From A Humiliating Bet To The Boss He Can’t Have Chapter 34
When spring came, I received an invitation from Lily to her graduation ceremony.
Only my name was on the card.
There was no Whitmore family title, no label tying me to anyone else.
I went.
After the ceremony, Lily ran through the crowd toward me.
Grant stood some distance away.
When he saw me, he shifted his feet but did not walk over.
Lily did not try to pull us together, either.
She hugged me.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Congratulations.”
We took a photo together.
Only the two of us were in the frame.
Later, as Grant passed by, he handed an envelope to Lily.
After looking at it, she asked me, “Do you want to know what it says?”
I shook my head.
She slipped it back into her bag.
“Then I won’t tell you.”
We walked out of the auditorium together.
Someone called Grant’s name behind us. He stopped where he was and did not follow.
In the parking lot, my new car sat in the sunlight.
The apartment key from two years ago had long since been replaced by the keys to my new home.
My old phone number had been canceled, too.
The prenup, the hundred-thousand-dollar check, and the betting pool records had all been sealed away in my lawyer’s files.
They had proven the harm done to me.
But they no longer defined my life.
Lily asked, “Where are you going next?”
“Back to Chicago.”
“I mean after that.”
I opened the car door and smiled a little.
“After that is a long time.”
This time, no one was waiting in a club for me to lower my head.
No one was betting how many days it would take me to go back.
And there was no relationship left that required me to prove myself by sacrificing my career, my dignity, or my choices.
Grant had finally lost the person he had once been certain would never leave.
Sloane had paid the price for every lie she had created.
And I was no longer anyone’s wager.
I started the car and pulled onto the road to the airport.
The light ahead turned green.
I didn’t look back.
The life ahead belonged to me alone.
The End