Camilla’s POV
The stray made it through the night, which meant I got to walk out of my own operating room feeling like a god instead of a failure — a trade I'd take over sleep any day of the week.
"Go home, Doc." Elise leaned against the reception desk, cradling a mug of coffee that had long gone cold, her scrub top wrinkled from the same fourteen hours mine was. "The dog's stable, I've got the kennel, and you have a boyfriend to go celebrate with."
I glanced down at the cake box in my hands, and a smile crept up before I could stop it—chocolate hazelnut from the bakery two blocks over, Ryan's favorite. I'd been there the moment they unlocked the doors this morning. Because today wasn't just any day.
After years of tryouts, short-term spots, and promises that went nowhere, Ryan Lewis finally had a proper contract with a professional hockey team. And as of this morning, he had his first real sponsor, too.
"I didn't even have time to change. I must smell terrible," I said, tugging at the hem of my coat.
"You smell like a woman who stayed up saving a dog and still found time to get her boyfriend a sponsorship deal." Elise rounded the desk to unlock the front door for me. "And I'm telling you, once that first check clears, that man is going to propose. You've been together since college. You put him through every tryout, every training camp. He'd be insane not to."
"Elise."
"I'm just saying I look good in emerald green, in case there's a bridesmaid situation." She held the door, grinning. "Go. Be happy. You've earned it about six times over."
The drive home took twenty minutes, and I spent all of them rehearsing how I'd tell Ryan -- whether I'd lead with the signing bonus or the equipment clause, whether he'd pick me up and spin me around the way he had when the team offer came through.
For once, we could stop worrying about the next month's rent, the next training fee, the next trip that might finally lead somewhere.
Maybe we could even take a weekend away. Somewhere I didn't have to bring my laptop to answer his emails.
Our apartment was in Ryan's name, but I'd been covering most of the bills while he chased a stable place in professional hockey. Lately, between overnight patients and emergency surgeries, I'd spent almost as many nights in the room above the clinic as I had in our bed.
I punched in the passcode. The lock beeped and clicked, familiar as my own name.
I got the door halfway open before I understood what I was looking at.
Ryan stood shirtless in the gray morning light of the living room. His shorts were half down, his cock buried inside another woman -- a woman wearing my nightgown.
The ivory silk one. The one he'd bought me in Montreal.
The cake box slipped from my hands. It landed upside down on the hardwood with a dull, ugly sound, and only then did they notice me.
"Camilla." Ryan pulled away from her, not a flicker of remorse on his face -- just that irritated look, like I'd become an inconvenience. "You could've texted first."
For one stupid second, I waited for him to come toward me.
Instead, he picked up her cardigan from the floor and handed it to her.
"I live here." My eyes burned. "And I pay the rent. I didn't realize I needed an appointment."
The woman laughed, adjusted her hem, and settled onto our couch as if I were the one interrupting. Her carefully highlighted hair and manicured nails stood out in sharp relief, the kind of nails I hadn't bothered with since vet school, and she barely glanced my way.
"Okay, listen." Ryan raked a hand through his hair. "This was going to happen eventually, so let's just be adults about it. You and me -- we've been over for a while, Camilla. You just didn't want to see it."
"Over." The word tasted like rust. "Were we over when you asked me to finish negotiating your sponsorship last week?"
"See, that's the thing." He finally faced me. "You keep talking like you built my career. The team signed me, Camilla. My stats, my tape, my name. A few emails don't make you responsible for everything I've earned."
"A few emails?"
"Nobody asked about my girlfriend, the veterinarian."
His gaze dragged over me—the wrinkled coat, the sneaker with the bleach stain on the toe—and his mouth curled into something close to a sneer.
"Look at you. You showed up here smelling like kennel disinfectant and actually thought you could be a pro athlete's wife?"
I slapped him.
The crack filled the apartment, and for one second his expression changed into something ugly enough to make me step back. Then he laughed.
He went into the bedroom and came back dragging my suitcase, a sleeve caught in the zipper. He threw it at my feet hard enough that it bounced.
"Take your stuff and get out. Should've done this months ago."
He pulled his wallet off the counter, thumbed out a handful of bills, and tossed them at me. They fluttered over the ruined cake.
"For the rent. Since you're clearly going to be dramatic about money."
It wouldn't have covered a week of what I'd paid for us.
The woman on the couch lifted her phone, angling the screen toward her face. Taking a selfie, or pretending to. I couldn't tell, and suddenly I couldn't bear to find out.
Seven years. I'd loved him since I was nineteen, and now he was standing in our living room, waiting to watch me fall apart.
I bent down and tucked the sleeve inside my suitcase. My fingers fumbled with the zipper twice before I got it closed.
I didn't pick up the money. I picked up the suitcase because it was mine, and it was a good one. Then I walked out as I slammed the door.
I wouldn't let that bastard see my tears.
*
Elise took one look at my face when I came through the clinic door.
"Doc?"
"I need a minute."
She glanced at the suitcase, then back at me. Whatever she'd been about to ask, she swallowed it.
"I'll be out front."
I made it to my office, closed the door, and sat down at my late grandfather's desk.
Then I cried.
I don't know how long I stayed like that. Eventually I washed my face at the break room sink, made a cup of tea I never drank, and opened my laptop.
Ryan had been good enough to keep chasing hockey. A place on a roster here, a promising tryout there, always something close enough to make the next expense seem worth it.
But his family couldn't afford to keep him going, and he couldn't afford a proper agent. So somewhere along the way, every detail that wasn't actually playing had become mine.
The emails. The travel arrangements. The forms he left unopened because he'd read them after practice.
For three years, minus the title and the paycheck, I'd been his agent.
I'd told myself we were building something together. Apparently, he'd only meant his career.
I opened a new email and informed the sponsor's office that I would no longer be representing Ryan or handling his correspondence. I copied him in, supplied his contact details, and forwarded the outstanding requests.
His sponsorship was still his. So was the team contract.
From now on, the work attached to them could be his, too.
Then I canceled the standing transfer for next month's rent.
Within the hour, my phone lit up.
RYAN: Why is the sponsor emailing me?
A second message followed before I could put the phone down.
RYAN: They need the tax form and the appearance dates. You were supposed to handle this.
I looked at the screen, then at the email I'd sent him with both items clearly listed.
RYAN: Camilla. Don't be childish. Finish what you started.
For a moment, my thumb hovered over the keyboard. I knew where he'd saved the form. I knew which dates conflicted with training. It would have taken me five minutes.
I put the phone face down.
It rang. Then came a voicemail, followed by more messages.
RYAN: So this is how you're going to act?
RYAN: You send a few emails and suddenly you think you're some big-shot agent?
RYAN: You're nothing without me. Give it six months, and you and that dump of a clinic will be bankrupt.
I read that last message twice.
CAMILLA: Then you shouldn't need me to answer your emails.
I blocked him before he could reply. His number, his email, all of it -- seven years ending in a few taps of little gray buttons.
My hand stayed wrapped around the phone for a while afterward, waiting for it to ring again.
When the screen finally lit up, I flinched.
An email notification.
I recognized the logo before I read the subject line.
Ms. Donovan:
On behalf of the Lockwood Group, please find attached our final revised offer for the parcel at 4 Hartwell Road, including the Donovan Animal Hospital building.
The offer stands at 40% above appraised value and remains valid through the end of the quarter. Please note that the proposed acquisition requires vacant possession of the premises.
We urge you to consider it seriously.
Lockwood Development Group, Acquisitions.
It wasn't the first time they'd come knocking.
The neighborhood had become prime real estate once the new development project was announced, and my grandfather's clinic happened to sit on a plot they wanted badly enough to keep raising the price.
Ryan had told me more than once to take the money.
With that kind of cash, he'd said, we could finally stop scraping by. He could afford better training, a real agent, everything he'd needed for so long.
I'd asked him where the clinic fit into that plan.
He'd said I could open another one.
As if all I needed were four walls and a sign.
I looked around my office -- at my grandfather's desk, at his framed license hanging beside mine, at the patch of wall where he'd marked my height in pencil and refused to let anyone paint over it.
Upstairs was the room he'd given me when I was fifteen. My spare clothes were still in the dresser. There was a chipped blue mug by the bed, and a window that stuck every summer no matter how many times we fixed it.
I'd walked out of one home this morning.
I wasn't selling the other.
From the kennel came a small, indignant bark. Our newest stray was awake and apparently unimpressed with the service.
I wiped beneath my eyes with the heel of my hand, then put my fingers on the keyboard.
CAMILLA: Not selling. Never ever.
I hit send.
