“That’s great for you Evan. But what about me? I changed everything to stay here with you and help you grow your business while—I don’t know if you realized this, but I never went back to school.”

“I told you, you should just finish at NYU.”

“It’s not that easy. Courses and credits need to match up. Not that it would matter, because it isn’t like I’d have the time to, with all the business dinners and events we go to outside of working hours.”

“Sweetheart, this is still a great opportunity for you. Look, I love what we have right now, but you’re young—”

“I’m not asking for a ring, Evan. I’m asking for you to tell me what is happening here, am I just filling time for you?”

“Paige.”

“Not the right answer, Evan.” I tossed the towel across the counter and stormed off to our bedroom. Truth was, I had no idea what that blowout was about. I didn’t even picture myself with Evan long term. But the fact that he didn’t have a single grain of concern with regard to me or my life, really pushed me over the edge.

And perhaps it had been bottled up and the kitchen cabinet comment was what set my canon off.

That night, I called Bells and booked a one-way ticket back home.

No job. No place to live. Heck, nothing but a suitcase of clothes, two boxes of shoes, and other stuff I doubted I really needed. Over the past year, Evan had taught me to be a minimalist—like him. He lived by the rule “if you haven’t used it in a year, throw it out.”

I wished I could do that.

But things meant something to me. Everything I owned had a story and anytime I tried to throw it out, that story was what moved it back to the shelf for another day.

Still, I had no idea what I owned anymore. My stuff had been tucked away in his Harry Potter closet—the space under his stairs—as he called it.

I was too busy to care or even to notice what was happening here. I had been living Evan’s life. Not mine.

How could anyone notice or even complain? This life was glorious. The job, the city, the sex, the cocktail hours—I was living the dream, as Bells would put it.

Certainly better than anything Boston had to offer me. My main reason for going back was finishing those two courses I still needed to graduate. That, and I needed old friends to bring me back from wherever the hell I’d gone this past year. Sure, I knew where my body was, but where in God’s name was my mind?

I was better than this—smarter, I had thought, than falling for a cold-hearted control freak like Evan.