Chapter 22 Abbie
ABBIE
The reading glasses are what finally break me.
Gray's wearing them when I walk into his office at VTG, and I stop in the doorway like I've hit an invisible wall.
They're simple black frames, slightly rectangular, sitting on his face like they've always been there, and I've never seen them before.
Not once. Not in seven years of marriage, not before the wedding, not ever.
He's squinting at his laptop, pen between his teeth, and he hasn't noticed me yet, which gives me exactly three seconds to stare at the sharp line of his jaw, the way the frames make his blue eyes look somehow softer and more focused at the same time, the slight furrow between his brows that I used to smooth away with my thumb.
He looks up. Pulls the pen from his mouth. "Hey, you."
Just that. Two words. Like they're a whole greeting, a whole sentence, a whole I've been waiting for you to show up all morning.
"Since when do you wear glasses?"
He takes them off, folds them carefully. "Since my ophthalmologist told me two years ago that screens were going to destroy what's left of my vision and I was too vain to listen."
"Two years ago."
"Mm." He sets them on his desk. "I only wore them at home. Late nights. When you were already asleep."
"That's ridiculous," I say.
"Probably."
"You could have just told me you needed reading glasses."
"Could have." His mouth quirks. "Didn't."
Even the glasses feel like a confession.
I drop into the chair across from his desk. "We need to talk about Theo."
He nods once and says, "Yeah. We do."
"You've known for weeks."
"Longer than that. I suspected when I fired Delaney. Theo confessed in the eleventh month of our separation."
"And you didn't tell me."
He leans back in his chair, and I watch his jaw tighten. "I wanted the affidavit," he says. "The DNA results. The lawyers done. Everything signed and sealed before I said a word, because I promised myself that the next time I told you something, it'd be finished. Not a promise, not a plan. Done."
"That's not how partners work, Gray."
He turns the folded glasses over once. "No. It isn't. I'm learning."
"You can't make decisions that affect both of us and then present them to me like a gift," I say. "That's not partnership. That's just you doing what you want and hoping I'll be grateful later."
"I know."
"Do you? Because this is the same pattern. You waited for the paperwork before telling me what Theo admitted. You held onto it like some card you were saving."
"That's fair."
"Tell me what you heard." The words come out sharper than I mean them to, but I'm tired of swinging at air. "You absorb everything I say and I can't tell if you actually hear me or if you're just waiting for me to finish."
Gray looks at the glasses on his desk. "What do you want me to say, Abbie?"
"I want you to explain why you thought sitting on Theo's confession for weeks after we started talking again was the right call.
Because I can understand the separation.
I asked for no contact, you gave me no contact, and if something came up during that year, fine.
That was the agreement. But we've been back in each other's lives for weeks now.
Weeks. And you had this the whole time."
"I had a confession and an affidavit, but no DNA result yet," he says. "Theo's word. That's it. And his word—"
"His word would have been enough for me to know.
" I pause, because this is the part that's harder to say, the part that's been lodged in my chest since yesterday.
"I can see why you wanted proof. I can even understand it.
But you decided what I needed. Again. You decided I needed proof more than I needed to know. And you didn't ask me."
Gray rubs a hand over his jaw, and I watch him think.
"You're right," he says finally. "I should have asked. I should have said, Theo confessed, I don't have proof yet, what do you want to do?"
"Yes."
"And instead I made an executive decision because that's what I do. That's what I've always done. Handle it, fix it, present the solution." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "It's genuinely hard for me to understand that you'd rather have the mess than the answer."
"It's not about wanting the mess. It's about being in the mess together." I lean forward, trying to make him see it. "When you keep things from me, even things you're planning to tell me eventually, it puts me outside. I'm not your partner, I'm your audience. I just show up at the end and clap."
"That's not—" He stops. Starts again. "That's not how I see it."
"I know it's not. That's the problem."
He picks up the glasses, turns them over in his hands like he needs something to do.
"So what do you need?" he asks. "Not in general. Right now. What do you need from me?"
"I need you to tell me things when they happen," I say. "Even if they're incomplete. Even if you don't have the solution yet. I need you to trust me with the unfinished version."
"Okay."
"And I need you to stop protecting me from information like I'm fragile. I'm not fragile. I handled the last year, didn't I? I can handle knowing that Theo confessed before you had DNA results."
"I never thought you were fragile."
"Then why—"
"Because I thought if I did it right this time, if I gave you something complete and clean and undeniable, it would matter more. It would prove I'd changed." He sets the glasses down, meets my eyes. "I wasn't protecting you. I was trying to prove something. And that's still making it about me."
I don't have an answer for that. Or I do, but it's complicated, and I don't trust myself to say it right. I stand and grab my bag from the floor. My own news presses against my ribs. I needed time to decide what I wanted; I still do. But I can hear how easily fear turns into later. I won’t wait until I can present him with a finished future.
"I have to get to Halo. I have work to do."
"Abbie—"
"This isn't me storming out." I pause at the door, make myself look back at him. "This is me going to work. We'll talk more later. I just... I need to not be here right now."
He nods. Doesn't push. It's the right call, and we both know it.
I'm halfway out the door when I hear him say, quietly, "Thank you for telling me what you need."
I don't answer. I'm not sure thank you is the right response to basic communication that should have happened years ago. But I file it away, somewhere between the anger and whatever is growing next to it, and keep walking.
Eleven-thirty p.m., and I'm going to die at this desk.
Four spreadsheets refuse to reconcile. Elliot’s campaign ships in thirty minutes.
My creative director is home sick, my social media manager has a family emergency, and the numbers on my screen have begun to swim.
At eleven I texted Gray: Still awake? I could use dinner and company.
His answer was a question: Pasta? I said yes.
"You haven't eaten," he says from the doorway. "I can tell from here."
I look up, and Gray is standing in my doorway.
Black shirt, not his usual office wear, and jeans, and he's holding a paper bag that smells like heaven and garlic.
His sleeves are pushed up to the elbow, and I can see the edges of his tattoos, the muscle and bone of his forearms, and my brain short-circuits for half a second.
"I asked for dinner and company. I didn't ask to be diagnosed."
"Good thing I brought all three, then."
"Is that from the restaurant?"
"Pasta, bread, salad. I had a hunch you hadn't stopped once since you texted."
"I didn't forget. I just... deprioritized."
"When's the last time you ate something that wasn't coffee?"
"Coffee is a food group."
"Coffee is not a food group."
"It has calories. Technically."
"Abbie. Eat the pasta."
"I'm working."
"Eat the pasta while you're working. It's called multitasking. You love multitasking."
"I don't love it. I'm just good at it."
"Eat."
"Fine. But only because it smells amazing and I'm apparently a pushover now."
"You've never been a pushover in your life."
"And yet here I am, eating pasta because my husband told me to."
"Estranged husband."
"Oh, we're using estranged now? That's very formal."
"I'm switching it up."
"Very progressive of you."
"I try. What's the circular reference?"
"What?"
"The spreadsheet. I saw the error flag when I walked in. You've got a circular reference somewhere."
"I know I have a circular reference. I've been hunting it for twenty minutes."
"Want help?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"I don't need you to fix my spreadsheet, Gray."
"I didn't say fix. I said help. Different verb."
"Same implication."
"Not really. Fixing implies you can't do it. Helping implies you can, but it might go faster with two people. Which is just math."
"Did you just use math to justify butting into my work?"
"I used logic. Which is adjacent to math."
"You're exhausting."
"So I've been told. D14."
"What?"
"Your circular reference. It's in D14. You've got a SUM function referencing itself."
"I... wait. How did you even see that from over there?"
"I have good eyes."
"You have glasses."
"I have good eyes with glasses."
I slide the laptop across the desk. He pulls it toward him without comment and starts typing.
"You finally decided to wear them outside the house, then?"
"Two years of squinting was enough. Apparently I’m capable of learning."
"They're very... black."
"That's the frame color, yes."
"I know it's the frame color. I'm just... they're very you."
"Is that a compliment?"
"It's an observation."
"Interesting observation."
"Don't read into it."
"Wasn't planning on it."
"Good."
"Noted." He tears a piece of bread in half.
"Stop smirking."
"I'm not smirking. I'm eating bread. This is my bread-eating face."
I take a bite of pasta.
"Your bread-eating face looks a lot like your smirking face."
"Coincidence."
"Sure it is."
He fixes the formula in D14, then keeps scrolling, glasses catching the screen light.
"This is nice."
"What is?"
"This. Working, eating. Talking about spreadsheets like normal people."
"We're not normal people."
"No. But we could pretend for a night."
"Is that what we're doing? Pretending?"
"I don't know what we're doing, Abbie. I'm just here."
"Gray."
"What?"
I watch his hands, the slight furrow between his brows.
"I need to tell you something."
"Okay."
"It's... actually, never mind."
"Never mind?"
"Yeah. It's nothing. Later."
"You sure?"
"Positive. It's nothing. Just... my brain has decided everything is urgent."
"Midnight campaign brain."
"Exactly. Everything feels important and nothing feels important at the same time."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is exhausting. But it's also kind of exhilarating? Like, in an hour this whole thing launches and either it works or it doesn't and there's nothing I can do about it now except wait."
"And eat pasta."
"And eat pasta. Which, for the record, is really good."
"I know."
"Humble."
"Honest."
"Those aren't the same."
"Tonight they are."
"Your glasses are distracting, by the way."
"My glasses?"
"Yes. They're very... present."
"They're on my face. They're supposed to be present."
"They're just very noticeable."
"Should I take them off?"
"No. I mean... no. It's fine. They're fine. You're fine."
"I'm fine?"
"The glasses are fine. On you. They're fine."
"You're being very articulate right now."
"Shut up."
"Shutting up." He goes back to the spreadsheet, and for about five seconds he manages it.
"Why are you smiling?"
"I'm not smiling."
"You are definitely smiling."
"I'm appreciating the compliment."
"I didn't compliment you."
"You said my glasses were distracting. On me. That's a compliment."
"That's a... that's not... fine. Whatever. Take the compliment."
"Thank you."
"You're insufferable."
"Also a compliment."
"It really isn't."
"Tonight it is. Also your conversion tracking formula was missing a denominator."
"Less heroic, more judgmental."
He looks up at me over the glasses, and his mouth curves. "You're running a launch campaign for a platinum artist on four hours of sleep and no food. The fact that you only had two formula errors is actually impressive."
"Flattery will get you everywhere."
"I'm counting on it."
The clock on my wall says 11:51. Nine minutes until everything I've built for the past three months goes live. Nine minutes until Elliot's album cycle kicks off and the whole world sees whether Halo Creative can deliver.
"You should go home," I say.
"Should I?"
"There's no reason for you to be here."
"There's not," he agrees. "And yet."
He doesn't move. Just sits there with my laptop open in front of him, glasses still on, looking like he's prepared to spend the whole night in that chair if I'll let him.
"Gray."
"Abbie."
"I don't need a babysitter."
"Good thing I'm not babysitting, then." He closes the laptop, slides it back to me. "I'm just a guy eating pasta with his wife while she saves the music industry one spreadsheet at a time."
"Eleven-fifty-eight," I say, checking my phone.
"You're ready."
"Am I?"
"Look at me." I do. His eyes are steady, certain. "You're ready."
I click the button two minutes early. The screen loads. Everything goes live, the social posts, the video content, the pre-save links, the influencer partnerships, all of it, and for one beautiful moment, it works. It all works.
"There she goes," Gray murmurs.
I can't help it. I grin at him, high on relief and adrenaline. "There she goes."
My phone starts buzzing. Notifications piling up, comments, likes, shares, all the beautiful noise of a successful launch. I grab it, scrolling through, watching the numbers climb. At 12:04, I see the headline.
It's not about Elliot. It's not about the album.
It's a push notification from three different news apps, all with the same photo: Delaney holding the baby, looking beautiful and tragic in professional lighting.
GRAYSON VALENTINE'S SECRET SON: EXCLUSIVE TELL-ALL The article loads before I can stop myself from clicking.
There's a pull quote in huge letters across the top:
"Abbie always got everything. I just wanted one thing that was mine."
My stomach drops.
"What is it?" Gray's already standing, moving around the desk. "What's wrong?"
I can't speak. I just turn the phone toward him. He takes it. Reads. His jaw tightens, but he doesn't rage.
He just hands the phone back and says, "Nine a.m. Watch."
"I don't need you to fix it."
"I'm not fixing it." He meets my eyes, and there's a look in his expression I've never seen before, fierce and settled and certain. "I'm doing the thing I should have done on that stage."