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Vivien sighed and waved him off. “I’m okay. Really.”

Peter gave her a long look. “Good, because I think your day might be about to get worse. Or better. Not sure yet.”

“What? Why?”

He gestured toward a thick white envelope on the dining room table. “Since Eli was on the phone, I answered the door, and it was a courier. I, uh, think those are from a lawyer.”

Her stomach flipped. “My divorce papers.”

“It’s never easy,” he said softly. “I know.”

“Thank you.” She walked to the table, staring at her name on the front of the package.

She reached for it with slightly shaky hands, sliding her finger under the flap and pulling out the stack of crisp, neatly typed pages.

Ryan had signed everywhere. Every dotted line, every finalization, every piece of their life together.

The only thing missing was her signature.

Peter came closer, watching her carefully. “How do you feel?”

Vivien exhaled, sitting down heavily in a chair. “Like I just lost my marriage and my first big job in the same day.”

“That’s rough, Viv.”

Vivien traced a finger along the edge of the papers. “But also…” She bit her lip, looking up at him. “Like it’s a good thing, a new season, as they say. I didn’t want this, you know. I didn’t ask for a divorce, but now that it’s done, I’m okay with it. Really.”

Peter leaned on the back of the chair across from her. “Then that’s all that matters.”

Vivien took a deep breath. “I’ll sign it later.”

“Hey, Pete, sorry about that.” Eli’s voice came from the back office and in a second, he walked in, dressed like Peter for a workout. “Oh, hi, Viv. What’s that?”

She let the stack of papers hit the table with a thud. “The end of an era, big brother.”

His expression softened and he came right to her, pulling her up and into a hug. “Oh, Viv. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be.” She eased back and smiled at him, then at Peter, knowing she had tears in her eyes but also knowing they understood. “It hurts to fail at something that big, but I know there are good men in this world—great ones, even—like the two in this room.”

They made some kind of self-deprecating joke, but she didn’t hear it. Instead, she took her wine glass and backed away, leaving the stack of papers for later.

“I’m going to go upstairs for a while. I need…space. Thank you both for being so understanding.”

Holding her wine, she slipped her bag on her shoulder and walked up the stairs slowly, her heart heavy.

Just as she got to her room, her phone hummed with a text. Setting down the wine on the dresser, she fished out her phone and frowned at the screen, which said she had a text from an unknown number.

Now what? Could this day get any worse? Bracing, she tapped the screen.

Fiona will re-hire you, but I’d make her work for it if I were you. Oh, the mirror is gorgeous…and so are you.

Oh, my. She certainly wasn’t expectingthat.

Eli walked out from his office on the main floor and froze at the controlled chaos that gripped the Summer House.

How had he not heard this racket? Well, he’d been on a conference call with a headset on for the last two hours going over final drafting changes with a very particular client building an office complex in Savannah.

The lengthy discussions over front elevations melted from his brain as he tried to process this flurry of silk and satin, flowers and music, and many women—some he knew, some he didn’t. They were all buzzing about like honeybees building a comb.