Chapter 12
ADAIR
PRESENT DAY – OFFICE
Adair sat at his desk, unmoving, the cursor on his laptop blinking, waiting for his next move.
His tie was loose. Jacket off. The blinds tilted just enough for light to spill across his watch—gold, engraved on the back with Always yours, Bine.
He hadn’t worn it in months. Didn’t even mean to put it on that morning.
It just…called to him. She’d bought it when he got his first offer at a firm.
The party came rushing back like a freight train. Bitch ass Geechie pushing up on his wife—ex-wife then fucking him up.
Sabine.
The push.
The look in her eyes when it happened—
Adair hadn’t pushed her hard but hard enough. Hard enough for her to walk away from him for the last time.
Dragging a hand down his tired face, Adair leaned back in his chair, the city skyline blurred behind the glass. His eyes weren’t on the spreadsheet in front of him. Hell, they hadn’t been for twenty minutes.
Not that night.
But that night.
The night he had the chance to tell the truth. The night he could have, maybe had the chance to save his marriage. That night was supposed to be his redemption. His moment to finally stop hiding. He had the chance. She gave it to him—open hands, trembling voice, eyes full of heartbreak and hope.
But still…he chose to lie.
The lie that brought them to that very day. Then the truth. Two years later but the truth. Sabine fought him. Cried. Packed bags with shaky hands. He’d never forget the look in her eyes as she walked out holding their son in her arms.
That was what haunted him now. The truth after a lie didn’t save him. It damned him.
Sabine had always been the stronger one. The one who showed up even when it was unfair. The one who carried their grief like she carried their son—tight to the chest, never letting it fall. She gave him a chance to be better and he used it too late.
He stared down at an old photo tucked under his monitor.
Ade’s first birthday. Cake on his cheeks, curls wild.
Sabine next to him, radiant even in exhaustion from planning his party mostly alone because of his busy schedule.
She had been smiling at Adair in that shot.
Back when she still looked at him like he was hers.
Now? She looked through him. Like he was someone she’d once known and he couldn’t blame her because no matter how many good things he did now—no matter how many times he said sorry, or showed up on time, or called just to say good morning—it didn’t erase the moment he wasn’t there.
Didn’t erase the version of him that failed her.
He told her the truth and still lost her. That was the part they never tell you—
Sometimes the truth comes too late and sometimes, there’s no coming back.
A knock sounded—then followed by the creak of the door opening before he could say a word.
“Adair?”
Corrine.
Of course. She had the absolute worse timing. She stepped inside, her heels soft on the carpet, body angled like she’d rehearsed this moment. He didn’t even bother looking up.
“Didn’t say come in,” he muttered, eyes still on the photo of his son. His voice lacked its usual edge, but the bite was there. Enough to make her pause but not enough to make her leave.
Corrine shut the door behind her. “I figured you wouldn’t mind. You’ve been ghosting the team all day.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re brooding.”
Now he did look up. Slowly. Tiredly. “Do you need something?”
She tilted her head, stepping closer. A little too close. “You weren’t at the meeting. Jenkins asked if everything was okay, and I covered for you. Again.”
Adair exhaled, long and slow, pushing the photo frame face down on his desk. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“I know. I just thought maybe you’d appreciate a little backup. Considering everything.” She smiled. That sly, expectant kind of smile—the one that used to work on weaker versions of him but Adair wasn’t that man anymore. Not today. Maybe not ever again.
“Corrine,” he said flatly. “What do you want?”
Her expression shifted just a hair. Offense or disappointment, he couldn’t tell. Maybe both. Honestly, he didn’t care. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”
He leaned back, arms crossed. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“And you don’t know what the fuck fine looks like on me,” he spat and her jaw tensed. It hung in the air between them, everything unspoken, uninvited. She moved toward the window, glancing out like she owned the view.
“You’ve been different. I thought maybe...after the divorce was final, we’d talk…about us.”
He blinked once. “There is no us.”
Corrine turned then, arms folding. “You’re really gonna pretend like we didn’t mean anything?”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Her mouth opened—shut—then she scoffed, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe him. “Wow. You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
“No, I’m real clear now. Clearer than I’ve ever been.” His voice was flat. “We had sex. A couple times. When I was barely sober enough to spell my own name. Never in a bed. Never face to face. You want me to pretty that up for you? Say it was special? That it mattered?”
Corrine flinched with hurt but he didn’t stop.
“It was mediocre, Corrine. At best. I don’t say that to be cruel, but you clearly need the clarity. It meant nothing to me. Because I was in pieces and you just happened to be there. Like a lost fucking puppy whose pawing at the wrong door.”
Corrine’s eyes burned. “You think I didn’t know that? You think I didn’t see what kind of state you were in?”
“Then why the fuck are you here?” he snapped. “What are you hoping for? Another drunk mistake? Another pity fuck? What exactly do you think this is?”
“I thought…maybe you needed someone.”
“I had someone. I lost her. Because of me. That’s the part you’re not getting. I don’t want to be saved, and I sure as hell don’t want you.”
Corrine swallowed hard, blinking fast.
“You’re not the reason I got divorced,” he added, softer now.
He wouldn’t ever blame anyone for his wife leaving him but him.
It didn’t matter what another woman threw at him, it should have never been enough to make him even look their way.
“I should’ve never let your little remarks fly.
Never given my wife a reason to even think you was on some shit, when I knew you were, but I was too fuckin’ self-absorbed to check that shit.
That was all me. Every moment I didn’t show up for her the way I should have but you were part of the aftermath and I hate that part of myself.
So no, I don’t want to revisit it. I’m done making peace with my worst decisions. ”
The silence that followed was long. Corrine finally nodded; eyes glassy but defiant.
“Fuck you, Adair,” she whispered.
He nodded once. “Already did. Shit was weak.”
Adair leaned back again, staring at the ceiling now. The moment was over. The confession. The confrontation. All of it. There was no peace in being right. Just emptiness.
Adair sat alone in the silence Corrine left behind.
The door clicked shut, but her perfume lingered, expensive and floral.
He hated that he knew it so well. Hated that it used to mean distraction.
Now it just smelled like a version of himself he wanted dead and buried.
He ran both hands down his face, bracing his elbows on the desk, head hanging low between them.
What the hell was he even doing anymore?
Chasing caseloads. Showing up early. Staying late. Chasing partnerships he used to think would feel like purpose but the office was just noise now. A shelter from the wreckage he’d caused. A cage with glass walls and no bars.
And none of it—none of it—brought her back.
Not his Sabine. Not the version of himself he liked in her eyes.
Adair shifted in his chair, gaze catching the sleek gold logo etched on the glass wall just beyond his door—his new firm. Not the one where it all started. Not the one where he met Corrine. He’d left that place not long after Sabine left him.
New title. New office. New reputation to protect.
But the ghosts followed him anyway.
And somehow…so did Corrine. She wasn’t part of the initial transition.
He hadn’t recommended her. Hell, he didn’t even tell her he was leaving.
But two months in, she showed up. Said she’d been headhunted.
Said she didn’t even know he worked here until onboarding.
He didn’t believe her then, and he didn’t believe her now.
Still, he couldn’t prove otherwise. Couldn’t claim she was stalking him without sounding like a narcissistic asshole and truth be told, he wasn’t running from her when he left. He was running from who he became while he knew her.
The man who kissed another woman the night his wife needed him most. The man who drank too much and came home too little. The man who, for one long second, didn’t feel like being a husband or a father.
Corrine didn’t break his marriage but she sure as hell stepped on the cracks making them bigger and he’d let her.
So even now, when Sabine’s voice echoed in his memory from one of their many arguments—“It never ended, Adair. It never fucking ended”—he understood why she said it.
Why she meant it because how could she believe it was over when the same woman showed up everywhere, all over again?
He hated the optics. Hated that his shame had a name and a desk just a few doors from his own but the guilt?
That stayed right here with him.
That part, he never tried to run from.
Because it was his.
All his.
Outside, the sun started to dip behind a skyscraper. The city didn’t care that a man sat in his office—successful, respected, alone. It didn’t care that he’d given up everything to be everything and ended up with nothing. He closed his eyes and whispered it out loud. Just once. Just to himself.
“I miss her.”
God, he did.
Not just her body. Not just her laughter.