Chapter Fifteen Julian
Ididn’t want to give her the divorce.
I sat in that conference room across from her, telling myself that if I just held out long enough, she would break. Soften. Remember that she loved me.
But she never did.
In the end, I didn’t have a choice.
Every time I pushed back, every time I tried to stall, she just looked at me with that calm, unflinching face and said the same thing.
Then we go to trial.
I tried for months, delaying, hoping she’d just give me another chance.
I had spent that time performing the work of a martyr.
I called. I texted until my thumbs were numb.
I showed up at the café again, twice, three times.
Each time, she wasn’t there. Or she was, and someone else came to the door.
Maeve. Kieran. A wall of bodies that did not want me near her.
I told her I was ready to forget everything she said, to forgive everything she’d done. I was willing to overlook the accusations, the humiliation, her distortion of our history into something ugly and false. I was willing to start fresh, to rebuild.
But she didn’t back down.
She kept saying trial—no fear in her voice, no tremor, no hesitation.
Like she has nothing to lose.
Of course she doesn’t. No reputation to uphold.
No career built on other people’s approval.
No image to protect. No height for her to fall from.
She has nothing. She is nothing. She has the luxury of being a vacuum, a black hole where a person should be.
A woman who mops floors for strangers and lives in her friend’s spare bedroom.
I am the one with everything to lose.
A trial would have been a public flaying.
It would’ve ruined me. Cheating. Emotional abuse.
Controlling behavior. The words settle on me like a swarm of black flies.
They are contaminating, oily words. They leave stains.
Words that stick. Words people remember.
Words that cling to you even after you deny them.
I can see the headlines now. Rumors. Gossip that travels through professional circles, reaches the ears of clients and colleagues, changes how people look at you, a fever that infects everything you want to keep together.
Did you hear about Julian? His wife accused him of abuse.
Emotional abuse, apparently. She filed for divorce.
There’s going to be a trial.
These words could follow me. No matter what the judge decided. No matter who “won.” The accusation alone could be enough.
Emotional abuse.
A scoff catches in the back of my throat, a dry rattle of a laugh. She has no idea what the word means. She’d spent her entire life being sheltered, carried from one cushioned room to another. First by her father, then by me.
My father-in-law was a good man. A strong man. A man who provided. I saw him with her. I saw his pride. His protection. His hand on her shoulder. His voice calling her sweetheart.
She’d lived a comfortable life. Protected. Provided for. Shielded from anything truly difficult.
I gave her a life that most people would kill for. I paid for everything. I made sure she never had to worry about money or taxes or bills. I never asked her to work. I never asked her to contribute. I just asked her to be my wife.
And she still walked away.
Outside the courthouse, the air feels too sharp, too bright.
The sun is an aggressive, medicinal white, bleaching the life out of the sidewalk.
It makes my eyes ache with a dull, throbbing heat.
Everything is too loud and too dry. I stand on the courthouse steps and watch the town twitch—lawyers in cheap, shiny wool suits that smell of old coffee and armpit.
A clerk scurries past, clutching a stack of files against his chest. A fat woman pushes a stroller past me.
The child inside is a pink lump. Its face is smeared with a sheer layer of snot and something orange and sticky that looks like mashed carrots.
It stares at me with milky, uncomprehending eyes.
None of them know what just happened in that building. None of them care.
I want to go home, pull the curtains shut, and wait for the sun to die.
But I don’t.
Because my eyes find her.
Nora stands a few steps away, her lawyer already gone, Maeve beside her. They’re talking, heads bent together. Maeve says something, and Nora smiles. Soft. Genuine.
I freeze.
This isn’t the smile I know. The smile I know belonged to dinner parties and family gatherings, the one in photographs where she stood beside me with her shoulders curled inward, her chin tucked down, her eyes glassy, her mouth arranged into something polite and distant.
This smile is different. It reaches her eyes. It softens her whole face. It transforms her into a stranger, bright and glimmering like a star in the crowd.
I have never seen that smile.
Maeve pulls her into a hug, full and unhesitating, and Nora leans into it without holding back.
I watch her arms rise. Her hands press flat against Maeve’s back.
Her body softens into the embrace, shoulders dropping, head tilting to rest against Maeve’s cheap, pilled cardigan—head tilting to rest on a shoulder that isn’t mine.
A bitter, sharp twist goes through my chest.
Jealousy. That is what it is. Ugly and hot and undeniable. I am jealous of a woman. I am jealous of a hug. I am jealous of the ease between them, the trust, the simple, uncomplicated affection that Nora never gave me. My feet feel heavy in my polished oxfords. They feel like clammy lead weights.
I take a step forward.
Immediately, someone blocks my path.
Kieran.
My irritation flares instantly at the sight of him. He stands with his hands in his pockets, calm, unhurried, blocking my path. He carries himself with a confidence that says he belongs here, in her life, and I don’t.
“You,” I snap. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He gives a slight, unnervingly calm smile. “Stopping you from making a mistake.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “You don’t get to tell me what to do with my wife.”
The smile stays fixed on his face, almost gentle. The way one might look at an injured animal. “Ex-wife,” he corrects. “That was the point of today.”
The word hits my chest, and I can’t breathe.
Ex-wife.
I haven’t said it once. Haven’t let myself think about it. In my mind, she remains my wife. The woman who irons my shirts. Packs my lunch. Waits for me to come home. Still mine.
I glare past him at Nora.
She is still standing with Maeve, her back to me, her shoulders relaxed. She doesn’t know I am here. She doesn’t seem to care.
“What exactly do you think you are to her?” I demand, my voice low and harsh.
I want to hurt him. I want to watch the smugness leak out of his lungs until he realizes he is a mathematical insignificance. A mere coworker, a temporary crutch she grabbed because he happened to be nearby when she decided to ruin her life.
He watches me for a second, his face giving nothing away. “Something far better than what you were.”
My jaw tightens, heat rising in my chest.
“This isn’t over,” I say, the words coming through gritted teeth. “I’ll get her back.”
He studies me, his calm composure an insult. “She’s already handled that.”
I frown. “What are you talking about?”
“She filed for a restraining order.”
For a moment, the words don’t register. A restraining order is for people who are dangerous. Threatening. People who cannot be trusted to stay away. For men who punch holes in drywall or carry knives in their pockets. I am none of those things. I am her husband. I love her.
I gulp. “That’s bullshit.”
But my mind races anyway. A restraining order. A legal document. That piece of paper will limit my movements, my contact, my ability to reach her.
“You’ll be served,” he continues, his tone casual. “Soon.”
I laugh, loud and harsh. “For what? Talking to her? Wanting my wife back?”
Kieran doesn’t blink. “For refusing to leave her alone. Which you’re demonstrating at this very moment.”
My stomach knots with cold. My body feels foreign, borrowed. But I tighten my jaw anyway. “She didn’t even tell me.”
“She doesn’t have to,” he replies. “You lost that right.”
I take a step forward. My words come out rough. “You think a piece of paper will stop me?”
“I think,” he says, his gaze tracing every line of my face, “you care too much about yourself to risk what happens if you ignore it.”
The truth of it hits me.
He is right.
Any report. Any accusation. Any violation. None of it will be about her. All of it will be about me. My career. My name. My future.
I’ve spent years building a shell of respectability, a persona dependent on the fickle approval of people who believe that I am a man of character, substance and steady hands. Years of cultivating a reputation, a network. I am competent, trustworthy, respectable.
A restraining order violation will mean more than legal trouble. It will mean a story. A story that follows me. A story people remember. A story people would pass around dinner tables like bowls of rotting fruit. A smear on my name that no amount of professional success could scrub away.
I look past him.
Nora laughs. Soft. Unforced. Free.
Maeve says something else, and Nora nods, her smile still there, easy and unguarded. She looks happy.
Away from me.
Kieran shifts, just enough to block my view again. “Stay away from her.”
I swallow hard.
I hate him. I hate this. But I know what happens if I push. Police reports. Violations. Courtrooms. Public.
I step back.
Kieran straightens. “We’re celebrating tonight,” he adds, a small, unbothered smile on his lips. “Thought you should know.”
Maeve takes Nora’s arm, guiding her toward the parking lot. Nora goes with her—willingly, easily—without a single glance back.
I stand there, my hands empty at my sides, my chest aching and tight.
That’s it.
No last glance. No hesitation. No crack in her resolve.