14. Skye
— ? —
Skye
The clip loops on mute on Ellen’s television. Every channel is running it now, the same thirty seconds of Jayden at the podium, playing on repeat like a headline that refuses to go away.
Jayden stands at a podium in front of the Rowland Studios logo, surrounded by reporters and cameras, looking more exhausted than I’ve ever seen him.
Even without sound, I can see the weight of what he’s saying pressing down on his shoulders.
The formal apology. The announcement of Adriana’s termination. The promise of complete transparency.
The ticker at the bottom of the screen scrolls: ROWLAND CEO: “MY WIFE WAS THE VICTIM OF A DELIBERATE FRAUD. I SHOULD HAVE BELIEVED HER.”
“You should watch with sound,” Ellen says, hovering near the kitchen with two glasses of wine. “He’s actually saying some good stuff.”
“I don’t need to hear it.” I keep my eyes on the screen, my expression carefully blank.
On television, Jayden runs a hand through his hair - that familiar gesture he makes when he’s stressed, when the weight of something is crushing him.
I’ve seen him do it a thousand times. I used to smooth his hair back down afterward.
“Words are easy. He’s a producer. He produces speeches and narratives and media moments. I need more than a performance.”
“Skye-”
The doorbell rings.
Ellen shoots me a look. “Are you expecting anyone?”
“No.”
She sets down the wine glasses and goes to the door. I hear her unlock it, hear the creak of hinges, hear a low voice that makes my whole body go rigid.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Ellen says.
I don’t need to turn around to know who it is. I can feel him in the room like a shift in barometric pressure, like the air before a storm.
“Ellen let me in,” Jayden says.
“Ellen is a traitor,” I reply without looking at him.
“At least hear what he has to say.” Ellen grabs her jacket from the back of a chair, and I finally turn to glare at her. She’s already heading for the door, keys in hand. “You don’t have to forgive him. But you should hear it.”
“Why? So he can tell me he finally believes me now that there’s proof? I needed him to believe me when there was no proof. That’s what trust is.”
“I know. But he’s here. And you’ve been wondering what he’d say.” Ellen pauses at the door, one hand on the frame. “So find out. Then you can tell him to go to hell with a clear conscience.”
She leaves. The door clicks shut behind her.
The silence that follows is suffocating.
I stand up slowly, arms crossed over my chest, and position myself as far from Jayden as Ellen’s small apartment allows. The coffee table becomes a barrier between us. The television still flickers with his press conference, his face on the screen and in the room simultaneously.
He looks wrecked. That’s my first traitorous thought.
His suit is rumpled, missing the tie he always wears.
Stubble shadows his jaw - he hasn’t shaved, maybe hasn’t slept.
His eyes are bloodshot, heavy-lidded, the eyes of a man who’s been staring at ceilings and documents and his own reflection for too long.
He looks terrible.
He looks beautiful.
I hate that my body still responds to him.
Hate that some part of me wants to cross the room, press my palm against that stubbled jaw, feel the scratch of it against my skin.
Hate that even now, even after everything, I notice the breadth of his shoulders under the wrinkled fabric, the way his hands hang loose at his sides like he’s fighting the urge to reach for me.
“Talk,” I say flatly.
Jayden takes a breath. “I haven’t come to justify my actions.”
I wasn’t expecting that. I’d steeled myself for explanations, excuses, the carefully constructed defense of a man who’s spent his career knowing exactly what to say. The CEO voice. The crisis management voice.
This isn’t that voice. This is something rawer.
“I’ve been stupid,” he continues. “For years. Not just at the gala. Long before that. I stopped seeing you. I stopped prioritizing you. I let work become everything, and somewhere along the way, I forgot that none of it mattered without you.”
“Pretty words.”
“They’re not pretty. They’re pathetic.” He runs a hand through his hair - that gesture, again - and I watch his jaw clench with something that looks like self-loathing. “I’m pathetic. I had everything, and I was too blind to see it.”
“So why are you here?”
“To apologize. Not for forgiveness. I know I haven’t earned that. I may never earn it.” His eyes meet mine, and I force myself not to look away. “But I need you to know that I’m sorry. For not standing up for you when you needed me. For letting you fight alone when I should have been beside you.”
“I know you’re not guilty,” he says when I don’t respond. “I know about the investigation, Miranda’s confession, the evidence against Adriana. Harrison showed me everything you sent to the board.”
“I know. I’m the one who got Miranda to confess.” My voice comes out sharper than I intended. “I’m the one who found Miranda. Who got the confession. Who put the case together and sent it to your board. Not you. Not your lawyers. Me.”
Jayden stares at me. Something shifts in his expression - surprise, maybe. Or shame.
“You did that?”
“You sound surprised.” The anger I’ve been holding back starts to leak through the cracks in my composure. “Did you think I was just going to sit here and cry until someone saved me? Did you think I was going to wait for you to swoop in and fix everything like I’m some damsel in your movie?”
“No. I just…” He stops. Starts again. “I should have been there. I should have been helping you. Instead, you had to do it alone.”
“Yes. I did.”
The words hang in the air between us, heavy with everything they contain.
“The board meeting,” Jayden says quietly. “I stood up and demanded a public apology. I refused to let them bury it quietly. Franklin wanted an NDA and a quiet exit for Adriana. I told them you deserved better than that.”
I’m quiet for a moment. Something flickers in my chest - not forgiveness. Not even close. But maybe acknowledgment. Maybe a small, reluctant recognition that he tried.
“You should have done that from the beginning.”
“I know.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I know.”
We stand there, the coffee table between us, the muted press conference still playing on the television behind me. His face on the screen, earnest and apologetic. His face in front of me, haggard and desperate.
I hate him.
I hate that he’s standing in Ellen’s living room looking like this - wrecked, unshaven, nothing like the polished CEO who used to walk past me without seeing me. I hate that some part of me still responds to his proximity, still catalogs the familiar details of his body with unwanted hunger.
The stubble that would feel rough against my inner thighs. The hands that used to know exactly how to touch me. The way his shirt pulls across his chest when he breathes, rises and falls with each exhale.
Stop it. We’re not doing this.
“You came here to apologize,” I say flatly. “So apologize.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what specifically?”
“For everything. For not believing you. For not standing up for you. For-”
“For looking at me like I was a stranger?” I step closer, and I can feel the anger building in my chest, fed by hurt and exhaustion and all the sleepless nights I spent crying over this man. “For letting another woman touch you in front of the whole room while your wife watched?”
His face goes pale. “Nothing happened with Adriana.”
“I don’t care if something happened.” Another step.
The coffee table is behind me now. There’s nothing between us but air and history and the wreckage of our marriage.
“I care that you let it look like something could. That you didn’t push her away fast enough.
That when she whispered in your ear, you didn’t tell her to go to hell. ”
“I did tell her-”
“Not fast enough. Not loud enough. Not in any way that mattered.”
We’re too close now. I can see the vein pulsing in his neck, can see his hands flex at his sides, his knuckles white with the effort of keeping them there. I can smell him, his familiar scent.
“I care,” I whisper, “that you made me feel like I was competing. Like I had to earn what should have been mine by right.”
“Skye-”
“Your attention. Your desire. Your eyes on me when I walked into a room.” My voice cracks, and I hate it. Hate that I’m showing him this weakness. “I shouldn’t have to compete for my own husband to want me.”
“I’ve always wanted you.”
“Then why didn’t I feel it?”
The question hangs between us. His breath is ragged. Mine is worse.
For one terrible, electric second, I think he’s going to kiss me.
I can see it in his eyes - the hunger, the desperation, the muscle memory of twenty years screaming at him to close the distance between us.
I think I’m going to let him. I think we’re going to fall into old patterns, fight and fuck and pretend everything is fine.
His gaze drops to my mouth. My lips part involuntarily, my body betraying me the way it always has with him.
But I’m not that woman anymore.
I step back. The distance between us opens like a wound.
“Go home, Jayden.”
“Skye, please-”
“I said go.”
He stands there for a long moment, looking at me. The woman he married. The woman he failed. The woman who still makes his eyes darken with want, even now, even when everything between us is broken.
“I’m not going to stop,” he says quietly. “Trying. Even if you don’t want to see me. Even if you never forgive me. I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that I can be the man you deserved all along.”
I don’t respond.
He walks past me toward the door, and I catch the scent of him again. My hands curl into fists at my sides.
He stops at the threshold. Turns back.
“I love you,” he says. “I never stopped. Even when I was too stupid to show it.”
Then he’s gone.
The door closes behind him with a soft click.
I stand in Ellen’s living room, shaking, furious, and so turned on I could scream. My body is a traitor. My heart is worse.
I hate him.
I hate myself more.
I slide down to the floor with my back against the couch, wrap my arms around my knees, and let myself cry.
Not for him - not anymore. For the girl who believed in love stories.
For the woman who thought twelve years of marriage meant something.
For the version of myself who would have run after him, who would have let him hold her, who would have forgiven everything because it was easier than being alone.
That girl feels very far away tonight.
But somewhere underneath the tears, something else stirs. Something that feels almost like relief.
He came. He apologized. He looked at me like I was still the most important thing in his world.
And I said no.
I chose myself.
Maybe that’s the beginning of something. Or maybe it’s just the end.
I don’t know yet. But for the first time since the gala, the choice was mine.