Chapter 23
Sin
“You look like shit,” Wilder says, dropping a bag of takeout next to me.
It’s been two weeks since everything came to light.
Two weeks where people have treated me like a villain.
Two weeks where every whisper in the office stops when I walk into a room.
Two weeks of meetings with attorneys, shareholders, board members, HR consultants, crisis PR, and Owen, who has somehow become all four horsemen of compliance.
Worse, it’s been two weeks since I’ve seen Laurel. Two weeks since I’ve heard her voice.
Two weeks since Opal texted me from Laurel’s phone and said she wasn’t ready to talk. Two weeks since I sent back the only truth that mattered.
Tell her I love her.
I don’t know if Opal told her or if Laurel read it. I don’t know if she cried, laughed, deleted it, or decided loving me was another thing she needed to survive.
The not knowing is starting to wear on me, as my dipshit brother so kindly pointed out.
“Thanks,” I mutter, reaching for the box of noodles.
Wilder drops onto the opposite end of the couch and opens his own container. “Just keeping you grounded.”
“You’re a gift.”
“I know.”
We eat in silence. The apartment is quiet around us.
It’s temporary housing in a luxury high-rise close to the office.
Nice view. Clean lines. Furniture selected by someone who has never felt an emotion more complex than beige.
I moved out of the house I shared with Jenna a week ago because staying there felt like living inside a corpse.
But this place isn’t home. It’s somewhere to shower and lay my head at the end of the night. Notice I didn’t say sleep. That’s because I haven’t been sleeping. Every time I close my eyes, I see Laurel.
Wilder twirls noodles around his fork. “Nice place.”
I grunt.
He gives me a look, then goes back to eating. For a few minutes, the only sound is takeout containers and the city humming beyond the glass.
Then Wilder says, “I saw Laurel today.”
Everything in me goes still.
My head snaps up. “What?”
He looks at me carefully now. “I said I saw Laurel.”
“Where?”
“At the market near my house.”
“How was she?”
The question comes out too fast. Too raw. Wilder’s expression shifts into pity.
“About the same as you,” he says.
My grip tightens around the fork. “What does that mean?”
“It means tired. Thinner. Pale.”
“She was buying groceries?”
“Yeah.”
That makes me frown because Laurel lives on the other side of the city.
Wilder must sense my thoughts because he says, “She moved. Said her old building wasn’t secure.”
The noodles turn to cement in my stomach.
“Wasn’t secure?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Did something happen?”
“She didn’t say.” Wilder hesitates. “But I’m sure Tate would have told us.”
Right. Because all of my brothers have access to her. Everyone except me. Tate knows where she is. Owen knows the legal boundaries. Hell, even Wilder knew something before me.
But me? I know nothing. Because I’m the problem.
I set the takeout container on the coffee table.
Wilder watches me. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m sitting here.”
“You’re sitting like you’re about to stand.”
I glare at him.
He points his fork at me. “See? Stupid posture.”
“Did she ask about me?”
Wilder’s face softens again. I hate that too.
“No.”
The word hits harder than it should. Of course she didn’t ask about me. Why would she? And what would she ask? Is Sin okay in his expensive apartment while my name gets dragged through hell because of him?
“She didn’t ask,” Wilder says, “but she listened when I mentioned you.”
My chest tightens. “What did you say about me?”
“That you look like shit.”
I stare at him.
“What?” He shrugs. “It’s true.”
“Jesus, Wilder.”
“I also told her you were doing what Owen said. Staying away. Not calling. Not showing up like a lunatic even though it was killing you.”
“Did she say anything to that?”
“She said, ‘Good.’”
I close my eyes. Good. It should make me feel better but doesn’t because it feels like a door closing quietly from the other side. Does that mean she’s giving up on me? On us…
Wilder leans forward. “Sin.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You look like you’re dying over someone you’re not allowed to call.”
My jaw flexes. “That’s because I am.”
The words sit between us. Wilder’s expression changes. He’s used to me being controlled. Cold. Arrogant. Detached. He knows my sins, but he also knows me.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit.
The confession tastes like blood.
“I finally ended my marriage. I finally said the truth out loud. I’m doing everything the attorney said. Everything Owen said. Every damn thing I should have done before.” I drag a hand through my hair. “And it still feels like I’m losing her.”
Wilder’s voice is quiet. “Maybe you are. She’s allowed to choose herself.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because loving her doesn’t mean you get to pull her back because you’re miserable. Or scared.”
The words land exactly where they’re supposed to. I look toward the window. Chicago stares back. Dark. Cold. Unimpressed in all of my failures.
“I don’t want to pull her back,” I say. “I want to know she’s safe.”
“And if she doesn’t want you to know?”
My phone buzzes on the table, saving me from answering. It’s Richard. I answer the call on speaker, because anything he has to say Wilder can hear.
“Tell me you have good news,” I say.
“I have news,” Richard answers. “Good is subjective.”
Wilder raises his brows.
I stand and walk toward the windows. “What happened?”
“We received Jenna’s financial proposal.”
My body tightens.
“And?”
Richard exhales. “She wants fifty percent of your ownership stake in SINsual Adult Toys, the Lake Michigan property, the New York apartment, the house on Astor Street, lifetime spousal support at a number that would make a professional athlete blush, and full legal reimbursement.”
For a moment, I just stare at the city. Then I laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because there are only so many fires a man can stand in before smoke starts coming out of his mouth.
“She wants half my company?”
He says, “She wants blood.”
“She didn’t build the company.”
“No.”
“She never wanted the company.”
“No.”
“She doesn’t even know what we do beyond the version she tells her friends at charity dinners.”
“That may be true. It is not legally relevant to her opening demand.”
“Opening demand,” I repeat.
“Divorce negotiations often begin with fantasy.”
“This isn’t fantasy. This is revenge.”
“Yes,” Richard says. “It is.”
Behind me, Wilder mutters, “Well, shit.”
I close my eyes.
“Fight it,” I say.
“We will.”
“Fair division. Whatever she’s entitled to. No games. But she does not get my company.”
“Understood.” He pauses. “Jenna’s attorney also included language restricting any marital assets from being used to support, defend, employ, or provide legal benefit to Laurel Cross.”
My grip tightens around the phone. “Jenna doesn’t get to decide that. She doesn’t get to use the divorce settlement to punish Laurel.”
“I assumed that would be your position and that will be addressed.”
“Addressed means what?”
“It means I will tell opposing counsel to remove it.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we proceed accordingly.”
The calm in his voice irritates me more than it should. I want someone else to be furious. I want the whole world to understand that Laurel has already paid more than enough for my cowardice.
Richard continues, “There’s something else.”
Of course there is. My life has become a gift basket of consequences.
“What?”
“We received documentation from an anonymous source.”
“What kind of documentation?”
“Hotel records. Photos. Messages.”
My pulse slows. “Of me and Laurel?”
“No,” he says. “Of Jenna.”
The room goes quiet. Even Wilder stops chewing.
I turn slightly. “What did you say?”
“She had an affair three years ago.”
For a second, I don’t understand the sentence. Not because the words are complicated. Because my body doesn’t react the way it should. No rage. No jealousy. No betrayal clawing up my throat. Just a dull, distant sense of recognition. Like someone confirmed an appointment I forgot I made.
“With who?” I ask.
“A man named Aaron Valley. Clearly no relation to her mother’s side, despite the last name. He worked with one of the charities she was involved in. It appears to have lasted approximately six months, and they still keep in touch.”
I should feel something. I wait for it, but nothing comes.
“So she cheated, too,” I say.
“Yes.”
I look at my reflection in the glass. The man staring back looks tired. Older. Hollowed out.
“If anything, I’m relieved,” I say quietly.
Relieved because it means Jenna and I were over long before Laurel.
Because it means I wasn’t the only one burying myself in someone else to avoid looking at the empty space between us.
It doesn’t excuse me or absolve me. It doesn’t undo what I did with Laurel. But it makes one thing painfully clear.
My marriage didn’t die in Amsterdam. It died years ago, and Jenna and I took turns pretending not to see the body.
“Can we use it?” I ask.
“Yes,” Richard says. “It gives us leverage. The kind that helps settle without turning this into mutually assured destruction.”
“Use it quietly.”
“That was my recommendation.”
“I won’t make a public statement about it.”
“Good.”
“I don’t want to hurt her like that.”
Richard says, “I’ll move forward.”
We end the call and I lower the phone.
Wilder studies me from the couch. “You really don’t care?”
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
I search for anger. For pride. For masculine outrage. For anything. There’s nothing.
“No.”
“Damn.” He leans back. “That’s how you know, I guess.”
“How I know what?”
“That it was already done.”
I look down at my bare left hand.
“Yes,” I say. “It was.”
The divorce gets uglier before it gets better. Jenna doesn’t go quietly. Her first settlement demand is obscene. Her second is worse. Her mother gives three more interviews before Richard’s cease-and-desist finally scares someone with sense into taking her phone away.
For a week, headlines pulse like an infection.
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