He Terminated My Lease So I Terminated Our Wedding Chapter 10
The pleading on Owen’s face cracked.
“You can’t just cut me out like this!”
He lurched to his feet and reached for me.
Mateo stepped forward, placing himself between us.
He didn’t shove Owen. He didn’t even touch him. He just blocked the reaching hand with his body, then turned his head slightly and asked me in a low voice,
“Do you want me to call security, or do you want us to leave?”
Not you need to go. Not leave this to me.
The choice was still mine.
I looked at Owen.
“Security.”
Mateo nodded, then turned to him, his voice calm and steady.
“Sir, she wants you to leave.”
Owen tried to get around him anyway, while Cass cried out my name. Security, already waiting at the edge of the ballroom, moved in and stopped them both.
“Lila, I’m just trying to make things right!”
“We’re your family!”
Their voices grew fainter as they were escorted out.
Then the ballroom doors swung shut, cutting off the shouting from the other side.
Mateo didn’t ask if I was upset or press me for an explanation. He just bent down, picked up the shoebox with my flats, and said,
“Do you still want to stay, or should we go home?”
I glanced at the curious stares people hadn’t managed to hide in time.
“Home.”
He picked up my coat and walked out with me.
The car moved through the Baltimore night. I leaned back in the seat, and only when the city lights came back into focus did I ask,
“Why didn’t you just decide for me? If you had called security yourself, I wouldn’t have blamed you.”
Mateo kept both hands on the wheel and didn’t answer right away.
“Because it was your situation. I was just there to back you up.”
At a red light, he finally turned his head.
“My job is to make sure you have the right to choose, not to choose for you.”
The light turned green. He looked back at the road, as if he had only said something completely ordinary.
When we got home, Mateo didn’t leave right away.
He took a document from his briefcase and placed it on the dining table.
“I was going to give this to you after dinner.”
It was the partnership agreement for a major new project his firm had just landed. On the invitation line, my name was printed clearly. My proposed role wasn’t consultant or outside designer.
It was partner.
I opened the file.
Project authority, scope of responsibility, profit sharing, exit clauses—every section was marked with color-coded sticky notes. He hadn’t hidden any potential concerns, and he hadn’t answered them for me. He had simply laid out every choice.
On the last page, beside the signature line, was a single handwritten sentence.
This is only an invitation, Lila. You have the right to join at any time, and the right to leave at any time.
My gaze stayed there, and my eyes slowly grew hot.
Once, someone had used marriage to take away my home, my money, and every escape route I had.
Now, someone else was placing the future in front of me—and had written the exit clause just as clearly.
I picked up the pen and carefully signed my name.
Mateo didn’t cheer. He didn’t look triumphant.
He simply gathered the papers, gave me a small smile, and said,
“Welcome aboard, partner.”