Chapter 2Never His Secret Again

I didn't stop to breathe. My movements were so clinical, so detached, that I frightened even myself.

The truth was, I didn't own much in that loft. Garrett despised visual clutter—he preferred the sterile, gallery-like aesthetic of polished concrete and minimalist Italian furniture. Over the years, I had learned to shrink my presence down to almost nothing, tucking my existence away in drawers so I wouldn't disrupt his peace. My clothes, my skincare, a stack of architectural monographs—everything fit into two large suitcases.

Then came the relics of our five years.

I walked over to the built-in credenza and pulled open the bottom drawer. Inside lay a leather-bound scrapbook I had kept in secret: candid shots of his broad back while he sketched, his profile softened by sleep, and the pitiful handful of selfies I had practically begged him to take with me on quiet weekend mornings. In every picture, I was smiling so hard my face ached; he looked bored, staring past the lens as if waiting for an elevator.

I dumped the entire book into a heavy-duty black contractor bag.

Every greeting card he had signed with generic pleasantries, every dried bouquet from anniversaries he barely remembered—into the trash it went.

Two hours later, the guest room and closet were hollowed out. I systematically erased every single proof that Tessa Hayes had ever breathed inside those walls.

By one in the morning, the hired van from TaskRabbit was loaded downstairs on the cobblestones.

I stood on the sidewalk under the streetlamp, cold mist clinging to my eyelashes, and pulled out my phone. I opened my message thread with Garrett. The last message was the address of the restaurant I had sent him the previous afternoon. He hadn't even bothered to reply with an "OK."

My fingers flew across the glass:

We're done. Consider the last five years a tax on my youth. Don't call me, don't look for me. We are strangers.

I didn't wait for the three typing dots. I tapped his contact card, hit Block, and deleted the number. Then I opened Instagram. Every cryptic, softly-lit post I had ever made hinting at a partner—a second coffee cup on a bistro table, a male hand resting on a steering wheel—I selected and permanently purged.

My profile was clean. Blank.

The next morning, I showed up at the firm with dark circles under my eyes, masked beneath a heavy layer of NARS concealer.

The ink was barely dry on my morning blueprints when Penny, the junior designer in the neighboring cubicle, wheeled her chair over. "Morning, Tessa! How was the big twenty-six? I saw you wiped your entire grid last night. Are we entering an 'out with the old, in with the new' era?"

I booted up my workstation, offering her an easy, practiced smile. "Something like that. Twenty-six years of being thoroughly, hopelessly single. Time to put all that energy into making partner and getting paid."

"Wait, single?" Penny's jaw dropped. "Shut up! I thought you had a serious guy! Every time it pours outside, I swear I’ve seen this sleek black Maybach idling down on the corner waiting for you. I assumed you were dating some private equity titan."

My fingers stalled over the keyboard for half a second. Then I let out a light laugh. "You saw an Uber Black, Penny. Don't romanticize my commute."

The first week after walking out wasn't the agonizing, tear-soaked melodrama I had braced for.

Instead, it felt like an immense weight had lifted from my lungs. I no longer spent my evenings staring at a dark phone screen, wondering when a text might arrive. I didn't spend Sunday afternoons slaving over braised short ribs just to hear him say the reduction was too salty. I didn't have to watch other couples walking hand-in-hand through Central Park while I stood two paces behind him like an embarrassed intern.

I poured every ounce of my reclaimed energy into the firm's flagship project—a multi-million-dollar mixed-use complex along the waterfront. We were one of the premier architecture firms in Manhattan, and the internal competition was bloodthirsty; slip for a week, and someone took your accounts. In the past, I had turned down site visits and late-night design charrettes just to be available whenever Garrett decided to summon me.

Now, there were no leashes.

After four straight days of twelve-hour shifts, our preliminary design package was approved without a single redline from the partners.

That Friday, the project team rented out a private lounge in Soho to celebrate. I wore a crimson silk slip dress, painted my lips deep scarlet, and stood on the leather banquette singing Fleetwood Mac with a gin and tonic in hand.

Sloane snapped a photo of me throwing my head back, laughing under the neon lights, and blasted it straight to her stories:

Celebrating our girl @TessaHayes crushing the firm’s biggest project of the year! Public Service Announcement: She is officially, completely on the market. Form an orderly line, gentlemen.