Chapter 14 #4
“I believed Benedict was handling a financial problem. I allowed him too much authority because I preferred results to questions. When I learned he had used the hospital accounts, I told myself the money would be restored before anyone was harmed.”
“You told yourself that because it was easier than admitting you had built a system where people could be harmed without you noticing,” Elena said.
Roman looked at her for a long moment.
“Yes,” he said.
It was not redemption. It was only the first honest sentence I had heard him speak about the past.
He turned to me. “The board has called an emergency meeting. They will demand that you step back.”
“I will.”
His eyes narrowed. “You would give up the company?”
“I would give up the title. The company will survive people knowing the truth better than it would survive us lying again.”
“You are willing to let them take everything?”
I thought of Elena in the foundry, telling Malachi he did not need to become his pain. I thought of Rafe’s blood on my hands and the years I had treated that memory as proof that attachment was too costly.
“No,” I said. “I am willing to stop calling it everything.”
Roman looked at me as if he had never seen me clearly before. Perhaps he had not.
Celia appeared in the doorway behind him. Her hand rested on the frame, but she did not enter.
“It is time to go,” she told him.
Roman nodded. Before he left, he looked back at Elena.
“Your mother was brave,” he said.
Elena’s face did not soften. “She should not have had to be.”
“No,” Roman said. “She should not have.”
When the door closed, the room remained quiet for several minutes.
Elena stared at the place he had stood.
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
“I believe he is sorry now.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.” She looked at me. “But it might be the beginning of him doing less harm.”
The answer was more generous than I deserved. I wondered whether she knew that.
I sat beside her bed again. The apology I had been carrying since the Bellwether crowded against my ribs.
“I am going to step down,” I said.
“I heard.”
“I am going to give the board everything they need. The accounts. The names. I will cooperate fully.”
She studied me. “Do you want to?”
“No.”
The truth came easily now. Perhaps because there was too much wreckage left for pride to hide behind.
“But I need to,” I said. “And I am not asking you to stay through it.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you understand you are free.”
“I understood that when you signed the release clause.”
“You understood it on paper. I do not think you have ever had enough reason to believe it in practice.”
She was quiet.
I reached into my jacket and took out the folder Adrian had brought from the estate.
The dissolution agreement. The exact thing I had asked for at the beginning and never had the courage to execute.
It ended the marriage contract, cleared the debt, transferred no money, imposed no obligation. My signature was already there.
“Elena,” I said. “I am not giving you this because I want you to leave. I am giving it to you because I do not want your choice to carry the weight of what I did wrong.”
Her gaze dropped to the folder. She did not take it.
“You are asking me to choose you while you are standing in a hospital room with stitches,” she said.
“I am not asking you for anything.”
“That is also not entirely true.”
I looked at her.
She leaned back against the pillows, weary and bruised and more alive than anyone I had ever known.
“You want me to stay,” she said.
“Yes.”
The word was dangerous. I said it anyway.
“I do.”
Her face changed. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But the truth reached her.
“I cannot decide that tonight,” she said.
“You do not have to.”
“And you cannot spend the next month quietly falling apart while pretending you are giving me space.”
“I can try not to.”
She gave me a look.
“Fine,” I amended. “I will not.”
The smallest smile touched her mouth.
“Good,” she said. “Start by going to sleep.”
“I am not tired.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
“I have been told.”
She held out her hand.
I took it.
“Stay until I fall asleep,” she said.
It was not a promise. It was not a decision about the future.
It was more than I had expected.
I pulled the chair closer and sat beside her bed while dawn filled the room. Elena’s fingers remained wrapped around mine until her breathing deepened.
When she slept, I did not move.
"And you did not buy it first and hope I liked it?"
His mouth moved. "No."
I took the folder, then set it aside.
"Thank you," I said. "But I need to think about it."
He nodded immediately. "Of course."
"And if I say no?"
"Then it is no."
The answer was not romantic in any conventional way. It made me want to kiss him anyway.
So I did.
The takeout grew cold. The floral samples fell off the table when he pulled me closer. He stopped every time I asked him to slow down, and he laughed against my mouth when I told him he was too careful.
"You told me to ask," he said.
"I did."
"I am asking."
I looked at him, at the man who had started as a threat in a dark bar and become someone who had learned to knock on my door.
"Then yes," I said.