There isn’t one.
Not tonight.
Whatever explanation I thought I deserved to give her would only have been about easing my conscience, not honoring her.
I didn’t lose control tonight.
I lost the right to it.
The car pulls away from the curb.
Behind us, the gala continues trying to pretend it didn’t fracture.
Ahead of us, the damage is already moving faster than I am.
And somewhere between the closing doors and the quiet of the ride home, the truth settles in fully for the first time:
She didn’t walk away because she misunderstood.
She walked away because she understood exactly who I was when it mattered.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
AUDRA
I don’t turnthe TV on for the sound.
I turn it on because silence feels accusatory.
The game flickers across the wall of the man cave, some late-season matchup I couldn’t summarize if my life depended on it. I slept down here. Didn’t bother changing clothes. There’s a half-empty coffee cup on the table that’s gone cold enough to taste bitter just looking at it.
My phone hasn’t stopped lighting up.
PR.
Legal.
The board chair.
Numbers I don’t recognize but know better than to ignore.
I haven’t answered any of them.
Headlines crawl across the muted screen anyway.
CEO CAUGHT IN LATE-NIGHT CLUB SCANDAL
QUESTIONS OF JUDGMENT AFTER CHARITY GALA INCIDENT
I don’t read past that.
What I’m looking for—what my eyes keep scanning for withoutpermission—is her name.
It isn’t there.
Yet.
The knock comes hard and unapologetic.
