After My Fiancé Gave His Intern My Ring

He knocked at eleven-fifteen. I knew it was him before I checked the peephole. I'd changed out of the blue gown and was sitting on my couch in a gray sweater, a glass of water on the table in front of me. I'd been waiting.

I opened the door.

Chase looked like he'd driven through a storm. His tie was loose, his hair not quite right, his eyes red at the edges. He'd been crying, or close to it. He was good at that—getting close to it without quite going over, just enough to look broken without losing control.

"Quinn." His voice cracked on the single syllable. "Please. Just let me talk."

I stepped back and let him in.

He talked for a long time. I sat in the armchair and let him stand, which I think unsettled him. He said Charlie meant nothing. He said he'd lost his way. He said fifteen years had to count for something, that we were built for each other, that this was just a mistake, a stupid mistake, and he would spend the rest of his life making it right. He said the word *destiny* at one point, and I watched his hands shake while he said it.

I didn't interrupt. I let him use everything he had.

When he finally stopped, the room was very quiet.

"Are you done?" I asked.

He blinked. "Quinn—"

"I want you to hear something." I picked up my phone from the arm of the chair and pressed play.

Charlie's voice filled the room. I'd clipped it from a voice memo on the laptop, a recording she'd made herself, probably thinking it was funny. *She's so naive,* she said, her tone warm with amusement. *She's been playing house for fifteen years and she still doesn't see it. He needs someone who actually keeps up with him. She's just—* a small laugh *—past her prime, honestly. It's almost sad.*

I watched Chase's face while she spoke. I watched the color leave it.

I stopped the recording.

"That's the woman who meant nothing," I said.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. His hands dropped to his sides.

I reached into my sweater pocket and took out the ring. The vine pattern caught the lamp light for a second, pretty and useless. Then I threw it at his chest. Not hard. Just enough. It hit him and fell to the floor between us.

"Don't come back," I said. "Not tomorrow. Not ever. We're done, Chase."

He looked at the ring on my floor. Then he looked at me, and I think some part of him finally understood that there was nothing left to charm.

He picked up the ring. He left.

I locked the door, sat back down, and finished my glass of water.

---

Charlie came on a Wednesday, three days later. I saw her on the lobby camera feed—the building had a monitor in the kitchen, a detail she couldn't have known. She was dressed carefully. Soft colors, hair neat, the kind of outfit that said *I'm not a threat* while every line of her posture said otherwise.

I buzzed her up.

She walked in with her chin slightly lifted and her eyes moving around my apartment the way people do when they're cataloguing things. She sat on the edge of my couch and folded her hands in her lap and gave me a look of such practiced sympathy that I almost admired the effort.

"I know this must be so hard," she started.

"Tell me about the pregnancy," I said.

That landed. Just a flicker—a tightening around her eyes—but I caught it.

"I'm about eight weeks," she said, recovering fast. "I didn't want to tell you like this, but you deserve to know the truth. Chase and I—this is real, Quinn. I think deep down you already know that."

"Eight weeks," I repeated. "So conception would be around—" I did the math aloud, slowly, watching her face. "The last week of September."

"Around then, yes."

"Chase was in London for ten days in late September. A conference. I have the hotel receipts because I booked the room." I paused. "Which doctor are you seeing?"

A beat too long. "I haven't—I'm still deciding."

"You're eight weeks pregnant and you haven't seen a doctor yet."

"I've been under a lot of stress—"

"What were your hCG levels at your first test?"

Her composure didn't shatter. It just—thinned. Like paper held up to light.

"I don't have to answer your questions," she said, and the sympathy was gone now, replaced by something brittle and cold.

"No," I agreed. "You don't." I stood up and walked to the door, opening it. "Marcus," I said to the doorman waiting in the hall, "Ms. Porter is leaving."

Charlie stood slowly. She looked at me for a moment like she wanted to say something that would matter, something that would finally crack me open.

She didn't find it.

She walked out. I closed the door behind her.

I stood in the quiet of my apartment for a long moment. Then I went to my bag, pulled out the small sketchbook I hadn't opened in years, and sat down at the kitchen table.

I started to draw.