Claimed for one last night

Chapter 3

Amelia POV

After he leaves, I walk to my window and look out at the park below. The one thing I actually love about this office is the view. Everything down there is symmetrical and ordered. The trees know their place. The benches sit where they've always sat. There's an old man reading a newspaper on one of them, and I wonder if he knows what it's like to want someone so badly that it rewrites the architecture of your entire life.

I'm redoing my ponytail when my phone buzzes with a message from my friend Chloe. It's a screenshot from one of those celebrity gossip websites, and it takes my brain a full three seconds to process what I'm seeing.

APP MOGUL AND PLAYBOY RETURNS TO AUSTRALIA FOR BROTHER'S WEDDING

Ethan Blackwood is touching down in Sydney next week.

My heart stops. Literally stops beating for what feels like an eternity but is probably just a couple of seconds.

He's coming back.

°°°°°°°

Saturday morning at my mother's house is both a blessing and a curse. Olivia is already ranting about her boyfriend before I've even finished my coffee, and Mum is doing her thing where she pretends to listen while actually thinking about something else entirely.

"He's such a dickhead," Olivia is saying, stabbing her fork into her scrambled eggs with more force than strictly necessary. "And the worst part is, I knew it. I knew it from the beginning, and I ignored every red flag because he had a nice smile and decent arms."

"Sounds familiar," I mutter, which earns me a look from Olivia that's sharp enough to draw blood.

"That's different," she snaps. "I'm talking about my boyfriend, not some ghost from your past."

Except he's not a ghost anymore, is he? That's the whole problem. That's why my hands are shaking and why I've been staring at the same email for the past hour without actually reading it.

Mum changes the subject by mentioning the wedding, which somehow makes everything worse. She's pulling out her phone to show us pictures of her dress—a plum-colored number that probably costs more than I spend on groceries in a month—when Olivia suddenly sits up straight.

"Oh my god," she breathes, and I know from the tone of her voice that whatever she's about to say is going to be important. Or bad. Possibly both. "Holy f*****g shit."

"Language," Mum says mildly, but she's not really paying attention.

Olivia is reading from her phone, and her voice has taken on that particular cadence that means she's sharing gossip. "It says here that Ethan Blackwood, the app mogul—oh my god, he's literally a billionaire now—is returning to Australia for his brother's wedding and staying for three months. He has a PA and a bodyguard now. He apparently travels with an entourage."

My coffee cup stops halfway to my lips.

"An entourage?" Mum looks genuinely puzzled by this development. "Like security?"

"I guess so," Olivia shrugs, but her eyes are bright with excitement. "He's apparently quite the catch. The article is basically drooling all over him."

I watch my hand set down the coffee cup with a precision that suggests I'm operating it remotely. My voice, when I speak, sounds distant and measured. "Is he seeing anyone?"

Olivia looks at me like I've suddenly grown a second head. "Why? Are you interested? Because I thought you hated rich assholes."

"I don't hate anyone," I say carefully. "I was just curious."

Mum answers before Olivia can push further. "According to his mother, there's no one serious. Just the usual parade of models and actresses."

Of course there is. Of course he's been out there collecting the kind of women who look like they belong in magazines while I've been here, stagnant and stuck in a loop of memory and regret.

The anger hits me then, swift and brutal. Not at him exactly, but at the unfairness of it all. He got to leave. He got to become someone important and wealthy and powerful. He got to move on. And I got stuck here, replaying a fourteen-day period of my life over and over again like it was the only thing that ever mattered.

Well, if he can become someone new, then so can I.

The plan forms so completely and so suddenly that I'm almost stunned by the clarity of it. I'm going to be at this wedding. I'm going to look like a woman worth remembering. And when he sees me, he's going to want me so badly that it hurts.

And then I'm going to break his heart the way he broke mine, even if he doesn't actually know he did it.

It's not a healthy plan. I know this from a clinical perspective, sitting as I do with dozens of clients who've been destroyed by revenge fantasies that never actually deliver the catharsis they promise.

But knowing something intellectually and believing it emotionally are two different things.

"What dress are you wearing to the wedding?" I ask Olivia.

"White," she answers. "I want to look hot. Plus, Ethan might be bringing some hot guys from LA."

"You can't wear white," I say flatly.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I'm wearing white," I lie smoothly. "And I want to be the most memorable woman at that wedding."

My mother and sister exchange a look—the kind of look that suggests I've just said something slightly unhinged. They're probably right.

But for the first time in seven and a half years, I feel like I'm actually taking control of something. For the first time, I'm not waiting for him to choose me. I'm choosing to make him want me so badly that his world tilts on its axis.

It's a terrible plan. It's the kind of plan that psychologists write papers about when it inevitably implodes.

But as I smile and drink my coffee and listen to my sister complain about her boyfriend, I already know I'm going to go through with it.

He's coming back. Which means the girl he knew is about to become someone else entirely.

And this time, when everything ends, it won't be because of anything I did wrong.

It will be because I finally decided that I was worth leaving myself.