hear what she’s saying…and the obvious pride in it. If this isn’t Isabella’s mother, I’ll be shocked. My hand goes to the door handle, and I’m on the verge of pushing it open. Before I can, the woman rushes up the stairs to the lobby of the building, a spring in her step, and her friend—a willowy blonde who looks like she’s probably in her sixties, continues down the sidewalk, her arms swinging.

I jerk my hand back from the handle. 

“We can go.” I can’t think of any other way to casually get myself the hell away from this building, this heartache. “Back to the penthouse, Terrence.”

He gives me a nod in the mirror and pulls the car away from the curb, his hands steady on the wheel.

I curl mine into fists to stop them from shaking.

I have to do something.