Chapter 8
Clayton
The image of Jennifer laughing with that man burned behind my eyelids every time I closed my eyes.
Blake Otto. I'd looked him up the moment I got home from the gallery, my fingers typing his name into the search bar with a desperation that made me sick to my stomach.
Thirty-nine years old. Award-winning architect.
Old money family with a reputation for philanthropy.
Divorced, no kids, and according to his social media, recently single.
The kind of man who could give Jennifer everything I'd failed to provide. Emotional availability. Open communication. A partnership built on trust instead of secrets.
I wanted to kill him.
I wanted to drive back to that gallery and drag her away from him, throw her over my shoulder like a caveman and remind her exactly who she belonged to. The possessive rage that surged through me was ugly and primitive and completely unjustified, and I hated myself for feeling it.
She wasn't mine anymore. I'd made sure of that with years of emotional neglect.
But my body didn't understand logic. My body only understood that my wife had been standing in a room full of people, looking like a fucking goddess in that green dress, and another man had been making her laugh.
I'd forgotten what her laugh sounded like. That was the worst part. Somewhere along the way, I'd stopped making her laugh entirely, and I hadn't even noticed until I heard the sound coming from someone else's proximity.
My therapist, Dr. Bauer, had warned me about this. About the jealousy that would feel like fire in my veins when I saw Jennifer moving on. About the urge to control, to possess, to demand rather than earn.
"Your instinct will be to tighten your grip," she'd said during our session last week. "But that's what got you here in the first place. You have to learn to let go, Clayton. To trust that if Jennifer comes back to you, it will be because she wants to, not because you've given her no other choice."
I'd nodded along like I understood.
I hadn't understood shit.
The next morning, I walked into Mayer Development's boardroom with a purpose that felt like armor.
The long mahogany table was lined with executives, all of them watching me with varying degrees of curiosity and concern.
My father sat at the head of the table, as always, his silver hair perfectly combed and his expression coldly expectant.
Grace was there too.
She sat three chairs down from my father, her sleek dark-brown hair pulled back in an elegant twist, her blue eyes tracking my movements with a wariness that hadn't been there before.
She'd been avoiding me since Corey had warned me about her behavior, declining my calls and sending her assistant to handle our account instead of showing up herself.
Smart woman. She knew something had shifted.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I said, not bothering to sit. "Thank you for being here on short notice. I have an announcement that affects the future direction of this company."
My father's eyes narrowed. "Clayton, if this is about the Iverson situation, we've already discussed—"
"It's not about Iverson." I met his gaze steadily, refusing to flinch. "It's about Grace Shields and Shields PR."
The room went silent. Grace's face drained of color, her composure cracking for just a moment before she smoothed it back into place.
"I don't understand," she said, her voice perfectly modulated. "Our contract doesn't expire for another eighteen months."
"I'm terminating it early." I pulled a folder from my briefcase and slid it across the table toward her. "Effective immediately. You'll find the severance terms are more than generous, considering the circumstances."
"The circumstances?" Grace laughed, but there was an edge to it now, something sharp and dangerous. "What circumstances, Clayton? We've worked together for years. I've guided this company through three major crises. You can't just—"
"I can." I kept my voice flat, emotionless. "And I am."
"This is absurd." She turned to my father, her eyes blazing. "Marcel, talk some sense into him."
My father was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Not angry, exactly. More like... calculating. Trying to figure out my angle.
"Clayton," he said slowly. "Perhaps we should discuss this privately before making any rash decisions."
"There's nothing to discuss." I turned back to Grace, and for the first time, I let her see the full weight of my anger.
The betrayal I felt. The disgust at myself for being so blind and at her for exploiting that blindness.
"I know what you've been doing, Grace. The comments at industry events.
Telling people Jennifer was never right for me.
Positioning yourself as my emotional support while my marriage fell apart. "
Her face went pale. "That's not—"
"I trusted you." The words came out rough, scraped raw. "I told you things I should have told my wife, and you used that access to plant yourself in the middle of my marriage like a fucking parasite."
"Clayton." Her voice dropped, soft and wounded. "Everything I did was because I care about you. Jennifer never understood you the way I do. She never—"
"Don't." I slammed my palm on the table, and everyone in the room jumped. "Don't you dare say her name. You don't get to talk about my wife. You don't get to have opinions about my marriage. You don't get to be part of my life anymore."
The silence was deafening.
Grace stared at me, and I watched something shift behind her eyes. The mask of concerned friend slipping away, revealing the calculating predator underneath.
"You'll regret this," she said quietly. "I know things about this company, Clayton. Things that could destroy your reputation if they became public."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a warning." She stood, smoothing down her designer dress with trembling hands.
"You think Jennifer will take you back because you've had some kind of epiphany?
You think cutting me out of your life will magically fix everything you broke?
" Her laugh was bitter, ugly. "You're delusional.
That woman is done with you. And when you finally accept that, when you realize you've thrown away twenty years of friendship for nothing, don't come crawling back to me. "
She grabbed the folder and walked out, her heels clicking against the marble floor with sharp, angry precision.
The door slammed behind her.
I exhaled slowly, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. The room remained silent, every executive staring at me with expressions ranging from shocked to impressed.
My father was the first to speak.
"Well," he said dryly. "That was dramatic."
"It was necessary." I met his eyes, refusing to back down. "Grace has been a liability for months. Her behavior since Jennifer left has been unprofessional at best and predatory at worst. I won't have someone like that representing this company."
"Someone like that." Marcel leaned back in his chair, studying me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "You mean someone who actually understood the pressures you were under? Someone who listened when your wife couldn't be bothered?"
The words hit me like a punch to the gut.
"Jennifer could always be bothered," I said quietly. "I just never gave her the chance."
Something flickered across my father's face. Surprise, maybe. Or discomfort. He wasn't used to me pushing back, wasn't used to me acknowledging my own failures out loud.
"This is about more than Grace," he said slowly. "Isn't it."
"Yes." I straightened my shoulders, drawing on reserves of courage I hadn't known I possessed.
"I've spent my entire life trying to live up to your expectations, Dad.
Trying to be the man you wanted me to be.
Strong. Silent. Never showing weakness, never asking for help, never letting anyone see the cracks. "
The room was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.
"And where did that get me?" I continued, my voice rough. "My wife left me. My marriage is in ruins. I've been having panic attacks for months and calling anyone except the woman I swore to love and cherish because I was too fucking proud to let her see me fall apart."
My father's jaw tightened. "Clayton—"
"I'm done." The words came out stronger than I expected, fueled by weeks of therapy and sleepless nights and the memory of Jennifer's face when she told me she'd left her ring on my desk.
"I'm done pretending that silence is strength.
I'm done treating vulnerability like weakness.
And I'm done letting you dictate how I live my life. "
Marcel's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Be very careful, son."
"Or what? You'll cut me out?" I laughed bitterly.
"You've been threatening that for years, Dad.
Every time I didn't perform exactly how you wanted, every time I fell short of your impossible standards.
Well, guess what? I'd rather lose this company than lose myself.
I'd rather walk away from everything you built than keep turning into you. "
The words hung in the air between us, brutal and honest and years overdue.
My father stared at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, he stood.
"This meeting is adjourned," he said flatly. "Everyone out. Now."
The executives filed out in silence, none of them meeting my eyes. Within moments, we were alone, just me and the man who had shaped me into someone my wife couldn't trust.
"You want to throw away everything I've built for you?
" Marcel's voice was dangerously soft. "Fine.
But don't pretend it's about Jennifer. Don't pretend you're doing this for noble reasons.
You're doing it because you're scared. Because you'd rather blow up your entire life than face the fact that you failed. "
"You're right," I said quietly. "I am scared. I'm terrified. But not of failure, Dad. I'm terrified of success that costs me everything that matters. I'm terrified of ending up like you."
He flinched like I'd struck him.
"Wendy loves you," I continued, the words pouring out before I could stop them.
"She's loved you for forty years, and you've spent every single one of those years keeping her at arm's length.
Making her feel like she's not good enough to share your burdens.
That's what you taught me. That's what I did to Jennifer. And I refuse to do it anymore."
Marcel was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was rough.
"You think it's that easy? You think you can just decide to be different and everything magically changes?"
"No." I met his eyes steadily. "I think it's the hardest thing I've ever done. But I'd rather fail trying to become a better man than succeed at being a hollow one."
I didn't wait for his response. I turned and walked out of the boardroom, my legs shaking but my head held high.
In the elevator, I pulled out my phone and opened a new document. My therapist had suggested writing a letter to Jennifer. Not to send, necessarily. Just to organize my thoughts. To practice the vulnerability I'd spent a lifetime avoiding.
But as I started typing, I realized I didn't want to practice anymore.
I wanted to be real. For the first time in my entire life, I wanted to lay myself bare and let someone see all the ugly, broken, terrified parts of me.
So I wrote.
I wrote about the panic attacks and the sleepless nights and the bone-deep terror of watching my father's disappointment curdle into contempt.
I wrote about Grace and how I'd used her as an emotional crutch because she was safer than my wife.
I wrote about every lie, every deflection, every time I'd shut Jennifer out because I was too scared to let her in.
I wrote about the night she left, standing in our empty house with her ring burning a hole in my pocket, finally understanding that I'd been so afraid of losing her that I'd pushed her away with both hands.
And I wrote about the gallery. About seeing her laughing with another man and wanting to die from the jealousy even though I had no right to feel it. About how beautiful she looked, how free, how completely herself in a way I hadn't seen in years.
I wrote about how proud I was of her. How much I loved her. How I would spend the rest of my life trying to become worthy of her, even if she never took me back.
When I finished, my face was wet with tears I hadn't realized I'd been crying.
I saved the document, took a shaky breath, and attached it to an email.
Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I hit send.