The Billionaire’s Regrets, I Don't Care

Luna's POV The first thing I noticed when I opened the suite door was the white roses. They sat on the marble console table, twenty-four stems wrapped in pale blue paper, their petals still dewy from the hotel florist's cooler. White roses. Her favorite. I stood in the doorway of the Park Hyatt suite, the gift bags in my hands suddenly too heavy, the heels I'd worn for fourteen hours digging into my arches like accusations. I had flown fourteen hours from Los Angeles to New York. I had rehearsed what I would say—Surprise, I'm here, I missed you—until the words felt soft and round in my mouth, like prayers. But no one looked surprised. Mason sat on the cream sofa, his dark head bent over a satin ribbon, long fingers tying a bow with surgical precision. On his lap, our daughter Wendy—all dimples and demands—was pressing a sticker of a golden crown onto the corner of a gift box. They were wrapping a birthday present. Not mine. "Careful, princess," Mason said, his voice low. The kind of voice he never used with me. "The ribbon goes here." Wendy giggled. "Chloe Auntie will love it! She said she wanted a princess crown!" My heart did not break then. It simply... stopped. I must have made a sound, or maybe the door clicked shut behind me, because Mason looked up. Those gray eyes—the ones I had loved since I was sixteen—passed over me like I was furniture. A lamp he had forgotten to turn off. "Luna." Not a question. A statement. What are you doing here? Wendy twisted around. Her blue eyes—Mason's eyes—blinked at me with mild curiosity, as if I were a distant cousin she was forced to greet at Christmas. "Mommy?" she said. Then, with perfect, devastating clarity: "Why are you here? Daddy and I are getting ready for Chloe Auntie's birthday. It's in one week!" One week. Today was not Chloe's birthday. Today was April 25th. Today was my twenty-ninth birthday. I had told him three weeks ago, over the phone, while he was signing documents in the background. Mason, I'm thinking of flying out. It's a special day. He had said, Do what you want, Luna. You always do. I had thought he remembered. I had thought—stupidly, pathetically—that a surprise reunion might thaw the ice between us. That if he saw me standing in front of him instead of existing as a voice on the phone, he might smile. That Wendy might run to me. That for one night, we might feel like a family. "Mommy brought presents," I heard myself say. My voice sounded high and thin, a stranger's voice. I set the bags down. The Cuban cigars Mason liked. The porcelain doll Wendy had circled in a catalog. I had bought them with money from the joint account, money I had never spent on myself because I had been taught that a Sterling wife should be invisible. Wendy glanced at the bags. "Is one for Chloe Auntie?" "No, sweetheart. They're—" "Chloe Auntie likes perfume," Wendy interrupted, turning back to the ribbon. "Daddy bought her perfume already. The kind that smells like flowers." Mason said nothing. He had already returned to the bow, his attention a closed door I had never learned to unlock. I stood in the center of the room, the city's golden afternoon light streaming through the windows, and felt myself shrink. I was twenty-nine years old. I had co-founded a predictive analytics firm at twenty-three. I had written an algorithm that had made Wall Street sit up and take notice. I had been someone, once. Now I was a woman in a dress too elegant for daytime, holding an empty handbag, watching her husband and daughter prepare a birthday party for another woman. "I thought," I said, the words scraping my throat, "we could have dinner. The three of us. I reserved a table at—" "I have a client dinner," Mason said. He didn't look up. "Wendy, you can order room service with Mommy. Or the hotel restaurant." Wendy's lower lip jutted out. "I don't want room service. I want to wait for Daddy and Chloe Auntie. We're having cake!" We. The word was a needle, sliding between my ribs. Mason stood, straightening his cuffs. He was wearing the charcoal Tom Ford suit I had laid out for him before he left LA. I had ironed the shirt myself, my hands smoothing the fabric the way I had once smoothed code—carefully, lovingly, hoping he would notice the lack of wrinkles. He did not kiss my cheek. He did not ask if my flight was long. He walked past me, close enough that I could smell his cologne—sandalwood and something colder—and said, over his shoulder, "Don't let Wendy stay up past eight." Then he was gone. The door clicked shut with a finality that echoed. Wendy was already back on the sofa, humming to herself, arranging the white roses in a vase. She had not hugged me. She had not asked if I was tired. I walked to the window. Forty floors below, Manhattan moved like a living thing, indifferent and bright. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and counted my breaths. One. I was Luna Hartwell. Two. I had built something once. Three. I was still breathing. Four. I looked at the white roses, at the gift bags on the floor, at the reflection of a woman I no longer recognized. Then I picked up my coat, walked out of the suite, and took the elevator down to the lobby. I did not cry. Not yet. But I knew, with a clarity that felt like falling, that I was done waiting for a man who had forgotten I was alive.