Chapter 8 - The Cracks in Their Alliance
Two weeks after the wedding that wasn't, the romance between Mark Sterling and Lily Vance suffered its fatal, inevitable stroke.
Without money, without a luxury apartment, and without an audience to envy them, their "grand, tragic love" looked like what it had always been: two parasites fighting over an empty host.
Because Lily had been evicted from The Meridian and her parents’ house had become a war zone of screaming matches between my mother and father over bankruptcy papers, Lily had moved into Mark’s two-bedroom condo.
It was supposed to be their fortress against the world.
Instead, it was a tomb.
Mark’s condo was located in an upscale development, but the mortgage was massive, and the HOA fees were astronomical. With his income gone and his bank accounts scrutinized by forensic auditors, the luxury had vanished overnight. The maid service had been canceled. The high-end meal delivery subscriptions had stopped.
Lily sat on Mark’s designer sofa, wearing sweatpants, staring at her cracked phone screen.
"The power went out in the kitchen," she whined, her voice grating on Mark’s raw nerves. "The breaker flipped again because of the AC. Mark, go fix it! It’s boiling in here!"
Mark was sitting at the dining table, surrounded by overdue notices, legal letters, and a half-empty bottle of cheap bourbon. He looked like a shell of the man who had stood at the altar two weeks ago.
"Fix it yourself, Lily," he muttered without looking up. "I’m trying to figure out how to stop the bank from initiating foreclosure on this place next month."
"Foreclosure?!" Lily shrieked, jumping to her feet. "What do you mean foreclosure?! You told me you were a partner! You told me you owned this place outright!"
"I owned fifty percent of the equity, and the bank owns the rest!" Mark snapped, slamming his fist onto the mahogany table. "And Grace was supposed to bring the down payment to clear the secondary mortgage! That was the plan, Lily! That was the entire damn plan before you had to show off and smash a cake like a psychotic child!"
Lily gasped, her hand flying to her chest. "Are you blaming *me*?! You wanted to be with me! You told me she was boring, that she didn't have any passion!"
"She had three million dollars in liquid trust assets and an accounting brain that kept my firm from catching my expense errors!" Mark roared, standing up, his eyes wild with fury. "You have sixty thousand dollars in credit card debt, no degree, no job, and two trash bags of clothes! You don't have passion, Lily—you have an insatiable ego and nothing to back it up!"
"How dare you!" Lily screamed, grabbing a heavy crystal vase—a wedding gift sent early by an out-of-town guest—and hurling it across the room.
The vase smashed against the wall just above Mark’s head, showering him in jagged glass and stale water.
"Get out," Mark said, his voice dropping into a terrifying, dead whisper.
"What?" Lily froze.
"Get your trash bags and get the hell out of my condo."
"You can't kick me out! I have nowhere to go! Mom and Dad are losing their house because of Grace's lawsuit! I have no money!"
"Then call your precious internet followers and ask them for a room," Mark said, walking over to the front door and throwing it wide open. "Get out before I call the police and tell them you threw a glass vase at my head. I already have an assault report pending against you from your sister's lawyer. One more call and you'll spend the night in Rikers."
Lily stood in the center of the ruined living room, looking at the man she had destroyed her family to possess.
There was no romance left. No thrilling illicit rendezvous in luxury hotels. No stolen kisses in designer dresses. There was only a broken, bitter man in a dusty apartment, pointing toward the hallway.
May you like
Sobbing hysterically, Lily dragged her two trash bags out into the hallway, the heavy fire door slamming shut behind her with the finality of a prison gate.
***
