Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
DEREK
The lobby feels different the moment I walk in.
Not louder. Quieter. Conversations pause just long enough to register before resuming at a lower volume.
The marble floor echoes more than usual, each step sounding deliberate, exposed.
Not louder.
Quieter.
Eyes lift. Conversations pause—not long enough to be obvious, but long enough to register. People look away a second too late, like they’ve been caught doing something impolite even though no one told them not to stare.
I keep my face neutral. My pace even.
I don’t acknowledge it.
The elevator ride is silent. No one speaks to me. Someone checks their phone with exaggerated focus. Another person adjusts their jacket like they’ve forgotten how to stand.
When the doors open onto the executive floor, Jamie looks up immediately.
Her expression is composed. Professional. Impeccably neutral.
No warmth.
No edge.
Which is worse.
“Good morning,” she says.
“Morning,” I reply.
She doesn’t ask how I am. Doesn’t comment on the headlines or the meeting on my calendar that’s been blocked in red since last night.
Board of Directors – Emergency Session
10:00 a.m.
“There are printed copies of the agenda in your office,” Jamie says. “Legal will meet you there at nine-thirty.”
“Thank you.”
She nods once and looks back to her screen.
No commentary.
No subtext.
Just the job.
I walk into my office and close the door.
For the first time since Friday, the silence is complete.
I don’t sit right away.
I stand at the window instead, looking down at the city I usually feel insulated from up here. Cars move. People cross streets. Someone is laughing on the sidewalk below, oblivious.
The contrast makes my jaw tighten.
At nine-thirty, Legal arrives.
At ten, the boardroom doors close behind me.
The table is full.
Every seat occupied. Every face familiar. Some sympathetic. Some tight. Some openly assessing, like they’re recalculating the value of something they thought they understood.
No one wastes time.
The chair clears his throat. “Let’s begin.”
They don’t raise their voices.
They don’t accuse.
They dissect.
Judgment.
Optics.
Risk exposure.
Reputational damage.
They talk about the spectacle. About how quickly it spread. About why it resonated. About how silence reads as avoidance and explanation reads as weakness.
They ask if there were any undisclosed relationships.
If there were power imbalances.
If any employees were involved.
“No,” I say. Steadily. “Absolutely not.”
Legal confirms it. HR confirms it.
That part lands.
Some tension eases.
But not all of it.
“Intentional or not,” one of them says, “this reflects a lapse in judgment.”
“Yes,” I agree.
No defense. No spin.
Another voice. “We need assurances this won’t repeat.”
“You have them,” I say.
“How.”
I meet their eyes, one by one. “Because I understand now what I failed to before.”
That earns me a pause. Not forgiveness. Attention.
They adjourn with conditions.
Oversight.
Visibility.
Consequences that won’t make headlines but will make a point.
When it’s over, I feel emptied out.
I return to my office and close the door again.
Jamie doesn’t come in.
She sends a calendar update instead.
Adjusted schedule attached.
That’s it.
Later, through the glass, I see people moving again. The floor resumes its rhythm. The crisis is being absorbed, compartmentalized, reduced to process.
I sit at my desk and open my laptop.
I don’t work.
What I think about—unhelpfully, relentlessly—is how she must have walked into her own Monday.
How untouched she likely was.
How composed.
How the world protected her better than I did.
I don’t try to contact her.
That privilege is gone.
I keep my door closed the rest of the day.
Not to hide.
To contain.
Because for the first time, I understand something with brutal clarity:
The board can impose consequences.
The company can survive me.
But the person I hurt owes me nothing.
And if I ever want to earn even the right to speak to her again, it won’t be through control.
It will be through truth.
Even if it costs me everything else.