“Sit down, Alastair.”
He sat, his movements stiff. I didn’t offer him coffee. I placed the folder I’d pulled from my bag on the table between us. The only sound was the gentle clink of porcelain from another table.
“My lawyer tells me you’ve been refusing to accept service—sending him away. We’re past theatrics. Sign the papers.”
He stared at the folder like it was a live snake. “Why are you doing this now? When my father is—”
“Your father’s condition is exactly why this needs to happen now,” I said, my voice low and even. “The company needs a clear, uncontested leadership structure to secure the next round of funding. Your name on the share registry as my husband is a liability. You’re a risk. I’m mitigating it.”
He flinched. “You’re cold, Elara. You always were.”
“And you’re redundant. Sign.”
He looked away, his jaw working. I saw the child in him then—the one who’d never learned to lose gracefully. He needed a bit of coaxing.
I leaned forward slightly. “Look. I… I apologize for what Julian did.” His eyes snapped to mine, a flicker of surprise. “Not because you didn’t deserve it. You did. You’ve earned worse. But it wasn’t his place. Violence isn’t my way.”
It was a calculated lie. A bone thrown to his bruised ego. For a second, I saw him puff up, ready to seize the moral high ground.
The bell on the café door jingled with violent cheer, drawing my attention. I looked up in time to watch Brielle storm in. She was a vision of panicked, postpartum rage—hair in a messy bun, a designer coat thrown over yoga pants, her eyes red-rimmed and blazing. She zeroed in on our table.
“I knew it!” she shrilled, loud enough to turn heads. She pointed a trembling finger at me. “You just couldn’t let him go, could you? Dragging him here… You’re trying to steal him back!”
A stunned silence fell over us both. Alastair looked from her to me, utterly useless.
I leaned back in my chair and laughed. It wasn’t a polite chuckle. It was a full, rich, unladylike sound of genuine amusement that echoed in the quiet café. I couldn’t believe this was how she was reading the situation. I couldn’t stand the man.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I said, wiping a non-existent tear from my eye. “Stealhim? Fromyou?” I let my gaze travel over her disheveled state, then back to Alastair. “He’s all yours. A matching set. Both of your brains are as smooth as silk.”
She escalated, getting louder. “You lie! He’s been acting different! Staying out! I know he’s with yo—”
“He probablyischeating on you,” I interrupted, my voice conversational. “But I can promise you, with every fiber of my being, it is not with me. The thought of him touching me makes my skin crawl. You have my deepest sympathies, truly.”
Alastair’s face flushed a deep, mortified scarlet. Brielle looked like she’d been slapped.
I turned my full attention back to Alastair, all pretense of diplomacy gone. I tapped the folder. “Sign the papers, Alastair. Today.”
“Or what?” he mumbled, a last, pathetic show of defiance.
“Or,” I said, leaning in so only he could hear the ice in my words, “I walk away from Ashworth Intimates. Right now. I leave you to explain to the board why the Esmé partnership is dissolving. I leave you to handle the creditors calling about your little athleisure disaster. I leave you to pay your father’s medical team when the corporate insurance lapses. I will let every single thing you’ve ever fucked up collapse on top of you, and I will watch from a very comfortable distance while you drown… with my younger, more successful boyfriend.”
The blood drained from his face. I could tell he saw it then, clearly—the abyss that awaited him.
He fumbled for a pen in his jacket. His hands were shaking. He signed the document and slid it back. He didn’t read it; he didn’tneed to. I’d promised to leave with nothing but what I’d bought with my own money.
I tucked the files into my purse, stood, and smoothed my skirt. I didn’t look at Brielle, who was now silently weeping.
“My lawyer will take it from here. You and your parents have only three more months to use me. You’d better get yourself together to take over.”
I walked out of the café, the bright sunlight hitting me and making me squint. The weight of nineteen years—of obligation, of guilt, of that damned name—began to slide from my shoulders, molecule by molecule. I took a deep, shaking breath of free air.
And there he was.
Leaning against the black sedan parked at the curb, sunglasses shielding his eyes. Quinn was sitting in the driver’s seat. Julian pushed off the car as I approached.
“He signed,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady.
A slow, devastating smile spread across Julian’s face. He reached out, his fingers brushing the back of my hand—the lightest touch.
