Hidden Heir, Broken Heart

Officially single

***Brooke Pov***

The divorce certificate arrived that morning. I held it for a long time without reading it properly. I just sat with it in my hands. Feeling the weight of something that should have felt like relief and mostly just felt final.

My girls called that afternoon. Video call, both of them at once, which meant they had already been talking to each other before they brought me in.

"This calls for a celebration," Nicole announced, as if the matter were already settled.

"Nicole -"

"You are officially single, Brooke. We are going out."

Kate backed her up immediately, which was no surprise. The two of them together have never once lost an argument with me.

They reminded me I was leaving Silverbrook. Moving to Emberwood with my parents, starting over, medical school on the horizon. This was the last chance for a proper night out in the city that had shaped the last three years of my life. I owed it to myself, they said. I owed it to them, they said. for sitting through three years of watching me try to make a man love me who had already decided he wouldn't.

I didn't have much of a defense against that.

We got ready at Kate's place that evening. I let them pick my outfit, which I knew going in was a mistake and did it anyway. The red dress was shorter than anything I had worn in years. I stood in front of Kate's mirror and barely recognized myself. Not in a bad way, just in the way of someone who had forgotten, somewhere along the line, what she actually looked like.

"Perfect," Nicole said, with the satisfaction of someone completing a project. "This is going to get attention faster than you think."

"That's what I'm afraid of," I said.

She ignored me completely.

We arrived at the club early and took a table. I nursed my drink and tried to pace myself. While my friends did the opposite and encouraged me to follow their lead.

"Here's to being single again," Kate said, raising her glass.

We clinked and drank. I felt the warmth of it spread through me and told myself one more was fine.

"Now," Nicole said, scanning the room. with the focus of someone conducting a search operation. "We need to find you someone. Young, handsome, no complications. Someone who has nothing to do with your old life."

"Nicole." I warned her.

"I'm serious. You deserve someone fun. Someone who actually wants to be with you." Nicole insisted.

I looked down at my half-empty glass. If I was going to get through this night, I needed to stop thinking so much. I finished what was left in one go, set the glass on the nearest surface, and turned around.

A voice came from just behind me, low and unhurried.

"Hey, beautiful. Mind if I have a dance?"

I turned.

"Hi, Ryan." I laughed despite myself. "Sure."

Nicole appeared at my elbow within seconds. "Hey wait. What happened to finding someone younger? He's hot, I'll give him that, but -"

"He's Nathan's friend," I said.

"Oh, come on -"

"I'm not that old," Ryan said, already steering me toward the dance floor. "And I'm better looking than your ex-husband, so."

"Is that how you justify the playboy lifestyle?" I asked. "Telling yourself you look young?"

"When you don't have much choice," he said. With a grin that didn't quite cover something more honest underneath it. "you settle for what you can get."

I wasn't sure what he meant by that. Before I could ask, we were already moving, and the conversation shifted.

"Now that you're single," he said, "we should go out sometime."

I laughed. "That would be a scandal. Dating my ex-husband's friend."

"Why not, though?" His eyes moved briefly to somewhere across the room. "Nathan has clearly moved on. You should do the same."

I followed his gaze.

Nathan was there. Of course he was. Sitting in a booth with Keren pressed close beside him, her hand wrapped around his. She leaned in toward him like she had been waiting years for the right to do exactly that.

I looked away.

"Eyes on me," Ryan said, not unkindly. "Don't give him the satisfaction of thinking you care."

I exhaled slowly. "I'm working on it."

"Start by getting used to seeing my face." He smiled. "You'll be seeing a lot of it in Emberwood."

I stopped moving. "How do you know about Emberwood?"

"Who do you think recommended your father for the appointment at Emberwood General?" He looked genuinely pleased with himself. "My family has health insurance. I put in a word."

"His family," I remembered. "Of course." I looked at him. "Does Nathan know?"

"That you are moving? No."

"I would like it to stay that way."

Ryan looked at me for a moment. checking whether I meant it, I think. I did.

"Your secret's safe with me," he said.

I nodded and let myself be led back into the music. Away from the booth across the room, away from the man I was trying very hard to stop watching.

****

***Nathan POV***

I heard Ryan before I fully processed what he was looking at.

"Is that... is that Brooke?"

My head turned before I decided to turn it.

She was at the bar. Red dress. Short. I had never seen her wear anything like it. She had always worn longer silhouettes, covered up, understated. This was none of those things. Every curve I had somehow managed not to notice for three years of marriage. Were all suddenly impossible to look away from.

"That is definitely Brooke," Matt confirmed.

"I knew it," Ryan said, with a smirk I wanted to knock off his face. "Hiding it under all those long dresses. I knew she had to be -"

"Don't," I said.

Neither of them heard me, or chose not to.

I gritted my teeth and watched. She was with Kate and Nicole. The three of them standing together, drinks in hand. Nicole already looked like she was planning something.

She was. Within minutes, Nicole had somehow gotten hold of the microphone near the DJ booth.

"Hey, announcement, everyone! Tonight we're here to celebrate my friend, Brooke Turner. She is officially divorced and ready to mingle!"

The club cheered. I watched a handful of men in the immediate vicinity turn and locate her with their eyes. The way men do when a door has been officially announced open.

My jaw tightened. My hand closed into a fist on the table.

Keren shifted beside me and looped her hand through mine.

I barely registered.

Brooke laughed at whatNicole had just done. She shook her head, the way she does when she's pretending to be more exasperated than she actually is. She finished her drink in one go and turned to set the glass down.

Ryan got up from the table.

I watched him cross the room. I watched him say something to her. I watched her laugh and agree and let him take her to the dance floor.

I watched them dance.

Ryan said something to her and her eyes moved. just for a second in our direction. She found Keren first. Then me. Something passed across her face, too quick and too controlled for me to read. Then Ryan said something else and she looked away.

She didn't look back.

I sat with Keren's hand in mine and watched my ex-wife dance with my best friend. I felt something grinding away in my chest that I had absolutely no right to feel.