Chapter 20 #3
Abby had not known the numbers were public yet. “He said they were verifying them first.”
Makayla rubbed her hands together. “The article called the system one of the most promising hospital-management products of the year.”
Pride rose through Abby before she could contain it. Evan had been unwilling to celebrate until every number survived review, and the public attention had arrived after years of work most people never saw.
“He earned that,” Abby said. “The company did not become valuable this morning.”
Makayla looked at her for a long moment. “Are you with him now?”
Abby considered refusing the question. Then she remembered Hudson using secrecy to keep people suspended between versions of the truth.
“We’ve started seeing each other,” she said. “It’s new, and I’m not discussing details.”
Pain crossed Makayla’s face, followed by something closer to resignation. “I sent him a message after I saw the article. He didn’t answer.”
“What did you expect him to say?” Abby asked with exasperation. “You spent years telling him the company’s struggles were proof that he would never give you security.”
“I told him I always knew he could do it.” Makayla closed her eyes briefly. “The moment I sent it, I knew he would remember every time I said the opposite.”
“He remembers.” Abby did not soften the answer. “Success does not erase the way you treated him while it was uncertain.”
Makayla nodded. “I miss him.”
“You miss the way Evan treated you, or you miss him now that other people can see what he built?” Abby asked. “Those are different losses.”
“I don’t know.” Makayla looked toward Abby with tears in her eyes.
Abby checked the time on her phone. Their thirty minutes had nearly passed.
“I’ll tell Robert’s attorneys that the messages support your account of the transfers,” she said as she stood. “I won’t speak about anything I did not witness.”
“Thank you.” Makayla stood as well but remained on her side of the table. “I know this isn’t forgiveness.”
“You didn’t ask for forgiveness today.” Abby lifted her purse onto her shoulder.
Makayla’s mouth trembled. “I am sorry, Abby.”
The apology was sincere, but it remained too small for everything between them. Abby accepted that Makayla meant it without pretending the words completed the work she had only begun.
“I heard you,” Abby said. “I need to go.”
Abby called Evan from her car and told him about the meeting. He listened without interrupting while she described Makayla’s lost job, the hotel uniform, and the apartment she now shared with Hudson.
“She said she messaged you,” Abby said as she watched people cross the library parking lot. “You don’t need to show me, but I want to know whether you plan to answer.”
“I don’t.” Evan’s response came without hesitation. “She congratulated me and said she always believed the company would succeed.”
Abby rested her head against the seat. “She said she misses you.”
Evan was quiet for several seconds. “How did that make you feel?”
“Angry for you.” Abby watched a mother fasten a child into a car seat. “Then jealous, which I didn’t enjoy admitting.”
“You don’t need to be jealous of Makayla.” Evan’s voice remained even. “I don’t want to return to that relationship.”
“I know.” Abby placed one hand over her stomach. “Knowing doesn’t prevent the first reaction.”
“Then tell me when it happens.” Papers moved on his end of the call. “I would rather answer an uncomfortable question than leave you alone with an assumption.”
Abby closed her eyes. “Are the hospital results public?”
“As of this morning.” Evan sounded tired and pleased. “The hospital approved the expansion, and the board wants to begin the next funding round.”
“You waited until after I met Makayla to tell me?” Abby sat upright. “This is the visible success everyone has been waiting for.”
“You called before I could.” Evan lowered his voice. “I was going to ask whether you wanted dinner tonight.”
“Yes.” Abby started the car and adjusted the vents. “Send the article. I want to see you get the recognition you deserve.”
Back at her desk, she found an envelope tucked into the day’s mail. Her name was written across the front in Hudson’s familiar, looping script.
Inside were five handwritten pages, dense with pleas for her to reconsider and rebuild the life they’d planned.
His apologies were the same as always—polished, practiced, hollow.
He begged her to come back without ever acknowledging that he was now living with Makayla after losing his corporate apartment.
Then, near the end, the tone shifted. He dropped the usual excuses and wrote plainly: Makayla was never someone he meant to marry. He’d only promised to leave Abby because it kept Makayla from asking for more.
I was always going to come home to you, he wrote. I would have married you exactly as we planned. What happened with Makayla could have remained separate from our real life if Evan had not decided to destroy everyone.
Abby set the letter down and picked it up again. Hudson had written those lines expecting her to feel chosen. What they described instead was the life he had already arranged for her: one in which Makayla stayed quiet and Abby stayed unknowing and Hudson moved between them for as long as he wanted.
She placed the letter in the file she kept for her attorney. Then she called building security and had Hudson’s name added to the list of banned visitors.