Nate let out a dark, exhausted laugh, running a hand over his face. The easygoing facade cracked just a fraction, revealing the profound, agonizing exhaustion underneath.
"It's a nightmare," Nate admitted, his voice dropping an octave. "Victoria is a shark, which is exactly why I hired her, but Claire is doing everything in her power to drag this out and completely ruin me."
"Why?" Audrey frowned, her heart aching for him. "I know you said it was contentious, but I never asked what happened between you two."
Nate stared out the coffee shop window for a long moment. When he finally looked back at Audrey, the raw, visceral pain in his eyes mirrored the exact devastation she had felt all those months ago.
"She cheated on me," Nate confessed quietly.
Audrey gasped softly, her hand flying to her mouth. Suddenly, his profound empathy, his quiet understanding, and the way he had known exactly how to handle her panic attacks made agonizing sense. He hadn't just been a good listener. He had been standing in the exact same burning building.
"I found out about four months ago," Nate continued, his jaw locking tight as he forced the words out. "It wasn't just a one-time mistake, either. It was an affair with her best friend."
Audrey’s heart plummeted into her stomach. The sheer, intimate betrayal of it was staggering. "Her best friend?"
"Yeah," Nate offered a bitter, self-deprecating smile. "When I confronted her, she didn't apologize. She didn't even try to deny it. Honestly, Audrey... looking back now, I think she might have been cheating on me for our entire marriage."
He stared down at his coffee, the weight of the last decade visibly pressing down on his shoulders. "It makes so much sense now. The distance. The excuses. Maybe that's the real reason she never wanted to have children with me."
"Nate, I am so incredibly sorry," Audrey whispered, her chest physically aching for him. To have your entire shared history rewritten by a lie, to realize the family you wanted was denied because of someone else's secrets—it was monstrous. "No wonder you understood what I was going through."
"Yeah," Nate sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. "But because I was the one who pulled the plug, and because I refused to sweep her betrayal under the rug and play the happy couple, she went nuclear. Now she’s trying to take the house, my savings, my pension—everything. She’s dragging the settlement out, demanding spousal support she knows she isn't entitled to, just to bleed me dry in legal fees. It's her way of punishing me for not letting her get away with it."
"That is so incredibly cruel," Audrey said fiercely. "She broke her vows, and now she’s trying to ruin your life because you held her accountable?"
"That's the reality of a bitter divorce," Nate said, a tired resignation in his tone. "She is fighting a war of attrition, hoping I'll eventually just give up and sign whatever she wants just tomake it stop. But I won't. I'm taking the hits, and I'm going to get out clean, eventually."
Audrey looked at him, feeling a deep, profound respect for the man sitting across from her. He was fighting a brutal, agonizing battle on his own front, and yet he had still found the capacity to be gentle with her.
"You will get through this, Nathaniel," Audrey said, her voice fiercely convicted. "You are too good of a man to let her break you."
"I'm working on it," Nate smiled, the darkness in his eyes receding just a little. He picked up his coffee cup. "And knowing that you're finding your way out of the dark actually helps. It gives me a little hope."
They spent another half hour talking, the heavy, romantic tension of their past encounters entirely replaced by a deep, grounded camaraderie. They had survived a terrible season of their lives together, and now, their paths were officially diverging.
When they finally finished their coffees, they walked out of the shop together, stepping onto the sunlit sidewalk.
Nate turned to her, putting his hands in his pockets. "Well. This is it, then."
Audrey stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a tight, genuine hug. It wasn't the desperate, grasping embrace of two drowning people anymore. It was the warm, grounded hug of two friends saying goodbye.
Nate hugged her back firmly, resting his cheek against her hair for a brief second.
"Thank you, Nate," Audrey whispered into his shoulder.
"Take care of yourself, Audrey," Nate replied, stepping back and offering her one last, brilliant smile. "Send me a text every now and then, alright? Just to let me know you're okay."
"I promise," Audrey smiled back. "You do the same."
Audrey stood on the sidewalk and watched Nathaniel walk away, his tall frame disappearing into the afternoon crowd. A chapter of her life closed cleanly and respectfully behind him. She took a deep breath of the crisp air, turned on her heel, and started walking back to her car, ready to go home to the life she was finally rebuilding.
Chapter 43
Audrey
The gentle hum of conversation and the clinking of silverware filled the warmly lit dining room of the French bistro.
Simon and Audrey were seated at a small, circular table near the back, finishing a shared dessert. It was their third official date since the ninety-day deadline had passed, and the fragile, careful dynamic between them was slowly gaining strength. The crippling weight of the past wasn't gone, but it was no longer sitting directly in the center of the table.
