Chapter 9 Oak
nine- Oak
The boardroom was freezing, but the chill couldn’t touch the numbness wrapped around me. I sat at the head of the table, arms crossed, while some analyst droned on about performance metrics. His voice was just a buzz in my ears. I hadn’t heard a word.
One month and one week.
That’s how long it had been since Jordin left me standing at the police station.
A month of unreturned calls, ignored texts, and divorce papers piling up on my desk like accusations.
I wasn’t signing shit. She’d made her point, but she was taking it too far.
She would have to look me in the eye and tell me she wanted to end fifteen years over one mistake.
I’d let my ego and my dick talk me into the biggest error of my life. And now, the woman I built my world around was giving me a taste of what that world would be like without her in it—devastatingly silent.
“Mr. Black?”
I looked up. The entire boardroom was staring. The mid-level exec had frozen mid-sentence, his face pale, as if I’d fire him for the crime of interrupting my thoughts.
“Good work. Wrap it up,” I barked, having no idea what he’d said. I stood, the chair screeching against the floor, and walked out, leaving a wake of whispers behind me. Let them talk. I didn’t give a fuck.
Back in my office, I ripped my tie off like it was a noose and collapsed into my chair.
The panoramic view of Tampa Bay usually centered me.
Now, it just looked like a postcard from a life I was no longer living.
I felt hollowed out. My family was worried.
I was worried. The desperate, ugly thoughts were starting to whisper—thoughts about doing something drastic to get her back, or just… giving up.
The door burst open without a knock. I didn’t need to look up; the cloying, floral perfume announced Olivia.
“Do you knock?” I asked dryly.
“We need to talk,” she said, her voice trembling. She shut the door and stood there, arms crossed, one foot tapping impatiently against the tile.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “There’s nothing to talk about, Olivia.”
I was still figuring out how to fire her without a lawsuit. Keeping her anywhere near me was a guarantee Jordin would never come back. For now, she was banished to another department.
“Don’t!” she whined, her voice rising to a shrill pitch. “Don’t act like we didn’t have something. Like I didn’t mean anything to you.”
A sharp, humorless laugh escaped me. I finally looked at her. “You didn’t. It was a fuck. A few of them. And not even that good.”
The bitter thought of Jordin casually dismissing her as “Jenny or Janet” flashed in my mind. That’s all Olivia was—so insignificant my wife couldn’t even be bothered to remember her name.
Her face crumpled, tears welling in her eyes even as she forced a laugh. “You’re a liar. You’re just mad because Jordin’s playing house with that singer, Ciarán, and it’s killing you.”
My stomach twisted into a cold knot, but I kept my face a blank mask. “Get out, Olivia.”
“You’re pathetic,” she hissed, her voice shaking with rage. “She’s gone, Oak. She’s on a private beach with another man—a richer, more famous one—while you sit here crying over her.”
“I said, get out.” My voice was dangerously quiet.
She wiped her tears with a furious swipe of her hand. “I’m reporting you to HR.”
“Do it.”
The door slammed behind her, the sound echoing in the sudden quiet. I stared at it for a long moment before grabbing my phone. My thumb hovered over Jordin’s name, but I opened a browser instead.
It didn’t take long to find it. A grainy paparazzi shot of her on a sun lounger in Miami, the sun making her skin glow.
She was laughing, a real, unforced laugh frozen in time.
And next to her was him. Ciarán. Shirtless, a drink in his hand, his focus entirely on her like she was the only thing in his universe.
I told you he wanted you, I thought, the memory a fresh burn. You said you didn’t care. You said you only wanted me.
The ugly, insidious thought slithered into my brain: Was she fucking him all along?
My grip on the phone turned white-knuckled. No. Jordin wasn’t that woman. But then, I wasn’t supposed to be the man who cheated on his wife, either.
I stood so abruptly the phone clattered to the desk. My gaze swept the room, landing on the framed photos of us—the ones I couldn’t bring myself to take down.
I moved before I could think. My arm swept across the shelf, sending glass and memories crashing to the floor.
The sound wasn’t enough. I snatched the stack of divorce papers and threw them like confetti.
The lamp followed, then the pen holder, anything I could get my hands on, until the office was a testament to my rage.
“Fuck!” I roared, my chest heaving.
I stood amidst the wreckage, nothing left to break. I thought about hurling my chair through the window, but the fight drained out of me as suddenly as it had come. I sank into it instead, my head in my hands, too exhausted for the tears that had already been spent.
Maybe Olivia was right. Maybe I was a fool.
But I wasn’t signing those papers. I wasn’t giving Jordin up.
Not yet. Not ever. She was mine, even if she didn’t want to be.