30. Dean
Dean
The burnt office coffee tasted like it had been sitting in the pot since yesterday. Dean grimaced and tried to focus on a client brief, eyes scanning the same sentence three times without processing a word. His brain was a blur of numbers, regret, and the memory of Fiona’s last social media post.
A knock on the door.
His assistant poked her head in, face unreadable. "There's someone here to see you," she said, her voice carefully neutral. "Says it’s personal."
Dean’s heart tripped over itself.
For one reckless, impossible second, his mind lit up like a flare. Fiona.
Maybe she'd come. Maybe she’d read the apology post, seen the money transfer, heard about the meeting blow-up. Maybe this was it— her , showing up not to forgive him, but just… to talk.
He stood, too fast. His chair scraped the floor.
And then?—
A man stepped into view. Cheap suit. Receding hairline. A manila envelope clutched in one hand.
Dean's hope crashed like glass on tile.
"Dean?" the man asked.
"That's me."
The man stepped forward and held out the envelope. "You've been served."
Dean's coffee mug slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers, hot liquid splashing down his white dress shirt and across his desk, soaking into the client briefs he'd been reviewing.
"Shit," he muttered, grabbing for napkins as scalding coffee dripped onto his lap.
"Divorce papers," the process server continued, loud enough for half the floor to hear. "You need to sign here acknowledging receipt."
It felt as if he'd just taken a blow to the chest. Grief, spiking so fast and so hard it felt like his body was rejecting the moment outright.
Divorce.
Final. Clinical. Irrevocable.
Like someone had carved a scalpel through the center of his heart and handed him the bloody paperwork.
He reached for the form with hands that no longer felt like his own. Numb, useless things attached to arms that suddenly weighed too much.
All he could hear was the word, screaming through his skull like a fire alarm.
Divorce.
Divorce.
Divorce.
He’d known it was coming but it still felt like someone had cracked open his chest and poured salt into the ruins.
He deserved to feel this pain. He deserved to feel this pain for the rest of his life.
Dean took a deep breath. He looked up to see a dozen faces turned toward his office. Roxanne was practically pressed against her doorframe, her expression gleeful. Even the interns had stopped their conversations to watch the show.
How fitting, he thought savagely. You made your wife a spectacle, now you get to be one.
With coffee staining his shirt, Dean scrawled his signature across the acknowledgment form.
"Have a good day," the process server said with professional indifference, then walked out, leaving Dean standing there, holding the physical evidence of his marriage's end.
Dean could practically hear the text messages being sent, the gossip already spreading through the building like wildfire.
"Should I..." his assistant started, gesturing helplessly at the coffee-soaked papers.
"Just close the door, Monica," Dean said quietly.
She nodded and pulled it shut, but not before Dean caught Cam making a motion to Jared, both of them laughing at his humiliation.
Dean slumped into his chair, his shirt sticky and uncomfortable, and opened the envelope.
Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
The legal language was cold, clinical. Irreconcilable differences. No community property to be divided.
And then, at the bottom: Petitioner requests no spousal support.
Dean's jaw clenched as he read the line again.
No.
Absolutely not.
She didn't get to just walk away with nothing. She didn't get to absolve him of his responsibility to take care of her. For two years, he'd been her provider, her protector—at least financially. That didn't just end because she filed some papers.
He might have failed at loving her the way she deserved. He might have lost the right to cherish her.
But providing for her? Taking care of her?
That was something he could still do. Something he was going to do, whether she wanted it or not.
Even if it was the last husbandly act he'd ever perform for her.