Every single wall was empty.

His stomach flopped. Shit.

Normally, the walls were covered in priceless artwork that Andrea had collected over the years. The living room had had a landscape motif. The foyer, a welcoming branch of modern art that he’d never understood. The walkway had had portraits. She’d always said it was like greeting friends. The steps up to the second floor had been covered in floral paintings that complemented and mirrored each other.

Now, they were blank.

Stark.

White.

Empty.

His heart thudded in his chest. A terror like he had never known before seized him. His hands shook, and he fisted them at his sides, as if he could will them to listen to him.

But they betrayed him. His entire body betrayed him. How could something so simple… make everything feel so lost?

The house felt too big.

Too inhospitable.

Too unwelcoming.

Until that moment, he’d never once realized how much the artwork had breathed life into their place. How her hobby, obsession, career had brightened not just the house, but also their life together. How it had made a house, a home.

He rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, with only one thought in his mind. He needed to talk to Andrea.

“Andrea!” he yelled. “Andrea!”

No response. And he still didn’t have a response on his phone.

Fuck.

“Fuck!”

He slammed the door open to the master suite. No artwork. Not a single goddamn piece. He turned and pressed the closet door open. He leaned heavy against the doorframe, unable to believe what he was seeing.

The closet was bare.

Not one single pair of Jimmy Choos. Not one designer dress. Not one ten-thousand-dollar handbag.

It was as if Andrea had never been here.

As if he had dreamed her existence into this place.

He shuddered at the emptiness of the home that they had built.

Clay choked on words. Andrea was gone. It was plain and simple. Clear as day before him. She had left. Not just the house, but clearly him as well. She had taken everything here that belonged to her and disappeared.

Never had he ever imagined a life Andrea didn’t exist in. Ten years ago, they’d formed their pact. And he’d somehow destroyed it all in one night of drunken debauchery.

“No,” he muttered. “She can’t do this.”

He wrenched out his phone and dialed her number, determined to convince her that she had made a horrible mistake. She couldn’t leave him. Andrea was the one with abandonment issues. There was no way that she would just leave without a word. Without one goddamn word.

The call went to voice mail, and he heard her sweet voice on the other line.

“Hi, this is Andrea Billings. Sorry I’ve missed your call, but…”

Clay ended it before she could finish. He couldn’t leave a message. What he needed to say had to be done in person.

He stormed back down the stairs and out to his Porsche. He ignored traffic and floored it over to her apartment. He was lucky that no cops were looking to pick up an asshole in a Porsche going ninety in a forty-five. He slammed on the brakes, leaving skid marks on her street, before parking illegally in front of her building. He hopped out of the car, took the elevator up to her place, pulled out his key, and slid it into the hole.

It wouldn’t turn.

He stared, dumbstruck, down at the door. He’d been here last night. He’d used this very key last night to get into Andrea’s apartment where they had gotten ready together for the ball. He jiggled the lock a dozen times before realization dawned on him.

She’d changed the locks.

His jaw dropped, and he stared uselessly at the handle. His hands were shaking again. His body ached from the extremes she’d gone to.

It couldn’t end like this. It made no sense. Last night was no different than any other night. What the fuck did she think had happened?

He’d hurt her with his words. He knew that. But he hadn’t actually slept with anyone. He hadn’t even been fucking coherent enough to get it up, and he’d woken up alone. He hadn’t gone through with his threat. There was a difference between hurting Andrea with words when they argued and actually going through with something that would destroy her. She had to know that.

But she clearly didn’t.

Clay banged on the door until his fist was bruised. He yelled against the door. “Andrea! Come out here right now! I know you’re inside! Just talk to me!”

He yelled until the next-door neighbor came out and asked if everything was okay. He was making a scene.

Fuck, I’m making a scene.

Clay dialed her number again and listened all the way through the voice mail this time. “Andrea, what the fuck is going on? Your stuff is all gone at the house, and my key doesn’t work at your apartment. Where the hell are you? We need to talk. I don’t know what happened last night that made you want to do all of this, but it’s not what you think. I swear. Just talk to me.”

He hung up before he could say anything else stupid, and he took the stairs back down to the ground level to burn off steam.

Seated in his car once more, he didn’t feel any better at all. He needed to talk to her. He needed to talk to someone who could explain this to him. Definitely not Ethan or Cash. They’d probably just laugh at him and say he’d had it coming or he was better off. He didn’t feel better off.

He stared at his phone and realized there was no one else. Andrea was always the person he would run to when things got tough. She was the one he talked to and joked with and fucked when he needed someone. She was his person.

Instead, he dialed Liz’s number. He didn’t know what had made him do it, but he couldn’t just sit here alone. And even though he and Liz had had their differences, he knew he could rely on her.

He dialed the number, and after only one ring, it went straight to voice mail.

“What the fuck?”

He tried again. Same result.

So, Liz knew and wouldn’t talk to him. That meant only one thing.

Brady actually answered the phone. “I had a feeling you’d call.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Clay asked.

“I really hoped you would have the answer to that.”

“Andrea is gone. She won’t answer my calls or texts. She’s moved out all of her stuff from our house in the suburbs and changed the locks at her apartment.”

“I see. I had gathered that from the furious shouts Liz had been ranting about all morning,” Brady said. “Do you want to meet up and talk about it? In this case, I don’t think it’s too early to go get a beer.”