Rowan’s voice lowers. “Julian… he also had Lucy’s folder.”
My movement stops so abruptly that my knee bumps the chair.
“What?”
“It was there,” Rowan says. “On the desk. Open. Like he gathered evidence. Like he was painting a picture for Lucy.”
My vision tunnels.
That file, Lucy’s file, had been locked too. Different safe. Different office. Different location. And it wasn’t evenminein the first place. It was security. It was a goddamn precaution that was supposed to stay buried and untouched.
“How...” The word comes out strangled. “How the fuck did he get that?”
“I don’t know yet,” Rowan says. “But I will. I promise you that.”
My hands curl into fists. I can feel my pulse in my wrists, my throat, behind my eyes.
Rowan adds, carefully, “That’s not all.”
A laugh scrapes out of me. It’s ugly. “Seriously? What else did he show her? How can it get worse?”
Rowan exhales. “Pictures.”
I close my eyes for half a second and see Lucy’s face when she walked away from me at the office. I see the way her mouth tightened, the way she didn’t dignify me with words because words would’ve given me something to argue with.
She’d just… left.
“Pictures of what?” I ask, too calm.
Rowan hesitates, like he wants to soften the blow. Like he thinks it’ll matter.
“Just say it.”
“They were spread out,” Rowan says. “Over the profiles. Over her file. Like a collage. Like a statement. Photos of you and Simone.”
My body reacts like I’ve been hit.
The room tilts. The hotel air feels thick. Wrong.
“Over the entire course of this acquisition,” Rowan continues. “Angles. Context. Moments captured to look like something they weren’t. But it looks bad, Julian.”
I grab the glass on the nightstand and hurl it at the wall.
It shatters. The sound is sharp, violent, satisfying for half a second.
Then it’s gone, and I’m still drowning.
“I never touched her,” I say, voice hoarse. “I never even... I neverlookedat her like that. I wouldnevercheat on Lucy.”
“I know,” Rowan says. “But Lucy...”
My gut twists.
“She saw them,” I whisper, even though it isn’t a question.
Rowan’s answer is a tired exhale. “Yes.”
My throat closes.
