At eight the next morning, Wynn Capital's statement went out on schedule.
Inside of ten minutes, Page Six had it. By eleven, it was trending on X.
#WynnThorneSplit
#WynnCapitalHeiress
#JiltedThorne
I was leaving a board meeting when my chief of staff, Maren Bishop, came in with a tablet against her chest.
Ms. Wynn. Thorne Holdings communications is demanding a retraction.
I kept turning pages.
Let them line up.
Maren did not quite smile. They say Sterling's coming personally.
The conference-room door opened.
Sterling, in a navy suit, with the bloodless cast still on him. Behind him, Thorne Holdings' general counsel and head of corporate communications.
A respectable show of force.
I didn't look up.
Mr. Thorne. We require appointments.
The communications head stepped forward. Ms. Wynn. The current statement is being read as a public jilt. It's affecting Thorne Holdings' share price. We need an immediate clarification: amicable mutual separation. Not a broken engagement.
I signed the last page and lifted my head.
Did the statement say I jilted him.
He hesitated.
I read it back to him. Per Wynn Capital: Ms. Avery Wynn and Mr. Sterling Thorne IV have ended their engagement. The parties intend to pursue separate lives.
I closed the tablet.
Which clause used the word jilted.
Maren, helpful: People on the internet make their own inferences. Is that our fault.
The communications head's face curdled.
Sterling raised one hand for him to shut up.
He looked at me.
What do you want.
There it was again.
For ninety-nine loops, whenever Sterling couldn't out-leverage me, he reached for money, access, or family clout, and tried to buy me into bowing.
In the 56th loop, when one of the cousins' security contractors took me out of a parking garage in Long Island City, Sterling never came. He sent his executive assistant with a check.
Fill in the amount. Whatever it takes.
The kidnappers gave up waiting and slit my throat.
Sterling stood at my funeral for four minutes, took a call, and left.
I leaned back in my chair.
Thorne Holdings holds a thirty-percent equity position in the Brooklyn waterfront redevelopment. I want it transferred to Wynn Capital.
Thorne general counsel choked. Out of the question. That project's projected return is north of half a billion —
Then have a nice day.
I pressed the intercom. Maren. Show them out.
Sterling didn't move.
He stared at me for a long moment.
Give it to her.
Communications head, half a syllable: Sterling.
Sterling's voice came out flat.
I said. Give it to her.
The room went quiet again.
The System spoke. Male Lead Affection Meter rising. Now at thirty-four.
I looked at him.
So it turned out that the day I stopped loving him was the day he was finally willing to bleed.
What a useful piece of information.
The day the Brooklyn waterfront transfer instruments came through, Sterling came with them.
He didn't bring his team.
He brought a Hydro Flask thermos.
Maren intercepted him at reception. Mr. Thorne. Ms. Wynn is occupied.
He answered quietly. I'll wait.
He waited from ten in the morning until three in the afternoon.
Wynn Capital partners walked past him for five hours. Every one of them looked twice.
Anyone who reads the WSJ Style section knows Sterling Thorne does not wait.
A couple of years back, a partner at one of his target funds had been six minutes late to a Tuesday breakfast. Sterling had canceled the deal at the table.
Now he was sitting in my reception area holding a stainless-steel thermos like a schoolboy in the hall.
I came out of a meeting and saw him still there. I didn't slow down.
He stood up.
Avery.
I kept walking.
He fell in beside me.
Your ulcer used to flare around lunch. You probably haven't eaten.
I stopped, because of the thermos, because of the shape of it.
It was chicken-and-rice soup. I knew before he opened the lid.
For ninety-nine lifetimes, I had made him that soup.
In the 21st loop, the oil had spat at my wrist while I was browning the chicken. He had glanced at the burn and away.
In the 68th loop, I'd been on a saline drip in NYU Langone when I heard he was in pain. I pulled the line out of my hand and went home and stood at the stove.
He'd poured the soup down the disposal.
He said it had gone cold.
Now he was offering me a thermos of soup.
I made it, he said.
I took it.
The System lit up. Host. Critical repair node. Accept his overture. Strongly recommended for Pain-Return preconditioning.
I opened the lid.
The steam was right.
There was a raw red burn across the back of his hand, near the knuckles. He saw me see it and softened his voice.
First time using my mother-in-law's stove. I'm getting the hang of it.
It wasn't his mother-in-law's stove. He'd taken the recipe out of my mother's cookbook.
I nodded.
I walked the thermos five feet to the wastebasket in the corner of the reception area, and tipped the entire contents in.
Maren took a small, audible breath in.
Sterling's hand stayed open in midair.
I handed him the empty thermos.
Too cold.
It was a line he had used on me.
The color drained out of him in layers.
Avery —
I cut him off.
Mr. Thorne. I don't go back to old habits. I don't eat soup you cooked.
His throat moved. There was something building behind his eyes.
Was I — was I bad to you, before.
I almost smiled.
You're finally noticing.
The unfortunate timing of it. Ninety-nine deaths late.
That night, I went back to my suite at the Battery hotel.
I rinsed my hands. The System opened a blue panel inside my head, slow and careful.
Host. Original mission going dormant. Confirm activation of secondary mission: Pain Return.
I lifted my earrings off, one and then the other.
Confirm.
The panel flickered.
Secondary mission parameters: when Male Lead Affection Meter reaches 100, trigger a serial replay of Host's ninety-nine prior deaths. Each replay will require Male Lead to experience the entirety of Host's death process in consciousness.
Warning: trigger may produce psychiatric decompensation in Male Lead.
I asked it: Will it kill him.
The System was quiet for a moment.
Not physically.
I smiled.
That's letting him off easy.
The System produced another line.
Host. Are you certain you wish to abandon the original mission. Successful completion would have released you from the loop. You don't have to carry this.
I looked at the woman in the mirror.
In the 99th loop, I'd died in Sterling's arms.
That time he had really loved me. Affection at 100.
He'd taken me to a house on the Sound and put the ring on my finger and kissed my forehead and said, from here, it's only us.
That night he received a letter.
I heard him say into the phone in his study: She has to die.
I pushed the door open.
He didn't explain. He just walked over and held me.
The knife came in from behind.
He said: Avery. Don't hate me.
I died inside his shirt.
The hundredth time I opened my eyes, I had signed the new contract before I'd taken my first breath.
I told the System: Hate is the only evidence I survived.
My phone lit up.
An unknown number. A photograph.
Sterling at street level outside the Battery hotel, in the rain, holding the empty thermos.
The caption was a single line.
Ms. Wynn — he's been there since dusk.
I deleted the message.
I blocked the number.
The rain got harder against the window.
The System chimed quietly.
Male Lead Affection Meter rising. Now at forty-eight.
I turned the lamp off.
Let him stand.
Sterling stood there until dawn. The hotel doorman finally called an ambulance.
The news reached me at the stables.
Maren was holding her phone in two hands.
Ms. Wynn. Mr. Thorne — acute upper-GI bleed. Eleanor Thorne is requesting you come to Lenox Hill.
I pulled my gloves on.
She requests, and I appear.
Maren waited a beat. She said if you don't come, she's coming to Wynn Capital.
I almost laughed.
Even better.
At three that afternoon, Eleanor Thorne did come.
We blocked her at the lobby. The look on her face would have curdled cream.
Two stringers from a tabloid materialized from the floor, then a real Bloomberg reporter who happened to have an appointment in the building.
Eleanor controlled her voice.
Avery. My grandson is in a hospital bed on your account. You should be there.
I stood three steps up from her on the stair.
Mrs. Thorne. Your phrasing is sloppy.
She narrowed her eyes.
I said, He's in a hospital bed because he is unwell.
The Bloomberg reporter's voice recorder edged closer.
Eleanor's voice went flat. You weren't like this before.
True.
In my prior lives, I'd cried hysterically over the smallest of his scratches.
I had cried that way ninety-nine times. I had died ninety-nine times.
The tears had dried up some time ago.
Eleanor switched gears. She sighed.
Avery, young people fight. But an engagement isn't a game. Your mother — your mother would have wanted you to settle well.
My face cooled.
Do not bring my mother into this.
Eleanor stopped.
I walked down to her step.
After my mother died, the Thorne family took possession of three of her brownstones, two seed-fund stakes, and a Picasso study under nominee agreements. I was made to sign a power-of-attorney instrument the week of her funeral.
Her color cracked.
That is a lie —
I gave Maren the folder.
Maren turned and held it open to the reporters.
Documents have been submitted to our counsel.
The lobby went into a low, hot murmur.
Eleanor could not get her face back. Avery Wynn. You are going to war with this family.
I looked at her.
Yes.
She started to shake.
My phone went off. It was the hospital.
I picked up and put it on speaker.
Sterling sounded raked-out.
Grandmother. Come back here.
Eleanor's voice cracked. Sterling. She is dismantling our name.
He was quiet for two seconds.
Give it all back to her.