13. Jayden
— ? —
Jayden
The boardroom smells like coffee and barely concealed panic.
Fourteen board members are seated around the mahogany table, most of them wearing the same expression - the careful neutrality of people who sense a power shift and aren’t sure which side to back.
Harrison stands at the head of the room with a thick folder in front of him, looking like a man who’d rather be anywhere else on the planet.
I sit at my usual place at the center of the table. I haven’t slept. I’m running on espresso and righteous fury, and both are working just fine.
“Let’s get started,” Harrison says. “As you all received in your emails this morning, Mrs. Rowland has provided documentation that fundamentally changes the nature of the accusations against her.”
He clicks through the presentation. The metadata analysis showing the documents were created on Miranda Costello’s workstation - a second frame job nested inside the first. Miranda’s recorded confession, her voice shaking as she details the manipulation, the bribes, the carefully orchestrated destruction of my wife’s reputation.
The payment trail from Adriana’s accounts to Miranda’s offshore fund. The burner phone records.
The board members shift uncomfortably as each slide lands.
Some of them were ready to crucify Skye a week ago - I remember their faces at the emergency meeting, the righteous indignation, the barely concealed excitement at having a scandal to manage.
Now they’re looking at their shoes like schoolchildren caught cheating.
“In summary,” Harrison concludes, “the evidence strongly suggests that Mrs. Rowland was the victim of a deliberate fraud orchestrated by Adriana Stuart, with assistance from Ms. Miranda Costello.”
Silence settles over the room like a shroud.
Franklin - seventy-two, old money, on the board since my father’s time - clears his throat. “Well. This is… unfortunate.”
I feel something snap inside me. “Unfortunate?” My voice cuts through the room sharper than I intended. “That’s the word you’re going with, Franklin?”
He doesn’t flinch. Old money never flinches. “You know what I mean, Jayden. The situation is regrettable. But now we need to handle it properly. A quiet exit for Ms. Stuart. An NDA. We sweep the unpleasantness under the rug and move forward.”
“A quiet exit.”
“It protects the company. A public scandal would damage our stock price, our relationships with talent, our-”
“My wife was publicly humiliated in front of an entire ballroom.” I don’t raise my voice.
I don’t need to. The room has gone completely still, every eye fixed on me.
“She’s been called a thief on every news outlet in the country.
Children she helped - children who got scholarships to pursue their dreams - are wondering if their futures were funded by stolen money.
” I look around the table, meeting each pair of eyes in turn.
“There will be nothing quiet about this.”
“Jayden, think about the optics-”
“I am thinking about the optics.” I stand, my palms flat on the table.
“The optics of a man who let his wife be destroyed and did nothing. The optics of a company that protects predators to preserve its stock price.” My voice is steady, but there’s steel underneath - steel I haven’t felt in years, maybe ever.
“I failed her at the gala. I’m not failing her again. ”
The room is silent. I can hear the hum of the air conditioning, the distant sound of traffic from the street below.
Then Zak Alvarado - younger, forty-three, one of the board members Skye had always liked - nods slowly. “He’s right. We do this publicly, or we’re just as complicit. The cover-up always looks worse than the crime.”
A murmur runs through the room. I watch the calculation happening behind each pair of eyes - they’re not agreeing because it’s right. They’re agreeing because they can see which way the wind is blowing. Because they’re more afraid of being on the wrong side of this than they are of a stock dip.
I don’t care. Whatever gets them to the right answer.
“Vote,” I say. “All in favor of a full public apology to Skye Rowland and complete transparency regarding Adriana Stuart’s termination and the legal consequences she’ll face.”
Hands go up. First Zak. Then two others, then most of the room. Patricia, who’s always been risk-averse, looks between me and Franklin before slowly raising hers. The dominoes fall one by one.
Franklin holds out longest, his jaw tight with disapproval, his silver cufflinks catching the light as he grips the arms of his chair. But eventually even he raises his hand. A single, grudging gesture.
“Motion carries.”
The room empties slowly after we finalize the details.
Board members gather their things, avoid my eye, file out with the hurried air of people who want to pretend this meeting never happened.
Some of them murmur congratulations as they pass - hollow words from people who would have voted to destroy my wife if the evidence had pointed the other way.
I don’t acknowledge them. I stay seated, staring at the empty chairs, trying to feel something like triumph.
I should feel victorious. I just won. I just ensured that Skye would be publicly vindicated, that Adriana would face real consequences, that the board would do the right thing for once.
But triumph isn’t what I feel.
I feel empty.
Because none of this will fix my marriage.
None of this will make Skye forgive me. I can give her back her reputation, but I can’t give her back the years of neglect.
The nights she fell asleep alone while I worked late.
The mornings I walked past her without really seeing her.
The moment at the gala when she needed me most and I chose doubt over faith.
I chose doubt over her.
That’s the truth I can’t escape. All the board votes in the world won’t change it.
My phone buzzes. I glance at the screen, expecting Harrison with logistics details.
Unknown number. A text.
You think this is over? You have no idea what I’m willing to do.
I stare at the screen. Adriana’s burner phone - it has to be. She must have heard about the board meeting. About the vote. About the empire she tried to steal crumbling around her.
I screenshot the message. Evidence for the lawyers.
But my hands are steady now. Let her come. Let her do her worst. Let her throw every threat she has at me.
I’m not afraid of Adriana Stuart.
I’m afraid of the look in my wife’s eyes when she told me goodbye.
I stand and walk toward the door, pocketing my phone. Harrison is waiting in the hallway, tablet in hand, that perpetually anxious expression creasing his forehead.
“The press conference is scheduled for this afternoon. We’ve drafted a statement, but you’ll want to review it. Mrs. Rowland has been invited to attend if she chooses.”
I shake my head. “She won’t come. She’s done letting me speak for her.”
“Should we send a representative to escort her? Or perhaps-”
“She cleared her own name, Harrison. She sent you the evidence. She got the confession.” I head toward the elevator, not waiting for him to follow. “She doesn’t need us to invite her anywhere.”
“Then what would you like us to do?”
“Give the public apology exactly as planned. Make sure her name is cleared completely. And make sure Adriana Stuart’s face is on every news outlet in the country by the end of the day.”
The elevator doors open. I step inside.
“And after that, sir?”
I look at Harrison, exhausted, loyal Harrison, who’s been cleaning up messes at this company for as long as it has existed. Who watched me fail my wife and said nothing because it wasn’t his place. Who’s trying now, in his bureaucratic way, to help me fix something that might be unfixable.
“After that,” I say, “I need to figure out how to earn back the only thing that ever mattered.”
The doors close.
I stand alone in the elevator, watching the floor numbers tick downward, and try to imagine what I’ll say when I finally face her. What words could possibly be enough.
I don’t have an answer yet. But I know where I have to start.
Not with grand gestures. Not with press conferences or public vindications or the destruction of our enemies.
With listening. With showing up. With being the man I should have been all along.
The elevator reaches the lobby. The doors open onto the morning sunlight streaming through the glass walls of Rowland Studios.
I walk out into the light and pull out my phone.
Not to call her. She won’t answer, and I wouldn’t blame her if she never did.
Just to look at her contact photo. The one I took on our anniversary a few years back, when she was laughing at something I said. When her eyes were still alive.
I’m going to earn that laugh back.
I don’t know how yet. But I will.