45. Jenna #2
Serena steps forward, her dark eyes scanning my face. She takes in the red-rimmed eyes, the defensive posture, the sheer emotional wreckage I’m currently wearing.
“First of all,” Serena starts, no nonsense, “Dominic doesn’t know we’re here. We are not his emissaries, and we are not here to negotiate on his behalf.”
“We stole Bennett’s fancy plane,” Audrey says, waggling her eyebrows.
“We didn’t steal anything. I’m his wife. I have full access.”
“It’s more fun the other way,” Audrey says with a sly smile.
Layla rolls her eyes. “Anyway . . . The point is, we came because you don’t get to divorce us.”
“She’s right. You also resigned from Mercer Capital,” Audrey adds, adjusting her glasses.
“And I can attest that running away from your support network during a period of acute emotional distress does little more than increase your long-term misery. We’re here to mitigate the variables, AKA talk some sense into you because we already miss you at brunch. ”
“You also left the group chat and won’t return any of our calls,” Serena adds.
“Most importantly, we brought caffeine and unconditional support—no matter what you decide,” Nora says softly, her warm gaze seeing right through the last remaining shards of my armor. “Can we come in?”
I stare at the four of them. The women who saw the “ice queen” and decided she was worth pulling into their inner circle anyway.
My throat closes completely. I spent my entire life building walls to keep people out, terrified that if I let them see the cracks, they would leave.
But Dominic didn’t leave. He went to the root of the rot and quietly planted a garden.
And these women didn’t leave. They boarded a plane and tracked me down just to prove the foundation is real.
“Yeah,” I whisper, stepping back and pulling the door wide. “Come in.”
They file into the narrow hallway, a parade of cashmere, silk, and aggressive loyalty that instantly makes the space feel three times smaller.
The scent of Layla’s expensive perfume collides with the smell of Ma’s furniture polish.
Serena sheds her trench coat with the ruthless efficiency of a general setting up a forward operating base.
“Mrs. Pemberton,” Serena says, extending a perfectly manicured hand to my mother, who is staring at them like they just beamed down from an alien spacecraft. “I’m Serena Morgan. We’re Jenna’s unauthorized crisis management team.”
“I brought coffee cake,” Layla chimes in, holding up a sleek white bakery box. “And enough espresso to kill a small horse. I didn’t know what kind of milk you kept, so I brought oat, almond, and something called macadamia breeze.”
Ma blinks, looking from the towering, intimidatingly polished Serena to the vibrating Layla. “I . . . I’ll get some plates. And maybe some real mugs.”
“You are a saint, Mrs. P,” Audrey says, already wandering toward the living room, her eyes darting around to take in the old photos lining the walls of the cramped house. Ma disappears with the tray of coffees and the cake.
And I stand frozen, completely undone by the sheer force of them.
Nora stays back a second, her hand gently cupping my elbow. “Breathe, Jenna,” she murmurs, low enough that the others don’t hear. “We aren’t here to push. We’re just here to sit with you.”
I nod, a jerky, mechanical movement, and follow them into the living room.
It’s surreal, seeing these brilliant, high-powered women perched on the faded floral upholstery of my childhood. Audrey immediately pulls a slim notebook from her bag, clicking a pen with terrifying efficiency.
“All right,” Audrey says. “We need to establish a baseline. When was the last time you slept for more than four continuous hours? And follow-up: have you eaten anything today that wasn’t primarily fueled by spite or panic?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, sitting on the edge of the armchair.
But the lie tastes like ash, and with their combined stares, my armor finally dissolves completely.
I look down at my hands. The rings are still around my left ring finger, Dominic’s on the middle finger of my right.
I can’t bring myself to take them off. Just like I can’t bring myself to sign my own name to those papers.
I look up again. “I’m not fine. I resigned from a job I love. Moved back into my childhood bedroom. And I just found out . . .” I swallow, the lump in my throat threatening to choke me. “. . . I just found out Dominic came here. To Queens. He helped my mother get sober, and he never told me.”
Serena leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
The commanding PR executive vanishes, replaced entirely by the fiercely protective friend.
“Of course he didn’t tell you, Jenna. Dominic Cruz doesn’t do things for the credit.
He does them because he loves you. Do you think any of the guys asked him to help them get to where they are today?
No way. They’re all too proud to accept help.
And Dominic is too proud to accept praise.
He just gives to the people he cares about with open hands, and he doesn’t care what the personal cost is. ”
“Except maybe this time,” Audrey points out, and Layla jabs her lightly with her elbow. “What? I’m just saying, the personal cost was Jenna and that’s pretty big.”
“Oh my God, Aud. We know,” Layla puts in. “We all know he went too far this time.”
“Which is kind of another reason we’re sitting on this couch,” Serena adds.
“What do you mean?” I suddenly sit up straighter.
“First of all,” Audrey says. “We need to make it clear that you’re an integral part of our ecosystem, Jenna.” She taps her pen against the notepad. “You don’t get to just unplug yourself from the server and expect the rest of the network not to notice.”
“That means we’re your friends no matter what,” Layla translates.
“I appreciate that,” I say, genuinely meaning it.
Ma walks in carrying a tray of coffee and sliced cake, setting it on the coffee table right next to my annulment papers. I put them there to remind myself to submit them. But instead I just stare at them every day, twisting the rings around my fingers and feeling lost.
Serena’s dark eyes drop to the papers, then back to my face. The PR executive takes a deep, fortifying breath. “Which circles us back to the personal cost to Dominic—agenda item number two.”
“There’s an agenda?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“He tried to liquidate his entire life this morning, Jenna,” Serena says flatly, pulling no punches.
“He called an emergency meeting with the guys. Put together a deck to merge Cruz Financial into Mercer Capital at a fraction of its value, sign a five-year non-compete, and leave Chicago permanently.”
The words don’t compute. My brain violently rejects the data. “He . . . what?”
“He tried to sell his firm,” Layla says, slowing down to ensure I catch every devastating syllable.
“Like, a total fire sale. He wanted to step down and leave the city so you could have your life back. He figured if he erased himself from the map, you wouldn’t feel exiled in Queens. He was going to give you Chicago.”
My lungs freeze. The absolute, world-ending idiocy of that man. Cruz Financial is his empire. He built it from the ground up, clawing his way into the city’s elite, and he was willing to just burn it to the ground. For me.
“I don’t want that!” I burst out, shooting up from the armchair so fast my knees pop.
The sudden movement startles Ma, who clutches the edge of the coffee table.
“I don’t want him to lose his company! I don’t want him to leave!
Why does he keep doing this? He needs to stop trying to fix everything without actually talking to me about what I want first! ”
“Because that is his fatal flaw,” Audrey says quietly, closing her notebook with a soft snap.
She pushes her glasses up her nose, her dark eyes entirely sympathetic.
“Dominic is a savant at reading people. He observes the variables, calculates the optimal outcome, and executes. And because he is almost never wrong about what a room needs, he rarely thinks to ask permission before he acts.”
“He read the room,” Nora adds softly, her maternal warmth anchoring the chaotic energy in the living room, “and the room told him you needed space. So he decided to give you the biggest space he could engineer.”
“But he is wrong,” I say, my voice cracking, my hands curling into tight fists at my sides. “I don’t want space from him. I wanted him to stop deciding what I wanted. I wanted him to stop treating me like a project, but I didn’t want him to just . . . disappear.”
“Bennett and the guys shut the merger down,” Serena assures me, her tone steadying.
“They refused to sign the paperwork or draft the legal transition. But Dominic is a cornered animal right now, Jenna. If he wants to blow up his life for you, he will find a way to do it. The guys can only stall him.”
I look down at the annulment papers. The exit he handed me. Then I look at the rings on my fingers. The rings he engraved with our jokes, our quiet, private truths.
He didn’t just give me an out. He gave me the entire board, and then tried to flip the table on himself just to make sure I won.
I take a deep breath, the static in my veins finally settling into a clear, terrifying, electric hum. I look up at the four women sitting on the faded floral upholstery.
“Layla,” I say, my voice dropping back into its crisp, professional cadence. “How fast can your pilot get us back to Chicago?”