10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Alexander
The call ended, and Alexander kept the phone against his ear for another second.
Nicole had given him facts. School days, pickup times, meals, naps, music, swimming, bedtime.
She’d told him when he could see Prim and Rose, and what she expected from him.
He’d wanted to ask a dozen questions that had nothing to do with any of it.
Did she still love him? Was she thinking about divorce? Had she slept at all? Did she miss him even a little?
None of those questions belonged in a call about their daughters.
He lowered the phone and looked at the notes he’d taken. His handwriting crowded the page, careful and dark. At the bottom, he’d written Wednesday, 12:30, Little Oaks and underlined it twice.
He opened the message thread with Nicole.
His first attempt began with “I can’t lose you”.
Alexander deleted it. The second began with an explanation of why he hadn’t known about the photographs.
He deleted that too. She already knew he didn’t use social media.
His ignorance had been part of the harm, not a defense against it.
He set the phone on the kitchen table, stood, and walked to the window.
The back lawn was empty. No bright plastic cups sat near the pool.
No little shoes had been abandoned under a chair.
He’d spent the previous night believing he finally understood, but fear still kept trying to turn every thought back toward what he needed from Nicole.
He returned to the table and wrote more slowly.
“Thank you for telling me what the girls need. I understand now that I’ve been defending myself against an accusation you never made.
The problem is larger than Angela’s kiss.
I will respect your request for space, and I will stop asking you to come home.
I will follow the schedule you send and every boundary you’ve set.
I’m asking only that you continue allowing me to see Prim and Rose.
I know I have to prove I can be their father without making you carry that work for me too. ”
He read it three times. The words weren’t clever. They didn’t describe how much he loved her or how empty the house felt. They didn’t ask her to comfort him. He sent the message.
Nicole didn’t answer while he put on his jacket. He made himself leave the phone alone.
At Cohan Studios, Alexander went directly to his office and called Sofia Reyes, the studio’s president of production.
“I need you in here,” he said. “Bring what you need to take over Brittle.”
There was a pause. “Take over for the day?”
“Take over the production.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
She arrived in four, carrying a tablet and a thick folder. Sofia had worked at Cohan Studios for nine years. Alexander had hired her because she could make difficult decisions without drama, then spent most of those years reserving the biggest decisions for himself.
She sat across from him and put the folder on his desk. “What happened?”
“I’m removing myself from the film.”
Her expression didn’t change, but her fingers stopped on the edge of the tablet. “Completely?”
“You’re the executive producer effective today. You have full authority over daily production, the director, the budget, and talent issues.”
“Alexander, Brittle is already unstable.”
“I know,” he said.
“Angela signed because you were personally involved.”
“Then she’ll learn that she signed with Cohan Studios, not with me.”
Sofia watched him for a moment. “Does this have to do with the photographs?”
“It has to do with my conduct. Angela will have no direct or private access to me. Any communication from her goes through you, business affairs, or counsel.”
“She won’t like that.”
“She doesn’t have to like it.”
“She may threaten to walk.”
The answer used to be obvious. A star with Angela’s box-office power could frighten a production into almost any accommodation.
Alexander had accepted every new demand because losing control of Brittle felt worse than losing another dinner, another bedtime, another promise Nicole had tried to believe.
He slid the production folder across the desk.
“If she threatens the film, the studio handles it,” he said. “You handle it. I won’t placate her personally, and I won’t meet with her alone.”
Sofia put her palm on the folder but didn’t pull it toward herself. “Do I have authority, or do I have authority until you disagree with me?”
The question struck harder than he expected.
“You have it,” he said. “If I try to take it back because a decision makes me uncomfortable, remind me of this conversation.”
“I doubt I’ll need to remind you gently.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
That earned the smallest lift at one corner of her mouth. Then she pulled the folder toward her.
They called the director first. He protested, asked whether Alexander had lost confidence in the film, and demanded to know what would happen if Angela refused the change.
“My confidence isn’t the issue,” Alexander said. “Sofia has final authority now. You will take production decisions to her.”
“And if I need you?”
“You won’t.”
The words left an unfamiliar space in his chest. For years, being needed had felt the same as being responsible. He’d built the studio around that confusion and called the result discipline.
Business affairs joined the next call. Angela’s agent and manager joined after them. Her agent spoke before Sofia had finished describing the change.
“Angela won’t accept being handed off in the middle of production.”
“Sofia isn’t a handoff,” Alexander said. “She’s the president of production and the executive producer of Brittle.”
“Angela expects to discuss major creative decisions with you.”
“That expectation ends today.”
“She could consider this a serious breakdown in the working relationship.”
Alexander looked at Sofia. She met his gaze without offering him an escape.
“Then business affairs can address her concerns,” he said. “There will be no private meetings, informal calls, or direct messages between Angela and me. All communication stays in formal studio channels.”
“Are you willing to risk the picture over this?” the agent asked.
He thought of Prim on an urgent-care table while he hadn’t even known she was hurt. He thought of Rose counting to ten for other people while he stayed late to solve problems that half a dozen capable executives could’ve solved without him.
“I’m willing to let the studio function without treating my personal availability as a condition of the picture,” he said.
After the call, Sofia stood with the folder tucked under her arm.
“I’ll need the current cut notes and your conversation log with the director.”
“You’ll have both within the hour.”
“And if Angela calls you anyway?”
“I won’t answer.”
“Good.” Sofia turned toward the door, then looked back. “For what it’s worth, this should’ve happened months ago.”
“I know.”
He spent the afternoon saying those two words more often than he liked.
The studio’s chief operating officer sat across from him while Alexander transferred decisions he’d kept on his own desk for years.
A release-date dispute went to distribution.
A financing approval went to the committee that already existed to approve it.
Department heads received authority to solve urgent problems without waiting for Alexander to enter the room.
“You created half these systems,” the chief operating officer said. “Then you kept stepping around them.”
“I know.”
“Do you trust the people you hired?”
“Yes.”
“Then let us do our jobs.”
Alexander leaned back. Every answer he gave away made him want to ask for an update. Every decision that left his control exposed the belief behind his long hours: if he wasn’t involved, the work might fail, and if the work failed, so did he.
Nicole had never asked him to be less capable. She’d asked him to stop proving his worth at her expense.
“My office schedule changes immediately,” he said.
“Fixed work blocks, built around my time with the girls. Family commitments don’t move.
Nonessential evening events go to another executive, and an urgent problem belongs to the person with authority to solve it.
My absence can’t be treated as an emergency. ”
The chief operating officer gave him a dry look. “That last part may require training.”
“Start with me.”
When the meeting ended, Alexander opened his calendar.
For the first time in years, he didn’t send a list of personal commitments to Vicky and trust her to defend them against a company trained to push.
He entered the preschool schedule Nicole had given him.
He marked every period with Prim and Rose as unavailable and removed three dinners and a weekend event that didn’t require him.
Then he changed the settings on his personal phone.
Nicole, Susan, Paul, and Little Oaks could reach him through any muted setting.
Family calls would come directly to him.
No assistant would screen them, and no missing employee could make him unreachable again.
He called human resources.
“Vicky is on paid medical leave,” he said. “No work calls, no email, and no requests for calendar help until her doctor clears her.”
“She has already checked in twice today,” the director of human resources said.
“Tell her the company has coverage. If she checks in again, don’t give her work.”
“Who is managing your personal calendar while she’s out?”
“I am.”
The answer should not have felt radical. It did.
His phone rang as he ended the call. His father’s name filled the screen.
Alexander considered letting it go unanswered, then accepted.
“Hello.”
“Tell me I haven’t just heard that you abandoned your own film.” His father’s voice carried clearly from France. In the background, someone blew a hunting horn, long and loud enough that Alexander pulled the phone away from his ear.
“What was that?”
“Preparations.”
“For what?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with. What have you done to Brittle?”
His father had retired years ago, but everything that moved at Cohan Studios still got to him within five seconds.
“Assigned it to the president of production,” Alexander said.
“You were producing it.”
“Now Sofia Reyes is.”
“Because Nicole went to her mother’s house?”
Of course he’d heard about that, too. Nothing was sacred in Alexander’s life. Nothing had ever been.
“Because I let the studio take over my life.”
His father made an impatient sound. “Cohan men don’t reorganize companies around domestic disturbances. Your mother has left rooms before. She returned when she calmed down. Nicole will do the same.”
Alexander’s hand tightened around the phone. “Don’t speak about my wife as if she’s having a tantrum.”
“I’m telling you that marriage survives emotion. Stability matters. Provision matters.”
“Presence matters.”
“You sound like a therapist.” His father groaned.
“I sound like a man whose daughters cried for him while he stayed at work.”
His father went quiet.
Alexander stood and walked to the darkening glass wall of his office. Employees crossed the lot below. Production carts moved between buildings. The company looked exactly as it had that morning, despite several hours of decisions made without him.
“Nicole and the twins aren’t a domestic disturbance,” he said. “They aren’t a distraction from the important part of my life.”
“Nobody said they were,” his father said.
“That’s how we live. That’s how you lived,” Alexander said.
“You know nothing about what your mother and I agreed to.”
“I know I spent my childhood waiting for you. I promised myself I’d be different because I’ve never cheated on Nicole.” Alexander swallowed. “I was faithful. I thought that made me a good husband. It didn’t. It meant I met one requirement while failing her in ordinary ways every day.”
“You provided her with a life most people cannot imagine,” his father said.
“She provided me with a life I didn’t bother to attend.”
Another pause followed. Alexander didn’t fill it.
His father finally said, “And you believe surrendering your company will bring her back?”
“I’m not surrendering the company. I’m doing my job as chief executive instead of every other person’s job too.”
“And Nicole?”
The answer hurt, but he made himself say it.
“She may never come back. The changes still have to be made.”
“Then I don’t understand the point.”
“I know.”
Alexander ended the call before his father could answer.
Night had covered the lot by the time the last transfer was complete.
Sofia returned for the cut notes and the final production files.
She asked two questions, accepted his answers, and carried the materials out of his office.
He had to stop himself from calling her back to add one more instruction.
Instead, Alexander shut down the production dashboard on his computer.
He sent the final authority memo, declined the next evening’s event, and checked his personal calendar himself.
Nicole still hadn’t answered his message.
He hadn’t expected her to. An accountable text wasn’t a payment that bought a reply.
Removing himself from Brittle wasn’t a romantic offering she had to reward.
She might never know how difficult it had been for him to let Sofia leave with those files, and that was as it should be. The difficulty belonged to him.
This one late night would finish the handover, so it didn’t become another excuse for hundreds more. He looked around the dark office where he’d spent so much of his marriage and understood how tempting it would be to call the day a sacrifice.
It wasn’t.
He’d made his personal phone reachable. He’d protected time with his children. He’d allowed talented people to perform the jobs they already held. He’d stopped giving a woman who wasn’t his wife private access to him.
It was the bare minimum.
The real work began now.