Chapter 34
Harry
The meeting is halfway over when I stop hearing what Ralph White is saying.
His voice drones through the speakers like a swarm of wasps behind glass — muted, persistent, and irritating beyond measure.
He’s talking about logistics, annual review boards, and a new distribution opportunity on the West Coast that I absolutely do not care about.
He wants to tighten exclusivity language in the marketing clause of our merger, then something about packaging aesthetics.
I nod when I’m meant to. Grunt when I should. But I haven’t looked at the screen in minutes.
She’s still not answering me.
It’s been two days. Forty-nine hours and thirty-eight minutes since my jet touched down in Philly with her on board, to be exact.
I know. I’ve been counting. I check my texts every five minutes like it might suddenly change, like the typing bubble will magically pop up out of nowhere.
But there’s nothing. Just my last ten or so messages, the last one staring me down:
Me:
I’m sorry. Please just call me. Please. I want to talk, I want to know you’re safe.
The door to my office opens without a knock, and I turn in my chair, ignoring Ralph’s nonstop chatter. Matthew stands in the doorway, holding his phone like it might explode, his face a contorted mixture of concern and regret.
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
“I… I looked into Ross Emery,” he says carefully.
My chest tightens. I turn back to Ralph and hold up a single finger. “Give me one moment,” I say to him, but I’m not entirely sure he’s heard me. He’s still talking. I put myself on mute and move my screen away, letting him stare at my bookshelf, then turn back to Matthew. “Tell me.”
“I wasn’t able to get much at first,” he swallows uncomfortably, shifting on his feet. “He’s got a pretty low profile. He doesn’t have social media. He was in the military briefly, but wasn’t deployed. He was given desk work, stationed in Albany.”
My brows knit. “Okay…?”
“I found a marriage license,” Matthew says, his voice going quiet. “Ten years ago. Elena White and Ross Emery. They divorced two years later. No fault. No contest, no children, but no details.”
I swear, the entire room tilts.
My stomach sinks so badly I feel like I’m going to throw up. Married. Divorced. That can’t be right.
Matthew places the phone on the desk in front of me, the screen lit up with the record. I scroll through the information, but none of it reaches my head, none of it makes sense to me.
“This can’t be correct,” I breathe.
“It… It is.”
I sit back slowly, the leather of the chair groaning under the shift. I feel like my head is folding in on itself.
Ten years ago. She was twenty.
Sometimes I just wish things had turned out differently.
I’m going to vomit. I’m going to vomit, or I’m going to break something, or someone—
“Should I go?” Matthew asks, but I’m already moving.
I turn my computer back to myself, unmuting my microphone. Ralph’s mid-sentence, pontificating about shelf appeal in Highcourt Hotel’s bars, when I cut him off.
“Did you know?”
His mouth keeps moving for a second before he registers the tense shift. My words weren’t kind. They weren’t casual. They were loud, angry, and terrified. “Pardon?”
“Did you know that Elena was married before?” I grip the edge of my desk hard enough to hear the wood creak.
The look on his face is nothing short of absolute confusion. “Married?” he asks, recoiling slightly. “Elena was never married—”
“To Ross Emery,” I add.
Silence hangs as he blinks at the camera. “I—what?”
“Do you know him?”
“Yes, but she was never married to him,” Ralph says in bewilderment. “She lived with me until she married you. She grew up with Ross. They were friends.”
“They were more than friends, apparently.”
“Let me ask Gail—”
“I have the fucking record in front of me,” I snap, lifting the phone for good measure. “You don’t need to ask your wife anything. It’s staring me in the face.”
He blinks rapidly. “Why would she do that? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why the hell do you think I’m asking?” I bark, pushing up out of my seat and leaning forward into the camera. “Two years. No-fault divorce, Ralph.”
His face drains of color. “This puts the entire contract in jeopardy—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the contract!” I shout. “This isn’t theoretical. There is a record. This is real. And you know what? You should’ve told me. Fuck, she should have told me. What the fuck—”
“I didn’t know!”
“You’re her father—”
“You’re her husband!”
The words slam into me with a force I’m not entirely ready for.
Ralph adjusts his tie, smoothing the knot like it’ll steady his voice. “If this gets out, you understand what it means for this? For us? Legally, financially, publicly? If the press gets wind—”
“Fucking let them.”
“You think they won’t eat her alive?”
“They already have, months ago,” I growl. “She’s suffered before at your own hands, being passed around from son to father. This is her fucking fault if it happens again.”
“You don’t need to speak to me like that.”
I point at the screen. “Don’t. Don’t you dare patronize me right now.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re at home, right? Go ask her about it. And tell her to call me while she’s at it so I can explain to her how much she might have screwed everything over again.”
“She’s not here,” I snarl. “She’s in fucking Philadelphia, of all places.”
“Philadelphia?” Ralph’s brows shoot up. “Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“You didn’t send her?”
“No,” I say bitterly. “Why?”
“Last I heard, that’s where Ross lives.”
My head spins on a dime toward Matthew. “Is that true?”
He winces slightly, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”
I slam the screen down, shutting my laptop with far too much force. My heart feels like it’s about to beat out of my goddamn chest, and I stare at my hands on the desk, my veins protruding and my nails digging into the wood.
I feel like I’m dying.
“Get out,” I murmur.
He leaves before I can get a full breath in.
She didn’t tell me. We’ve lived under the same roof for months. I shared the ugliest pieces of myself with her, and I told her about Geraldine. She knows what that cost me.
And she kept this buried.
And now she’s down there, with him.
Was it guilt? Shame? Was it easier to lie?
Did she divorce him well in advance because she knew she’d have to marry a Highcourt at some point and just kept the relationship going privately?
I pick up my phone with shaking fingers, staring at the text thread again. My thumb hovers, wanting to call her, wanting to scream, wanting to text her a million different things.
But I lock the screen.
I thought the worst was behind us — that the mess with George, the fallout from the wedding, the lingering shadow of Geraldine’s death had all been enough.
But apparently not.