Chapter 44: ~ 43 ~

THEO

The city was pulsing outside my window—cars weaving through the endless lines of traffic, pedestrians rushing like ants beneath the towering steel structures, and streetlights blinking to life one after the other as evening crept over the Vegas skyline. From the twenty-eighth floor of the KAI Headquarters, I could see almost everything. And yet, all I could focus on was the chaos within.

I loosened my tie with one hand, the silk sliding against my fingers like a noose finally giving way. It had been an exhausting week. No, scratch that—it had been a consuming one. KAI Apparel had hit its final week of Q2, and everything was boiling down to this—sales responses, customer feedback, product reception, and whether or not our boldest risks would pay off. We’d launched four new collections across three continents, partnered with influencers whose combined follower counts made my head spin, and spent an uncomfortable amount of money on campaigns that needed to deliver.

And Lucas… was nowhere to be found.

Not that I blamed him. He’d been pulling double shifts between KAI Headquarters and Becker Media for months now. But his absence had left a gap, and I—his best friend, his COO, and ED of KAI, apparently his substitute at board meetings—had stepped in to fill it.

The board had met twice this week, each time dragging the meetings well past scheduled hours. The discussion was always the same: which products were performing, which weren’t, what trends we could capitalize on, and what we should cut entirely.

There was talk of a relaunch, whispers of shifting production to Tokyo, and of course—the dreaded phrase "streamline and restructure." The kind of words that sounded clean on paper but meant long nights, tough calls, and likely layoffs. And yet, despite all the spreadsheets, projections, and heated debates, nothing was finalized. Just postponed. We were reconvening on Monday. One more meeting. One more storm to weather.

And I’d be heading that one too.

With a sigh, I leaned back into my chair, the leather creaking slightly beneath my weight. My gaze drifted—away from the glowing screens and blinking notifications—to the one object on my desk that had managed to haunt me all week.

A photograph.

Framed in matte black, untouched since I set it there three days ago. I hadn’t planned to keep it, but I also couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.

In the photo, Esme was smiling—her signature cat-like smirk that always made you question what she was thinking. Her arms were wrapped around a tall, olive-skinned model whose name I didn’t care to remember. They looked... good together. The kind of good you see in glossy magazines. It was from a photoshoot, yes. But her body language didn’t look posed. It looked real. Comfortable. Intimate in that careless, effortless way.

I should’ve been over it. We’d been broken up for over a year now. I had no right to feel anything about who she was close to or how happy she looked. We were done. We both knew it. Hell, she ended it.

But closure is a myth for some people. For me, it was a luxury I never got.

I picked up the frame, letting my fingers brush over the cool surface of the glass. My jaw tightened, the muscles working in tension I couldn’t quite release. I wasn’t sure what disturbed me more—that she was back in Las Vegas, or that I hadn’t seen it coming.

The moment I got wind of her name floating around again, I’d made a call. A quiet one. A private one.

My private investigator—an old contact from my Stanford days who now ran a boutique agency in San Diego—promised to dig in subtly. No tailing. Just soft intel. Connections. Socials. Patterns. I wasn’t proud of it, but I needed to know. Because something about her return didn’t sit right with me.

Esme wasn’t the kind of woman who circled back without a reason. She was deliberate, calculated, and painfully strategic—even when it came to her feelings. Especially when it came to her feelings. And if she was back in Vegas, flaunting herself through campaigns and getting chummy with new faces, then something was stirring.

And I wasn’t about to be taken by surprise again.

I placed the frame back down, face-down this time, and let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

My phone buzzed somewhere beneath a pile of paper, but I ignored it. The office had emptied hours ago, and all I wanted was silence.

Outside, the city kept moving—unbothered, indifferent, loud.

Inside, I felt like I was standing on the edge of something I couldn’t name.

Something personal.

Something inevitable.

\----

The drive home from work felt unusually still, like the city had decided to hold its breath just for me. Las Vegas was alive as always—neon lights flashing in rhythmic pulses, cars swerving with the chaos of a Friday night, and people moving like they'd just been released into freedom. But inside my car, it was just me, the hum of the engine, and "Be Kind" by Halsey and Marshmello bleeding softly through the speakers.

I didn’t know why that song hit differently tonight. Maybe it was the gentle plea in her voice, or maybe it was just the way the melody folded around the silence in my chest. Either way, I welcomed the quiet ache it stirred. I hadn't let myself feel much lately—had been too caught up in numbers, meetings, press releases, and Esme-shaped distractions. But tonight felt different. Heavier. Calmer. Almost... hopeful.

Strange.

Usually, by now, I’d be slipping into a tailored blazer, heading to one of those velvet-rope lounges with overpriced whiskey and people I had to fake smiles for. But not tonight. I didn’t want loud music or shallow conversations. I didn’t want surface-level laughs or the kind of women who said the right things and meant none of it.

No, tonight I just wanted to go home.

Damn, I needed a break—and not the kind the club could offer. I needed the kind of silence that didn’t echo back with emptiness. The kind that came from being in your own space, barefoot on cold floors, nursing a glass of red wine while something warm simmered on the stove. A good, solid, home-cooked meal. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had one that didn’t come in a takeout box or get served on white china at a table I was paying too much to sit at.

That thought alone made me change direction.

Instead of heading straight home, I took the next exit and drove toward the nearest shopping mall. The strip-mall kind, quiet and well-lit, the type with fewer influencers and more tired mothers and night-shift workers just trying to grab dinner before the aisles closed.

It had been months since I stepped foot in a grocery store. The last time I checked, my fridge had two bottles of still water, an abandoned container of forgotten pasta, and half a lime. My pantry? Looked like the damn Mojave desert. Empty, cracked, and dusty from neglect. Fitting, really.

I pulled into the parking lot, killing the engine. The song faded out just as I stepped out of the car, cool night air greeting me like an old friend I hadn't seen in a while.

I slid my hands into the pockets of my coat, took a breath, and looked up at the lit-up sign above the entrance.

Alright then.

Let the journey begin.