16. Anika
— ? —
Anika
I decided to do something reckless on the tenth day.
I showed up at Franco Holdings unannounced.
I hadn’t been to Neil’s office in over a year. At some point, I’d stopped visiting, stopped surprising him with lunch, stopped being part of that world. It had happened so gradually I couldn’t pinpoint when. Like a tide going out while you’re not watching.
We’d adjusted the rules. His mornings belonged to Franco Holdings. His afternoons and evenings belonged to me. It was the only way to make this work without his company imploding, and despite everything, I didn’t actually want to destroy his life. Just remind him I was part of it.
The lobby was all glass and steel and intimidation. Forty-foot ceilings. A waterfall feature that looked almost natural. Security guards who looked like they’d been recruited from the Secret Service.
I walked up to the reception desk with my shoulders back and my chin high, projecting a confidence I didn’t feel.
“I’m here to see Neil Franco.”
The receptionist looked up. Young, polished, the kind of beautiful that came from good genes and better skincare. She smiled the way you smile at someone you’re about to disappoint.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Franco is in a board meeting. If you’d like to leave your name, I can have someone…”
“I’m his… wife.”
The receptionist blinked. Looked at me again. I watched recognition slowly dawn on her face, followed immediately by morbid curiosity.
She’d seen the diary pages. Of course she had. Everyone had.
“Mrs. Franco.” Her smile became fixed. Careful. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t recognize you. Let me call up and…”
“Don’t bother. I know the way.”
I walked past her before she could stop me. My heels clicked on the marble floor, loud and deliberate, and I felt every eye in the lobby following me.
The whispers started before I reached the elevator.
“Is that her?”
“The wife? The one from the diary?”
“I heard she filed for divorce at his press conference.”
“I heard she’s crazy. Like, actually unstable.”
I kept walking and kept my spine straight. Kept my face neutral even though my hands were shaking and my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
The elevator was mercifully empty. I rode it up and tried to remember how to breathe.
The executive level was worse. More whispers and stares like they were fucking teenagers instead of grown-ups minding their own business. More phones being pulled out to capture the moment when the dramatic wife showed up to confront her billionaire husband.
I found him in a glass-walled conference room. Because of course it was glass-walled so everyone could see.
Board meeting. Twelve men in expensive suits, all of them turning to look at me like I was a particularly interesting zoo exhibit. Neil was at the head of the table, mid-sentence, a presentation frozen on the screen behind him.
I knocked on the glass.
He looked up and his eyes went wide.
“Anika.”
He stood so fast his chair rolled back and hit the wall. The board members exchanged glances. Someone smirked.
I opened the door.
“I need to see your office. Now.”
For a long moment, nobody moved. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. Twelve men in twelve thousand-dollar suits, all of them waiting to see how Neil Franco would handle his inconvenient wife.
“Gentlemen.” Neil’s voice was calm, controlled. “We’ll resume in thirty minutes.”
He walked toward me. As he passed one of the board members, a man with silver hair and a smug expression, I heard it.
“Whipped.”
Just a mutter, barely audible. But Neil heard it.
He stopped and turned. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
“Say that again. Louder.”
Silence.
“That’s my wife.” Neil’s voice was soft, which somehow made it more terrifying. “Anyone with a problem can submit their resignation by end of the day.”
No one spoke or moved. The silver-haired man’s smug expression had vanished, replaced by something that looked a lot like fear.
Neil took my hand and walked me out of the conference room.
The walk to his office felt endless. Every step, every turn, more eyes following us. More whispers.
But Neil didn’t let go of my hand. His grip was warm, steady and possessive in a way that made something flutter low in my stomach.
God, I hated how much I still wanted him.
His corner office was massive. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. A desk so large that if it were larger by a few more inches, it would be a bed. Leather furniture, modern art, all the trappings of power and success.
And photos of me, everywhere.
I stopped in the doorway.
Our wedding, framed on his desk. The two of us laughing, my veil caught by the wind, his arms wrapped around me like he’d never let go.
The honeymoon, on the credenza. Me on a beach in Bali, the sunset painting everything gold.
And on the wall behind his chair, the largest one of all. A candid shot I didn’t even remember being taken. Me, asleep on the couch in my studio, paint on my cheek, a half-finished canvas behind me. I looked peaceful. Completely unaware of the camera.
“You have pictures of me everywhere,” I said.
“I wrote most of the things in my diary here while looking at our photos.” His voice was quiet. “It gives me the illusion that I’m being honest with you.”
I walked into the office. Trailed my fingers across his desk and sat down in his chair.
His chair. The one where he sat every day. The one where he made decisions that moved markets and ended careers.
“This is where you wrote it,” I said. “That we weren’t compatible. That you felt more alive in rooms full of strangers.” I gestured at the wall of photos. “While looking at me.”
Neil leaned against the doorframe. He looked exhausted and beautiful. Broken in a way I’d never seen before.
“I was drowning,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know how to tell you. Didn’t know how to ask for help. So instead of asking you to save me, I convinced myself you were the water.”
The words hung heavy but true.
I waited for him to say more. To justify his actions.
He didn’t. He just stood there, silent, letting the weight of what he’d said fill the space between us.
“Take me to the triplex,” I said finally.
He blinked. “What?”
“I want to see if it still feels like ours.”