LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      KAYLEIGH RENSHAW’S PEN wavered as she crossed out the last two items on her to-do list: return engagement ring; quit job.

      She dropped the pen and shivered, pulling her cardigan tight. These were the first steps toward her new life. She should feel good. Confident. Certain.

      Her head dropped to her desk blotter. Oh, who was she kidding? She didn’t know how to go forward, and she couldn’t go back. Or wouldn’t. Not after what she’d seen. Her fingertips pressed against her eyelids as if to blot out last night’s image. How could Brett deceive her that way?

      Was she doing the right thing? She peered up at a family picture taken the summer before her parents divorced. Her older brother, Chris, smiled back at her from the photo, and tears blurred her vision. She straightened trembling shoulders. He wouldn’t have wanted her to be weak, even if last night had shattered her.

      While Chris had cannonballed into the deep end of life, she’d always stuck to the shallow end, where her feet touched solid ground. Now she’d been tossed into untested waters, and she floundered off balance, expecting to sink at any moment.

      A light knock sounded on her office door, and she pushed a snarled curl behind her ear before dabbing at last night’s mascara. “Come in!”

      The door swung open, and her coworker and roommate, Gianna, peered around the edge. Her concerned face brought a stinging rush to Kayleigh’s eyes, and her nose burned. She waved Gianna inside and uncapped her water bottle. The long swallow did little to banish the dryness in her tight throat.

      “Is it true?” Gianna threw her long coltish shape into a desk chair and leaned forward, her brown eyes searching Kayleigh’s. “About you and Brett?”

      “How did you hear?” Despair swept through her. Kayleigh had just left her boss and fiancé’s vacant office. How could word have gotten out so quickly? She touched the empty space on her left ring finger, her stomach knotting.

      “Pam. She found your resignation letter and ring.” Gianna nudged the tissue box closer. “The whole department is talking about it.”

      A groan escaped her that Brett’s assistant had found the envelope. Now everyone would pity the woman whose life had imploded. “I marked the envelope private.”

      Gianna squeezed Kayleigh’s hand. “Sweetie, in Pam-speak, private means open. You know that.”

      Kayleigh kicked off her heels and hugged a knee to her chest, cursing herself for not thinking about that. But then, she hadn’t been thinking clearly. “I should have put it inside his desk...and padlocked it.” Gianna’s bark of laughter bolstered her. “Guess twenty-four hours without sleep plus jet lag makes you forgetful.”

      Gianna’s razor-edged bob swung as she leaned closer and rested her elbows on top of Kayleigh’s desk—former desk, as her resignation was effective immediately. She gazed across the tastefully decorated room at the framed print of an Impressionist painting, its blurred strokes no longer coming into focus. None of this belonged to her anymore. It was the ghost of her former existence.

      “Weren’t you supposed to fly back today?” Gianna glanced at Kayleigh’s desk calendar. “I wasn’t expecting you last night, or I would have guessed something was wrong when you didn’t show up at the apartment.”

      Kayleigh nodded and cleared her throat. “I left the conference early. Thought I’d surprise Brett on our anniversary. Except I—I spent the night at an uptown coffee shop instead.” She’d sat beside a window crying as she’d downed five mocha lattes and a bag of chocolate espresso beans, vacillating among disbelief, hurt and fury. Now her insides were a scalding blend of all three.

      “You should have come home to Brooklyn.” Gianna’s eyebrows came together. “We could have talked.”

      “I didn’t want to wake you, and I needed time to think.” She had the rushing feeling of a rapidly descending elevator. How could she have been wrong about Brett? It made her question everything, including herself and her judgment. After a childhood full of hurtful secrets, she should have suspected her “perfect” relationship was too good to be true.

      “I would have wanted you to get me up.” Gianna’s hand tightened around hers. “What happened?”

      Kayleigh nodded. “I went to Brett’s when I got in last night. Only—” Her voice broke, and Gianna’s thumb rubbed across her knuckles.

      She’d heard the romantic music and the squealing feminine laughter even before he’d opened the door shirtless.

      “I found him with someone else.” Saying it out loud made it real, the words piercing her like shrapnel.

      Gianna’s olive-toned skin paled. “Who?”

      “Melinda Johnson.” Kayleigh willed the moisture in her eyes to dry up. Brett didn’t deserve any more of her tears.

      “He put her in charge of developing your new software app while you were away,” Gianna breathed. “You’re sure they weren’t working?”

      “She was snuggled under a blanket on his sectional. No, it was pretty obvious they hadn’t been working.” The leftover catered dinner on the table, the lipstick on Brett’s cheek, the nearly finished wine bottle and empty glasses on the coffee table and the guilt on Brett’s face when he’d looked from her to Melinda...all details that she’d absorbed in the moment it took her life to disintegrate before her eyes.

      Kayleigh sagged against her chair while Gianna cursed.

      “I’m so sorry, Kay. No wonder he gave her your title as team manager.”

      The double betrayal was an arrow shot point-blank at her heart. Once again, she’d been sidelined and overlooked, trusting Brett that her time would come if she was patient.

      Gianna’s long nails drummed. “You should say something, Kay. Complain to his boss, Mr. Green.” Her face fell. “Oh, wait. That’s his uncle, isn’t it?”

      “Yes. Plus, Brett will just claim that I’m a woman scorned.” A paperweight from Niagara Falls caught Kayleigh’s eye, and she clenched her hands to keep from throwing it. Brett had proposed to her there. Had he wanted a spouse or a guaranteed business minion? She dropped the trinket in the trash and it landed with a satisfying thud.

      “None of it matters anymore anyway,” Kayleigh muttered as she carefully placed her family picture in her briefcase. Brett had broken her heart and his word. She wouldn’t keep working at Genesis Software Innovations, regardless. “I’ll contact a headhunter. Get another job.” She thought of the financial help she’d been giving Chris’s wife, Beth, and their two sons since his death in Afghanistan. For their sakes, as well as hers, she needed to find another position. Quickly.

      Gianna strode around the desk, pulled Kayleigh to her feet and hugged her. “We’ll work this out. I want the best for you.”

      “Exactly,” said a deep voice from her doorway, making them both jump. “Maybe Gianna will talk some sense into you, Kayleigh. Stop you from making a rash decision.” Brett filled the doorway in a tailored gray suit with tiny pinstripes, his green satin tie and matching pocket handkerchief making him look slick. Kayleigh gave herself a mental kick for not seeing through his phony charm before.

      He

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