A Million Tiny Pieces (2 page)

It
was the little things that got Phoenix going in the morning.

“I’ve
got to shower,” he informed his mother. “Then I’ve got a meeting at the
office.”

Ellen
nodded. She of all people knew he wasn’t much of a morning person, and standing
around waiting for him to spark a conversation before he’d had his first cup of
coffee was like waiting for him to find any interest in a woman for more than
one night.

It
just didn’t happen.

Leaving
his mother in the living room, Phoenix escaped to his bedroom, locking the door
behind him.

»»»»»♥«««««

WITH
HER SUNGLASSES shielding her face, Mia stepped out onto the sidewalk, the
blustery January wind slapping her in the face, instantly freezing her nose. As
she fought the overwhelming urge to turn around and sneak a peek at the guy
she’d passed on her way out of the elevator, she gave a cursory glance around
to see if any reporters were lurking nearby. She was happy to see that today
must’ve been a big news day elsewhere, meaning she was alone.

Don’t
look back. Don’t look back. Don’t…

Luckily
the windows on the building were reflective, and even if she attempted to look
inside, it would be futile, so she shrugged off the notion. She reminded
herself that she didn’t have time for men, especially intimidating ones whose
faces she couldn’t even see thanks to the hood that had been covering his head.

As
she passed the coffee shop next door, she wished she had a few minutes to go in
and grab a coffee to go, but she knew she was going to be late if she didn’t
hurry. With winter break now over, she had learned last week that her
professors had a renewed sense of vigor when it came to keeping things on track.
She wondered how long that would last. Regardless, she didn’t want to be late
for class.

As
she pulled her hood over her ears and ducked her head, Mia smiled to herself.
Oh, how things had changed from a year ago. If all those people could see her
now, battling the elements as she walked to school rather than having someone
chauffeur her around… She knew that her story had probably been heard before:
lonely young wife of a rich and powerful man finds herself kicked off the
pedestal she’d once been put on, forced to move back into a regular routine,
without the glitz and glamor that had been an integral part of her everyday
life ... blah, blah, blah.

But
that’s where her story began to differ.

At
least she’d like to think that was the case.

First
of all, no longer wed to the insufferable asshole, Mia had shunned her married
name and taken back her maiden name. So that made her the
ex
-wife of a
rich and powerful man — a crucial piece to the new puzzle that was her life.

Secondly,
the glitz still seemed to be following her around, but only if the bright flash
of cameras constantly in her face whenever she walked out of her building and
on the street could be considered being in the limelight.
For whatever
reason, they wouldn’t leave her alone.
They
being the paparazzi. It
seemed there were still some people out to get the juicy dirt on one of the
most newsworthy businessmen in the great state of Texas, Damien Landry. Mia’s
ex-husband.

And
they were apparently accomplishing that goal by following her around. Well,
except for today, which was a nice change of pace.

How
much did you get in the divorce, Mia?

Are
you upset that Damien has moved on?

Did
you actually catch him in bed with another woman?

Can
you tell us about the lawsuit, Mia?

What
will you do now, Ms. Cantrell?

She’d
heard all the questions a million times over, but every time she answered with
the same: “I’m not married to him anymore. Not sure what he’s doing.”

They
didn’t listen. But she wasn’t surprised.

Whatever
floozy was hanging on Damien’s arm at this point should have to deal with all
of their constant harassment, not her. She’d relinquished that burden when
Damien had come home from a business trip reeking of perfume.
Cheap
perfume, at that. Since Mia knew he hadn’t taken to wearing it, she had assumed
that it belonged to another woman. And truthfully, she knew Damien was not that
stupid, which meant he’d wanted her to catch him. From the beginning, Mia had
warned him that cheating was a deal breaker for her. He had called her bluff.

He
had quickly learned that she wasn’t bluffing.

And
here she was — officially single as of two months ago, when her divorce was
final — crossing one of the busy downtown Austin streets on her way to the
University of Texas campus, wondering how she’d ended up, now twenty-four years
old, back where she’d started.

Granted,
Mia wasn’t the same naïve young girl she’d been when she’d first met Damien.
No, that twenty-year-old virgin had long since disappeared, in her place a
woman who was much smarter, much less gullible.

At
least she’d like to think so.

Being
married to Damien might’ve robbed her of her innocence, made her into a woman
she hadn’t recognized for the last few years, but Mia couldn’t blame him for
everything. She’d been a willing participant. Right up to the moment she’d told
him that she wanted a divorce — nine months ago.

Looking
back on it now, Mia realized it hadn’t been all that difficult to fall for an
attractive, wealthy man like Damien. He was older, some would say far too old
for a twenty-year-old girl who, at the time, had still been living at home with
her mother while she plotted out the rest of her life. Unfortunately, she
hadn’t figured out until later — much, much later — how true that really was.

At
twenty, Mia hadn’t been even remotely old enough to handle being married to a
man like Damien. Hell, even now she questioned whether she was mentally strong
enough to deal with the emotional upheaval he was known for.

That
never stopped her from trying to make it work. The way she saw it, marriage was
supposed to be forever. Apparently, she and Damien hadn’t been reading from the
same book when it came to the sanctity of their wedding vows.

She
had met Damien on a Friday night at a restaurant in downtown Austin where Mia
had been having a celebratory dinner with some of her closest friends. They’d
all been gearing up to start college in the fall after taking a year off to
enjoy themselves, something Mia’s mother had advised her against. But in her
opinion, she’d needed a break. And when she’d met Damien, she’d been ready to
grow up, ready to move on to the next phase of her life, school be damned.

At
the time she’d started dating Damien, he’d been a young thirty-three, as he’d
liked to tell it, thirteen years her senior. He was single, rich, and known for
his playboy status. Not to mention, he’d avoided marriage on multiple
occasions. Or so he’d proudly informed her.

According
to him, he’d been waiting for the right woman. Her.

Rolling
her eyes, Mia realized how silly that sounded thinking back on it now. Yes,
she’d definitely been naïve and gullible at the time, hanging on every sweet
word he’d told her until he’d charmed her right out of her panties two weeks
after they’d met.

Although
Mia hadn’t intended to skip a large portion of young adulthood and move right
into marriage, she’d found that Damien was a very persuasive man. He was
handsome and charming, and she’d been putty in his hands from the very
beginning. The media had made them out to be the perfect couple, and Mia had
been too naïve to know what she was getting herself into. She’d been a
beautiful blonde trophy — their words, not hers — on the arm of a man who was
continuing to prove himself as a power player in the real estate market. At the
time, Mia had felt like she was right up there on top of the world with him.

Her
mother had warned her, but at the time, Mia had thought she was too
overprotective, something Clarice Cantrell had been for most of Mia’s life. So,
Mia had done what any inexperienced twenty-year-old girl would do when faced
with that sort of challenge: she’d ignored her mother’s reasoning, insisting
that she knew what she was doing.

Yeah,
well, it wasn’t the first time Mia would have to admit that she’d been wrong.

Unfortunately,
her mother had been forced to sit back and watch her. And just as she’d
predicted — something she’d later told Mia — Clarice had watched Mia climb,
only to see her fall back down to earth, her broken heart in her hands.

However
… what Mia’s mother didn’t understand was that her heart didn’t have anything
to do with it. Not in the end. Not after having endured all of the hardships
living with Damien had brought her. No, what no one else seemed to realize was
that Mia’s heart had been shattered into a million tiny pieces long before that
night.

Her
marriage to the enigmatic man had proven to be the opposite of the fairy tale
she’d thought it would be. She’d fallen in love with a blond-haired, blue-eyed
charmer in the beginning, there was no doubt about that. But by the third year,
Mia had watched her life crumble around her, and she’d known it wouldn’t be
long before she would have no choice but to get out. She’d decided at that time
to reclaim her heart, even before she reclaimed her life.

Still,
there were tiny fragments of her heart that she feared would never be put back
in their original place, no matter how much she despised Damien, no matter how
grateful she was to be able to move on.

Thankfully,
Mia had planned for the worst, and she’d run fast and hard toward the
infinitesimal light at the end of the tunnel in the end.

There
had been a prenuptial agreement, but only because Mia had suggested it.

Seriously,
the man was worth millions; it should’ve been Damien who had insisted on the
legality. Nope, that’d been her.

She
knew that was about the only reasonable thing she’d requested going into the
relationship, and that was
after
her mother had broken down and cried. Mia
was giving up her college years to be with a man who insisted that he be the
one to take care of her, so, according to her mother, she should at least have
something in writing to ensure she didn’t have to start completely over.

She
and Damien had worked out an agreement with the help of his ruthless lawyers so
that she would get one million dollars for every birthday she spent married to
the man — a mere crumb off the loaf of the Landry fortune — provided the
marriage ended amicably.
She’d spent three birthdays with him, would’ve been four had he not come home
smelling like cheap perfume two weeks before her twenty-fourth birthday. Even
knowing what she was giving up, Mia had left him the very next day with a
suitcase packed full of her most beloved items and nothing else.

There
had also been a clause that stated she would get an additional ten million if
Damien cheated on her. At the time, Mia hadn’t considered the fact that she
would have to be able to
prove
the latter. Of course, the floozy on his
arm these days wasn’t admitting to anything, so she and Damien had agreed to
disagree. It’d been easier on Mia just to let it all go and walk away. After
all, cheating really was a deal breaker as far as she was concerned, and his
admission had been enough for her. So, because she’d wanted out, she’d ended
the marriage stating irreconcilable differences, and she’d walked away with three
million dollars.

From
the second the ink was dry on the divorce papers and the funds made it to her
bank account, she’d become incredibly frugal with her money, despite her one
and only splurge — the condo she now called home.
Mia had plans, and that money
would help her accomplish her goals and keep her from having to live with her
mother until she could get to the point where she was financially stable. It
would eventually be gone, and she didn’t have any preconceived notions that she
would ever make the kind of money that Damien did, nor would she run in the
same circles that she had previously, but she was okay with that. She simply
wanted to be happy, and for the first time in as long as she could remember,
she was.

Which
was how Mia had gotten to where she was now, walking up the steps on the UT
campus, on her way to her first class of the day. She was probably a little too
anxious, especially since she’d been doing this exact same thing for going on
five months now, but she couldn’t help herself. It’d been a long time since
she’d had something like this to look forward to. But that was where she found
herself. Looking forward to another day of school.

College.

How
it had happened, she didn’t know, but she’d been accepted at the University of
Texas, and back in August, Mia had taken the necessary steps to move on with
the rest of her life. Pursuing her degree in psychology, she was taking control
of her destiny, no longer being led around by the nose, flaunted as a trophy,
looked at as though she didn’t have a brain cell in her head.

Each
day seemed like her first day all over again, and she prayed the excitement
didn’t dwindle.