Shattered Glass, Gilded Heart

"You'll spend your whole life flipping pans in a back kitchen. How are you going to support me?" Those were the exact words I used when I dumped him years ago.

Now, I stood in the middle of this packed restaurant, my fingernails digging into my palms as I crushed the receipt, desperately searching for someone to take my money. "Waitress, check!" a customer at the next table shouted at me.

Heat rushed to my neck. I shook my head and took a quick step back. The customer burst into a loud, obnoxious laugh. "Oh, my bad!

You must be the boss's wife!" The heavy front doors of the restaurant swung open. The actual boss walked in. Griffin. My exboyfriend.

His dark eyes cut through the crowded room and pinned me right where I stood. He crushed the cigarette from his fingertips against the polished wood of the bar.

He closed the distance between us, stepping so close the air vanished from my lungs.

A cold, hard sneer pulled at his lips. "Look closely," he said, his voice cutting through the noise. "I could never reach high enough for a pampered princess like her." The entire room erupted in cheers and laughter, eating up the boss's little joke.

I jerked back. The blood in my veins turned to ice. The memory of him breaking down, begging me not to leave him, slammed straight into my chest like a physical blow.

Chapter 1 After finishing my meal alone at the packed restaurant, I scanned the room for a waiter to grab the check.

Instead, customers from several passing tables kept waving me down, mistaking me for the staff. I forced a polite smile, shaking my head to correct them.

The crowd quickly pivoted, teasingly calling me the "boss's wife." Heat flooded my cheeks. Panic spiked in my chest as I waved my hands frantically to deny it.

The heavy front doors swung open. Griffin walked in. He crushed the cigarette from his fingertips against the polished wood of the bar.

He closed the distance between us, stepping so close the air vanished from my lungs.

A cold, hard sneer pulled at his lips. "Look closely," he said, his voice cutting through the noise. "I could never reach high enough for a pampered princess like her." The customers erupted into laughter, taking it as a joke. "Come on, boss!

You've got that badboy charm, and she's stunning. You two look perfect together!" I took a sharp step back. The air in my lungs turned to glass. The owner of this place was him.

Griffin. My ex. The memory hit me like a physical blow. Years ago, with a raging fever and bloodshot eyes, he had begged me not to leave him. What did I say to him?

Right. "You'll spend your whole life flipping pans in a back kitchen. How are you going to support me?" I never expected him to be the owner of this upscale restaurant chain.

Word around town was that this brand had dozens of wildly successful locations nationwide. His net worth had to be in the tens of millions by now.

A bitter, selfdeprecating laugh caught in my throat. It was the ultimate ironic twist. The guy I had callously thrown away was now a billionaire I couldn't even touch.

A young girl stepped out from the back kitchen and leaned over the host stand. "Hey! We're celebrating our grand opening.

If you tag our restaurant on your social media, you can pull from our raffle box. You could win up to sixty percent off your meal!" My mortgage was due next week.

The recent renovations for my dance studio had drained almost every penny I had left. I gripped my phone tight and opened my mouth to say yes.

Griffin leaned against the counter, his gaze sweeping over me with chilling indifference. "Stop wasting the rich princess's time with cheap raffle tickets." The girl shot Griffin a fierce glare, unfazed by him. "Griffin, if you don't know how to speak to people, just shut your mouth!" I swallowed the thick lump in my throat.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I tapped my phone screen a few times, shared the post, and held it up for the girl to see. "Can I draw now?" A flicker of surprise cracked through Griffin's cold mask.

He didn't know the reality of my life. He didn't know I had spent every waking hour in college working deadend jobs just to cover tuition and groceries.

He didn't know about the night my landlord jacked up the rent and kicked me to the curb at 2 AM, tossing my cheap suitcases onto the wet pavement.

Or the times I lay shivering with a fever, too terrified of the emergency room bills to seek help, surviving solely on tap water and overthecounter painkillers.

When I first launched my dance studio, my bank account was a running joke. I lived on plain boiled noodles for months because instant ramen felt like a luxury.

When you've dragged yourself through that kind of grinding poverty, pride is just a useless luxury. Cash is the only thing that keeps you breathing. The girl beamed at me.

Her smile was bright, uncomplicated, and effortlessly sweet—exactly the kind of girl Griffin had always gravitated toward. "You're all set!

Stick your hand in the box and pull a ticket!" I pulled out a folded slip of paper and handed it over. She unfolded it, her jaw dropping. "Oh my god, it's the Supreme Black Card!

Not only is this meal completely on the house, but you eat for free at any of our restaurants for the rest of your life!" Genuine relief washed over me.

I couldn't help the small smile that broke across my face. "You know what, gorgeous?" the girl said, leaning closer. "Let's just comp the meal right now.

But you have to give me your Instagram handle." I blinked, thrown off guard. Chapter 2 "Your dance studio is just thirty feet across the street, right?

I've seen you dancing through the window a bunch of times. You look absolutely ethereal!

Oh my god, you're so gorgeous, let's be besties!" I have never been good at handling this kind of overwhelming, goldenretriever energy. "Okay, okay," I laughed, gently patting her arm. "But you really don't have to comp the meal.

The discount is already more than enough." When she added me on Instagram, her bio read: Poppy's Lucky Day. So her name was Poppy.

After paying the tip and pushing through the heavy glass doors, the sound of Poppy laughing and scolding Griffin drifted out behind me. My boots froze on the pavement.

Every instinct screamed at me to turn around and look, but I kept my spine rigid. I could not look. If I did, the burning behind my eyes would spill over.

If I looked, the dangerous, suffocating whatifs would drag me under. What if that nightmare years ago had never happened?

Would I be the one standing behind that counter with him right now? Even if we were dead broke, scraping by to keep a tiny diner afloat, wouldn't it have been enough?

Today was my birthday. The new clothes, the absurdly expensive steak dinner I just had, it was all a pathetic attempt at celebrating myself.

The first time anyone actually celebrated my birthday was when I turned twenty. Griffin did it.

He tracked down a culinary student on campus and spent days covered in flour, obsessively learning how to bake a red velvet cake from scratch.

He was the one who taught me that even when you are entirely alone in the world, you still have to light a candle. You still have to show up for yourself.

He promised he would bake my cake every single year for the rest of my life. The second I stepped foot on a college campus, my mother cut off every cent.

I survived by juggling three parttime jobs, practically sprinting between shifts just to make rent. Everyone on campus knew me as the girl who never slept.

Griffin was in an even deeper hole. His parents were gone, and he was the sole provider for his little sister in high school.

He hustled harder than anyone I had ever met, bouncing from one grueling kitchen shift to another. Fate had a funny way of throwing us together.

We kept ending up at the same miserable minimumwage jobs. Latenight shifts turned into shared coffees, exhaustion turned into comfort, and eventually, we fell into each other.

We were chronically exhausted and broke, but looking back, those were the only memories in my life that did not taste like ash. "Did you hear?

The untouchable ice queen of the dance department is hooking up with some culinary school loser." "You're kidding. He's gotta be a trust fund baby playing poor, right?" "Nope.

I heard he's an orphan with a teenage sister dragging him down." "With a face like hers, she could bag a literal millionaire.

Why is she slumming it with a guy who smells like deepfryer grease?" "I don't get it! Does she think she's Mother Teresa coming down to earth to do charity work?

Hahaha…" I heard every single whisper back then. I just didn't care. I was naive enough to believe that as long as we had each other, the rest of the world could burn.

But then, we broke up. And every year since, I kept his promise. I celebrated my birthday. I tried to show up for myself.

I just never bought a cake. "Sloane." The low, gravelly voice sent a violent shockwave down my spine. Griffin. I snapped my head around.

My palms grew clammy. "Wh—what is it?" His dark, unfathomable eyes locked onto mine, tracking every flinch. "Why are you so tense?" I swallowed hard, my voice betraying me. "I… I'm not." He stepped closer, holding out his hand. "Your keys." My silver studio keys dangled from his long fingers.

I snatched them back, careful not to let our skin brush. The sharp sting of reality clawed at my throat.

I mumbled a quiet thank you, spun on my heel, and practically sprinted down the sidewalk. Chapter 3 "Hold on." He called out, stopping my pathetic retreat dead in its tracks.

My jaw tightened. What kind of sick game was he playing?

Why couldn't he just spit it out all at once? "Happy birthday." I was halfway through an annoyed pivot when those two quiet words slammed into me.

A sharp burn flared at the back of my throat. I gave a stiff nod. Not trusting my voice, I spun around and practically ran down the street.

If I opened my mouth, the raw, pathetic crack in my voice would give everything away. I made it all the way to the streetlamp outside my apartment building before my knees gave out.

I slid down the cold metal pole. I clamped both hands over my mouth to muffle the ugly, broken gasps tearing up my throat.

Hot moisture spilled over my knuckles, dripping onto the concrete. The elevator in my building was out of service.

Clutching a heavy cardboard box overflowing with groceries, I had no choice but to face the stairwell. The cardboard bit into my forearms.

My boots dragged against the concrete steps. I barely made it to the fourthfloor landing when familiar laughter echoed up the stairwell behind me. "Oh my god, Sloane?

You live here too?" Poppy. And Griffin. Griffin crushed his cigarette against the railing with one hand. He closed the distance between us in a single stride.

Without asking, he ripped the heavy box straight out of my arms. The fabric of his shirt stretched tight over his flexing biceps. "Move.

I'll carry it." "Just let him do the heavy lifting, Sloane!" Poppy chimed in. I shifted my weight, suddenly hyperaware of the empty space where the box had been. "Alright.

Thank you." When he snatched the box, his knuckles brushed the bare skin of my wrist. The sudden, scorching heat of his touch sent a sharp jolt straight up my arm.

Poppy was still taking classes at the local university. They had just moved into the building to be closer to the new restaurant. Right below me.

I was on the eighth floor; they were on the seventh. They were living together. Moving in together. The reality of their relationship was a solid, indisputable wall.

That glaring truth took whatever pathetic, lingering delusions I had left and ground them into dust. We finally reached my apartment.

Poppy spun around my living room, her eyes wide. "Sloane, your place is gorgeous! This is exactly the kind of aesthetic I want. Do you rent or own?" "I bought it.

Still drowning in mortgage payments, but it's mine," I said. "You're welcome to come hang out whenever." A flicker of surprise broke through Griffin's guarded expression.

Scraping together the down payment had nearly broken me. Every month was a brutal balancing act of budgeting just to keep the bank off my back. But I signed the papers anyway.

My studio manager had thought I was insane. When she asked why I was doing it, I just shrugged. "I'm tired of landlords jacking up the rent.

I'm tired of packing my life into trash bags in the middle of the night." She had nodded slowly, buying the excuse. I just gave her a tight smile. The real reason was pathetic.

I had no home. I had no family to give me one. So, I had to buy four walls and a roof and forcefully build one for myself.

Standing in front of my open fridge, I grabbed a carton of orange juice. Poppy's Instagram handle was Poppy's Lucky Day.

I actually liked her, so I decided to use the nickname. "Hey, Poppy…" Before I could finish my sentence, two voices answered at the exact same time. "Yeah, Sloane?" Poppy chirped. "Yeah?" Griffin answered instinctively, his deep voice overlapping hers.

His head snapped up, his dark eyes locking onto mine with a sudden, suffocating intensity. My fingers froze tight around the juice carton. My blood stopped pumping.

It hit me like a freight train. Back in college, when we couldn't keep our hands off each other, my favorite, disgustingly sweet pet name for him in bed was Papi.

Chapter 4 I stood on the sunlit campus steps, cupping my hands around my mouth, grinning from ear to ear. "Papi, Papi!" Sunlight caught the shattered gold in his eyes.

Those dark eyes always held a wicked, teasing smirk when they looked at me, making my pulse race. "I'm right here," his low voice rumbled. "I'll always be here." The memory shattered.

Poppy blinked in confusion, her eyes darting to Griffin. "Did you just…" "You misheard." Griffin's expression was a mask of cold, unbreakable granite.

Poppy secondguessed herself. "Oh, alright.

I guess I heard wrong." Later that day, right after I locked up the studio and waved goodbye to my last dance class, my phone screen lit up with my mother's caller ID. "Sloane, help!" she screamed into the receiver, her voice shrill with raw panic. "Please, you have to come!

The Summer Lounge, VIP Room 207… stay away from me! Ah—!" The piercing shriek cut off, leaving a dead dial tone echoing in my ear. My pulse hammered against my ribs.

Without thinking, I bolted for my car. I burst through the heavy doors of Room 207. Strobe lights sliced through the thick haze of cigar smoke.

Men and women were draped over leather sofas, laughing and passing bottles, but my mother was nowhere in sight. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I forced my breathing to stay even, taking a slow step backward. My shoulders hit solid oak. The heavy door clicked shut behind me.

Fingers tipped with acrylic nails bit into my bicep. A woman with too much eyeliner dragged me forward, shoving me directly into the path of an older, heavyset man.

In my blind rush to get here, I hadn't bothered to change out of my practice clothes. My thin, salsadancing skirt clung to my thighs.

The man's greasy, predatory gaze crawled up my bare legs, inch by agonizing inch. "A dancer's body is absolute perfection," he purred. "Your mother already collected the hundredthousanddollar deposit from me.

You couldn't fly out of this room tonight even if you had wings." The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Acid burned the back of my throat.

I dug my fingernails so hard into my palms that the skin nearly split, forcing the tremors out of my hands.

I plastered on a fake, compliant smile. "My mother gave me the rundown before I got here. I know how this works.

You don't have to worry." Clifford's thick neck jiggled as he laughed. He blew a cloud of cheap cigar smoke directly into my face. "Like mother, like daughter.

If she already gave you the talk, that makes my night a hell of a lot easier.

You keep me entertained, and I'll make sure you live a much softer life than she ever did." Bile surged up my throat.

Every muscle in my body screamed to run, but I kept the desperate, sicklysweet smile glued to my face. "Clifford," I cooed, dropping my voice. "Let me just slip into the bathroom for a few minutes.

I need to get… properly ready for you." He nodded, but snapped his fingers at the woman with the heavy eyeliner to shadow me.

I had no choice but to duck into the stall and lock the door. I yanked out my phone and dialed. The second it connected, my voice dropped into an icy hiss. "Where the hell are you?

What did you do?" "I see you've met Clifford," my mother sneered through the speaker. "Just keep him happy.

Play your cards right, and maybe he'll marry you and let you play rich housewife. I've left you to rot out there for two years.

It's time you wised up and actually made yourself useful!" Before I could even open my mouth to beg her—to plead for whatever microscopic shred of maternal instinct she had left—the line went dead.

The phone slipped from my sweaty grip. Cold sweat beaded at my hairline.

My blood roared in my ears. "Hey!" the woman banged her fist against the bathroom stall door. "Are you done in there?

Come out now, or I'm dragging you out by your hair!" I scanned the tiny, claustrophobic box of a bathroom. No windows. No vents.

There was only one way out, and I had to fight for it. "I'm coming out right now!" Chapter 5 The woman with the heavy eyeliner was squinting through a cloud of smoke.

I kept my head down, trying to slip past her blind spot. I barely made it two steps before her gaze locked onto me. My pulse spiked. I broke into a desperate sprint.

A fist clamped around a fistful of my hair, jerking my head back so hard my vision blurred. Her other hand hooked the neckline of my dress, tearing the fabric down my shoulder.

I flailed, trying to cover my exposed skin, but she yanked hard, throwing me to the hard tile floor. The commotion drew Clifford out of the room. The cold tile bit into my knees.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my nails digging into the floor. A dozen desperate, lethal scenarios flashed behind my eyelids. A deafening crash shattered the noise.

The heavy oak door of the VIP room was kicked off its hinges. Griffin filled the doorway, radiating a terrifying, lethal energy.

His dark eyes locked onto me on the floor, and his voice turned to ice. "Take your filthy hands off her.

Do you have a death wish?" A squad of muscular security guards flooded the room in seconds, tackling Clifford to the ground and pinning him hard against the floor.

Griffin shrugged off his customtailored suit jacket. He dropped to his knees, wrapping the heavy, warm fabric tight around my shivering shoulders, shielding me from view.

Clifford strained against the guards, sputtering. "Oh, it's Boss Griffin! What, you got your eye on this piece too? She's all yours!" Griffin didn't even blink.

He just stared down at the squirming man with eyes like black ice. I buried my face into the lapel of Griffin's jacket, the faint scent of tobacco filling my lungs.

My most pathetic, humiliating moment, and he was the one pulling me out of the wreckage. Turns out, he owned this club, too.

Later, in the parking garage, I reached for the handle of his passenger door.

Griffin's voice cut through the damp air, devoid of emotion. "Get in the back." My hand froze on the metal.

I swallowed the sharp ache in my throat, quietly shutting the front door and sliding into the backseat. Of course.

The passenger seat was reserved for the woman who actually shared his life. Griffin escorted me all the way up to my floor in silence.

I fumbled with my keys, pushing the door open, my tongue heavy. I turned around to ask if he wanted to come in. He was already stepping into the elevator, not looking back.

The metal doors slid shut. Through the narrowing gap, I saw him clamp a cigarette between his teeth and flick a lighter. Maybe he felt my gaze.

He lifted his heavy eyelids, his eyes locking onto mine with chilling indifference right before the doors sealed shut, cutting us off.

After that night, Poppy started practically living at my place.

Whenever she wasn't in class, she was either lounging on my couch or sitting crosslegged at the studio, watching me run choreography.

I had a sneaking suspicion Griffin had ordered her to keep an eye on me. One afternoon, after dragging me through a marathon shopping trip, Poppy called Griffin to pick us up.

When his sleek SUV pulled up, I automatically opened the back door and slid in. A second later, Poppy threw open the opposite back door and plopped down right next to me.

I stared at her, completely thrown. Why wasn't she up front with her boyfriend? "Sloane, what's wrong?" she asked, tilting her head.

I snapped out of it, forcing a small smile. "Nothing.

Just zoned out for a second." Griffin dropped us off and immediately headed back to the restaurant; he had interviews lined up for a new general manager.

Poppy and I sprawled on my living room rug, nursing glasses of sweet wine.

The alcohol buzzed warmly in my veins. "Sloane, I've got a confession," Poppy mumbled, swirling her glass. "When I asked for your Instagram that first day… part of it was because you're gorgeous.

But the main reason was that I wanted to set you up with my brother." I froze, my glass hovering inches from my mouth. "Your brother?" "Yeah, Griffin.

I took my mom's last name, he took our dad's." She burst into a fit of giggles, almost spilling her wine. "Wait.

Sloane… did you seriously think we were dating?!" Heat flushed my face. I gave a pathetic, slow nod. Poppy howled with laughter, clutching her stomach.

Then, her laughter abruptly faded. She stared down at her glass, her voice dropping to a raw whisper. "My mom died when I was in kindergarten. It was an accident.

They were driving to pick me up, my mom, dad, and Griffin. A semitruck blew a red light. My dad and Griffin made it out with injuries.

But my mom… she was in the passenger seat." The words hit me like a physical blow.

A statistic I read years ago flashed through my mind: the front passenger seat has the highest fatality rate in a headon collision. My chest tightened painfully.

That was why Griffin refused to let me sit in the front seat.

Chapter 6 "Later, when I was in middle school, my dad's company was forced into bankruptcy by a guy named Conrad who used dirty tactics against him.

The stress triggered a massive heart attack, and my dad passed away." A muscle ticked in my jaw. The man my mother had just remarried was also named Conrad.

A sickening intuition told me it wasn't a coincidence.

Poppy took another sip, her words slurring slightly. "Then, during my freshman year of high school, I came home for the holidays.

Griffin looked at me with this massive smile and told me he had a girlfriend. He said she was gorgeous, incredibly driven.

It was the first time since our parents died that his eyes actually had life in them. He wasn't numb anymore. He actually had hope for the future. But it didn't last.

She dumped him not long after.

She couldn't handle how poor we were." I stared down at the rug, forcing the corners of my mouth up in a stiff, unnatural angle. "Then… your brother must really hate her." "No." Poppy shook her dizzy head, leaning back against the couch. "I asked him the exact same thing.

He shook his head. He didn't even hesitate. I didn't get it either. He just gave this bitter laugh and said, 'I was useless. Why would I blame her?

The only person I hate is the man who wasn't capable of giving her a better life.'" "After the breakup, he worked like a maniac to build his empire.

He smoked even more heavily and practically lived in the ER with bleeding ulcers from drinking at endless business dinners.

He always said he was useless because he couldn't protect her