“What’s going on with you?” Nancy asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t.” Nancy’s voice was sharp. “I’ve known you for thirteen years. I watched you build this company from a handful of properties into something extraordinary. I’ve seen you handle hostile takeover attempts, market crashes, and a globalpandemic without breaking a sweat.” She leaned forward. “And yet, I’ve never seen you like this.”
Astoria kept her face neutral. “The divorce has been demanding, but I’m managing it.”
“You're not managing anything. You're drowning.” Nancy held up a hand, ticking off points on her fingers. “You've lost weight, visible even in a week. You're in this building before dawn and after midnight. Marcus tells me you're redoing analyses he's already completed. Jennifer says you seemed distracted in Wednesday's investor meeting, even though you performed well enough to close the deal.” She dropped her hand. “Something happened, and it's affecting everything.”
The words landed like blows, each one hitting home and unavoidable. Astoria felt her walls straining, the architecture of control threatening to buckle under the weight of someone actually seeing her.
“I’m handling it,” she said and hated how thin her voice sounded.
“You’re not handling it. You’re running away from it, whatever ‘it’ is.” Nancy’s gaze softened uncharacteristically, just slightly. “I don’t know what happened and I don’t need to know, but I’ve watched enough people self-destruct to recognize the signs. And you’re showing all of them.”
Astoria looked away, fixing her eyes on the window and the gray harbor just beyond. Her throat felt tight. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Here’s what I do know,” Nancy continued. “Valerie wants you to fall apart. She wants you to lose focus, make mistakes, and give her ammunition. Every day you spend barely functioning is a day she gets closer to winning.” She paused. “Is that what you want? To hand her everything you’ve built because you couldn’t hold yourself together?”
The words struck something deep. Astoria’s hands curled into fists beneath the table. “No,” she said quietly.
“Then get it together.” Nancy’s voice wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t gentle either. It was the voice of someone who’d survived her own battles and knew what it took. “Whatever this is, it’ll pass. But only if you survive it and don’t let it take you down.”
Astoria forced herself to meet Nancy’s eyes. “And if I can’t?”
“You can.” Nancy held her gaze. “You’re the strongest person I know, Astoria. You clawed your way out of nothing and built an empire. You survived a marriage with a woman who tried to break you. You’ll survive this too, but not like this. Not by running yourself into the ground and pretending you’re fine when anyone with eyes can see you’re not.”
Astoria felt something cracking inside her chest, something that wanted to break open and spill out all the pain she’d been holding at bay, including the knowledge that Valerie had been right all along: she was impossible to love, and everyone who got close enough to see it eventually left.
She swallowed all of it down, locked it away, and built the wall one brick higher.
“Thank you,” Astoria said, and her voice was more controlled. “I appreciate your concern.”
Nancy studied her, her eyes narrowing. Astoria could see the calculation behind her eyes, whether to push harder or let it go. Finally, Nancy sighed and stood.
“Take care of yourself,” she said. “Whatever happened, it’s not worth losing everything you’ve built. And for what it’s worth, whoever she was, she wasn’t worth this either.”
Astoria’s breath caught. She didn’t dare ask how Nancy knew. It didn’t matter.
The door clicked shut, and Astoria was alone. She sat in the empty conference room and let the silence press in around her.Her hands were shaking—when had that started?—and her eyes burned with tears that wouldn't fall.
Nancy was right. Shewasfalling apart, and everyone could see it. She wasn’t fooling anyone. If she didn’t pull herself together, Valerie would win. The company, the divorce, the narrative—all of it would slip through her fingers while she drowned in grief over a woman who had chosen to walk away.
She refused to let that happen.
She stood taller and straightened her blazer before walking back to her office. She had work to do and a mask to perfect until no one—not Nancy, not Gloria, not anyone—could see the wreckage underneath.
If survival was all she had left, then she would survive. She’d been doing it her whole life.
21
Chapter 21: Miller
The coffee had gone cold in her hands. Miller stared at it, trying to remember when she’d poured it. The mug was the blue one from her desk, the one a client had given her two years ago, so at some point, she must have walked to the break room and filled it.
She just couldn’t recall doing it.
That had been happening a lot lately. There were gaps in the day where she moved through the motions without being present for them. She’d find herself at her desk with no memory of the drive to work or standing in her kitchen at night with an open refrigerator, unsure of how long she’d been there or what she’d been looking for.
