9. Skye
— ? —
Skye
The coffee went cold somewhere around the third hour of staring at nothing.
I’m sitting at Ellen’s kitchen table with my hands wrapped around a mug I haven’t lifted to my lips once, watching the gray light of early morning creep across the countertop.
My eyes burn. My head pounds. And every time I close them, I see the same image playing on an endless loop - Adriana Stuart walking up the steps of my home with the confidence of someone who already owned the place.
That stride. That certainty. Like I’d never existed at all.
Ellen appears in the doorway, hair flattened on one side from sleep, wearing an oversized t-shirt that says I Put the “Pro” in Procrastination. She takes one look at me and sighs.
“Did you sleep?”
“Define sleep.”
“Unconsciousness. Rest. That thing normal people do at night.”
“Then no.” I tighten my grip on the mug, though the ceramic has gone room temperature and offers no comfort. “I kept seeing her. Walking into my house. While I was here, crying like a pathetic cliché, she was there. In my home.”
Ellen pads to the coffee maker and starts a fresh pot, her movements slow and deliberate in that way people move when they’re trying not to startle a wounded animal. “You don’t know what happened. Maybe she just dropped off papers.”
“At night? In a cocktail dress?”
She doesn’t have an answer for that. The coffee maker gurgles and hisses, filling the silence between us.
I should be crying. That’s what the old Skye would do - dissolve into tears, call Jayden, beg for an explanation that would somehow make this better. But I’m empty. Hollowed out. Like someone scooped out my insides and left nothing but this cold, numb shell.
“I’m done,” I say.
Ellen turns from the coffee maker. “Done with what?”
“Waiting. Hoping. Pretending that if I just give him enough time, he’ll choose me.
” I set down the mug with more force than necessary, and cold coffee sloshes over the rim onto my fingers.
I don’t bother wiping it away. “I saw the photos, Ellen. I know what they mean. And even if nothing happened - even if she just walked in and walked out - it doesn’t matter.
He didn’t believe me. He stood in front of a room full of people and didn’t believe me.
That’s not a marriage. That’s a business arrangement where I’m the product. ”
“Skye-”
“I’m filing for divorce.”
The words hang in the air between us, heavy and final. They taste strange in my mouth - foreign, like a language I never expected to speak. Mrs. Jayden Rowland is filing for divorce. The fairy tale is ending, and not the way anyone predicted.
Ellen is quiet for a long moment. Then she crosses the kitchen and sits down across from me, her hands folded on the table like we’re negotiating a treaty.
“Are you sure? This isn’t something you can undo.”
“I’m sure.” My voice is steadier than I expected.
“Not for him. For me. I spent twelve years being Mrs. Rowland. I forgot who Skye Bennett was. I forgot that I had dreams and ambitions and a life that didn’t revolve around his career.
” I meet her eyes, and something in my chest unknots.
“I want that back. I want to be someone again.”
Ellen studies me for a long moment. Looking for cracks, probably. Looking for the breakdown that should be coming. But I’m done breaking. I broke at the gala. I broke in that service hallway. I broke when I saw Adriana’s photo on every news site in the country.
I have no more breaking left in me. Only this - this cold, clear certainty that the woman who walked into that gala isn’t the woman sitting at this table.
“Okay,” Ellen says finally. “Then let’s find you a lawyer who makes billionaires cry.”
***
Francesca Massey is exactly the kind of lawyer I need: sharp, expensive, and utterly unimpressed by billionaires.
Her office is all clean lines and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, diplomas from Harvard and Stanford competing for wall space. The view from her window shows downtown Los Angeles spread out like a promise - all glass and ambition and money flowing through concrete veins.
She listens to my story without interrupting, making occasional notes on a legal pad in handwriting so precise it looks typed. Her face reveals nothing. No shock at the gala humiliation. No sympathy for the crying wife. Just cool, professional attention.
I like her immediately.
“What do you want out of this divorce?” she asks when I finish.
“Out. I want out.” I sit up straighter in the leather chair. “And I want to clear my name. Not for him - for me. For the kids who got scholarships from Starlight and are now wondering if the money was stolen. They trusted me. I won’t let them think they were wrong.”
“That second part is going to be complicated. The allegations are public. Even if we prove they’re false-”
“I can prove they’re false.” I pull out my phone and show her the screenshots, the timestamps, the evidence I’ve been compiling in the sleepless hours since the gala. “Those signatures are forgeries. Someone manufactured all of this to destroy me, and I’m going to find out who.”
Francesca studies the evidence with new interest, scrolling through the images with a manicured nail. Her eyebrows rise slightly - the first crack in her professional armor.
“You’ve been busy.”
“I had a lot of sleepless nights.”
“And this evidence - you gathered it yourself?”
“I ran a charity foundation for eight years. I know how to organize information. I know how to find patterns.” I lean forward. “What I need from you is the legal framework. The divorce papers. The formal process. The investigative part? I can handle myself.”
Francesca sets down my phone and looks at me with something that might be respect.
“All right. Here’s what’s going to happen.
I’ll file the divorce papers today. Standard petition for dissolution of marriage - we can negotiate asset division later, but for now, we establish grounds and begin the process. ”
“What about the embezzlement allegations?”
“Separate issue, legally speaking. But here’s the good news - the more evidence you gather of fraud, the stronger your position becomes in both arenas.
” She picks up her pen. “What you’ve shown me is a good start.
But you’re going to need more than circumstantial evidence to clear your name publicly.
You need someone willing to talk. Someone on the inside. ”
Miranda. The thought surfaces unbidden - Miranda Costello, Jayden’s assistant, who had tried to warn me at the gala. Who had looked terrified and guilty in the moments before everything exploded.
“I think I know where to start.”
“Good.” Francesca stands, extending her hand. “I’ll have the papers filed by end of business today. You’ll receive confirmation when it’s done.”
I shake her hand. Her grip is firm, confident - the grip of someone who wins.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Thank me when we’ve taken him to the cleaners and restored your reputation.” A small smile crosses her face. “Though between you and me, Mrs. Rowland, you don’t seem like someone who needs much help fighting.”
“Just Skye now.” I pick up my bag and head for the door. “And you’re right. I don’t.”
***
I make the call from Ellen’s apartment, sitting on the edge of the guest bed with my phone pressed to my ear.
My hands are trembling. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. But my voice - my voice is steady. I’ve rehearsed this conversation a hundred times in my head, and I will not crack. I will not let him hear me break.
Jayden answers on the first ring. “Skye. Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you-”
“I’m filing for divorce.”
Silence.
I count the seconds in my head. One. Two. Three. Waiting for the explosion, the argument, the charming deflection that has gotten him out of every difficult conversation for twenty years.
“Skye, wait - can we talk about this?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. My lawyer will contact yours with the details.”
“Please. Just give me five minutes. I can explain-”
“I saw the photos, Jayden.” My voice doesn’t waver. I won’t let it. “Adriana walking into our house. I hope she was worth it.”
“Nothing happened.” His voice is urgent, desperate in a way I’ve never heard. “She came over and I told her to leave. I swear to God, Skye, nothing happened.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“How can you say that? Of course it matters-”
“Whether you slept with her or not, you chose her over me the moment you didn’t believe me at that gala.
You chose a stranger’s accusations over your own wife’s word.
” I’m surprised by how calm I sound, how detached, like I’m reading from a script instead of tearing my own heart out.
“That’s not a marriage. That’s a business arrangement, and I’m terminating the contract. ”
“I didn’t sl-”
I hang up.
The phone falls from my fingers onto the bedspread. I stare at it like it belongs to someone else, like this whole morning belongs to someone else.
I just told my husband I’m divorcing him.
I wait for the tears. The breakdown. The crushing weight of grief that should be suffocating me right now.
Nothing comes.
I pick up my laptop from the nightstand, pull up the document I’ve been working on - my evidence file, organized and detailed - and start typing.
If Jayden won’t fight for me, I’ll fight for myself.
The cursor blinks. My fingers move across the keys. Outside the window, the sun is fully up now, bathing Ellen’s apartment in golden light.
The divorce papers are filed by end of business day. Skye Rowland is officially on her way to becoming Skye Bennett again.
And I have a plan.