Chapter 37
Simon
Simon did not sleep on Friday night.
He sat in the dark living room of his parents' guest house, staring blindly at the wall. The panic that had seized him in the driveway had slowly hardened into something entirely different. It condensed into a cold, lethal, and intensely protective rage.
Audrey was right. He had built the bomb that blew up their marriage. But Emily had deliberately, maliciously walked into the rubble and detonated another one just to watch Audrey bleed.
He couldn't undo the hotel room. He couldn't un-say the pathetic, desperate words captured on that recording. But he could make damn sure that Emily never got within a hundred miles of his wife ever again.
At 7:00 AM on Saturday, Simon picked up his phone and dialed his divorce attorney, Jerome Carter.
"Simon, it's Saturday morning," Jerome answered, his voice thick with sleep. "I filed the preliminary buyout paperwork for your Lumière shares yesterday afternoon like you asked. What's the emergency?"
"I need you to draft a cease-and-desist, Jerome," Simon said, his voice quiet, flat, and entirely devoid of emotion. "And I need you to prepare a lawsuit for the distribution of non-consensual, sexually explicit audio recordings."
There was a sharp rustle of sheets on the other end of the line. Jerome was suddenly wide awake. "Who is the target?"
"Emily Hayes. A junior coordinator at Lumière," Simon stated, his grip on the phone tightening until his knuckles turned white.
"She recorded an intimate encounter without my knowledge or consent, and yesterday evening, she emailed that audio file directly to my wife to harass her.
I want a restraining order. I want her legally barred from contacting Audrey, myself, or my daughter.
I want you to bury her in so much legal threat that she forgets my name. "
"Recording explicit audio without consent and distributing it to a third party is a felony in this state, Simon," Jerome said, his professional instincts instantly kicking in.
"We can bury her. But this is going to get incredibly ugly.
If we file this, it becomes public record.
Your name, her name, the affair. Are you prepared for that level of exposure? "
"I don't care about my reputation," Simon said fiercely. "I don't care what the industry thinks. But I will not let this become a public spectacle for my wife. I'll handle the exposure on my end. Just get the papers drafted."
"Consider it done. I'll have the courier serve her the papers by noon," Jerome promised.
Simon hung up. He didn't pause to take a breath. He immediately opened his contacts and dialed David, the senior partner at Lumière.
David answered on the third ring. "Simon? I thought we agreed you were stepping back—"
"Emily Hayes is to be terminated immediately," Simon interrupted, his voice dropping into a ruthless, commanding register that left no room for negotiation.
"Excuse me?" David scoffed, clearly taken aback. "Simon, you don't even want to be a partner anymore. You can't just call me on a weekend and demand we fire a junior coordinator because of your personal baggage. The agency isn't your playground."
"This isn't personal baggage, David. It's a massive liability," Simon shot back, his tone turning to ice.
"Emily secretly recorded a sexual encounter between us.
Yesterday, she used company time and resources to email that explicit recording to my wife.
She is distributing revenge porn. My lawyer is currently drafting the lawsuit and the restraining order. "
"Jesus Christ," David breathed.
The line went dead silent for a long moment before David's voice came back, suddenly stripped of all its usual corporate arrogance.
"Simon... Simon, listen to me," David started to stutter, a raw, panicked edge completely overtaking his voice. "When we went to Chicago for that two-week corporate expo... she was on my team."
Simon closed his eyes, a fresh, sickening wave of disgust rolling through his chest.
"I slept with her," David confessed, his breathing shallow and erratic.
"Almost every single day we were there. And a few times back here, up until last month when my wife started asking questions about my hours.
I... I promoted her, Simon. I gave her a raise to keep her happy.
She hasn't caused me any problems, she's been perfectly fine—but Jesus, do you. .. do you think she recorded me, too?"
Simon felt a cold, bitter realization settle over him. Emily hadn't just targeted him; she had found exactly how to exploit the egos of the agency's senior partners.
"I have no idea, David," Simon said coldly, offering zero sympathy for the man's sudden terror. "But if she recorded me, you'd be a fool to think you're safe. Fire her. Today. Before my lawyer tears this firm apart."
"I'll call HR right now," David conceded frantically, his voice tight with damage control. "She'll be locked out of the servers and her email within the hour. It’s handled, Simon."
"Make sure it is," Simon warned, and ended the call.
He dropped his phone onto the coffee table and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
The scorched-earth campaign was not complete; it was just starting. Simon knew that filing a felony lawsuit could trigger a massive public scandal, and the last thing Audrey needed was her private pain plastered across local news or industry gossip blogs.
He picked up his phone again. This time, he didn't call Jerome.
He started making calls to the judges and legal fixers his family had spent decades cultivating relationships with.
Even though he knew it crossed ethical lines, he cashed in every favor, every connection his parents had in the legal world, explicitly demanding that the filings be sealed and his family's name kept entirely out of the public dockets.
When Emily had to answer in court for her crimes, there would be no media circus.
He was going to ensure Audrey and Lily never had to deal with the public humiliation of his mistakes.
But as the adrenaline slowly drained from his system, the cold, terrifying reality of the weekend rushed back in.
Neutralizing Emily didn't fix the damage she had already done.
It didn't erase the sound of his own voice echoing in Audrey's ears.
It didn't change the fact that his wife was currently sitting in a painfully quiet house, completely alone, deciding if his betrayal was a wound she could actually survive.
Simon looked at his phone. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to drive to the house, to break the boundary and demand to see her, to prove that he had handled the threat.
But he didn't.
He remembered the hollow exhaustion in Audrey's eyes. I need you to stay away this weekend, Simon.
He had spent his entire marriage overriding her needs because he thought he knew better. He wasn't going to do it today. He had to prove he was a different man, even if it meant sitting in the agonizing, suffocating silence and letting her decide his fate.
Simon stayed in the guest house, entirely alone, and prayed that the woman he loved wouldn't give up on him.