CHAPTER SEVEN
Max
JULES CALLED THREE days after the trade association dinner.
I considered letting it go to voicemail, but when her name appeared for the second time, I answered.
“What do you want?”
She laughed. “Still charming.”
“I’m working, Jules.”
“I want to get coffee.”
“No.”
“That was quick.”
“I’m busy.”
“You were always busy.”
I looked at the report open on my desk. “Some things don’t change.”
“That’s exactly why I’m calling. We’ve talked at three different events already, with half the city listening. I’d like one conversation without your father, an investor, or Payton appearing every thirty seconds.”
My irritation sharpened. “Payton isn’t an inconvenience you need to work around.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Good.”
“Twenty minutes, Max. That’s all I’m asking.”
I should have refused. Instead, I agreed to meet her that afternoon at a busy café near my office.
Jules was already seated when I arrived. “You really do look the same.”
“You keep telling me.”
“Conrad managed to make you even more serious, though.”
“I was never fun.”
“You used to be occasionally reckless.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
Her smile widened. “There you are.” I ignored that. “You wanted to talk.”
She wrapped both hands around her coffee. “Do you remember the apartment in Boston?”
“The one with the plumbing problem?”
“You loved that place.”
“I loved being twenty-eight and stupid enough to sign a lease without having the pipes inspected.”
“You loved that Conrad hated it.”
That was true. The apartment had been small, overpriced, and entirely mine. I had found it myself, signed the lease without consulting anyone, and moved in before my father knew what I was doing. Conrad called it childish. I stayed for two years.
“You were different then,” Jules said. “You wanted your own company. You had investors and a business plan. You were serious about leaving Winslow Retail Group.”
“I was serious about building something of my own.”
“Then Conrad started interfering.”
My jaw tightened. He had never openly forbidden me from leaving.
His methods were subtler and far more effective.
Lenders became nervous. Property owners reconsidered agreements.
An executive prepared to join me and suddenly received an opportunity he couldn’t afford to refuse.
Conrad knew exactly how much pressure to apply without leaving fingerprints.
“I made a decision,” I said.
“You gave in.”
“No. I refused to drag employees and investors into a war with my father when they would have carried most of the risk. You can disagree with that decision. Don’t call it surrender.”
Jules lowered her eyes. “I was angry when I left. I thought you’d come after me.”
“I know that too.”
“I wanted proof that there was still something in your life you wanted badly enough to fight for.”
I sat back. Jules had always believed my failure to follow her meant I hadn’t fought hard enough. She had never understood that chasing her after she’d ended our relationship would have required me to become someone I wasn’t.
“Then a year later, you married Payton,” she said.
“Be careful.”
“I’m not attacking her.”
“You’ve been doing a convincing impression of it.”
She sighed. “I’m talking about you. You wanted independence, and Conrad arranged your marriage as part of a business alliance.”
“My marriage belongs to Payton and me.”
“Did it begin that way?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
“I remember who you were before Conrad wore you down,” she said. “You wanted your decisions to belong to you.”
“They still do.”
“Do they?”
I thought of Payton before I could stop myself — her blonde hair spread across the pillow that morning, the stack of books on her nightstand, the laugh she’d tried to hide when I accused her of being jealous, the way she’d looked at me on the terrace when she asked whether I’d hated marrying her.
I’d answered badly. I knew that now.
“Do you ever wonder what your life would look like if you’d said no to Conrad?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted.
“What do you see?”
I took a moment. “I don’t know.”
That was the truth. I could imagine the company I’d once planned to build, an office without the Winslow name attached to it, freedom from my father’s constant interference. What I couldn’t do was remove Payton from the picture and have it feel complete.
That unsettled me more than anything Jules had said. She seemed to think she was reminding me of everything Conrad had taken. Instead, sitting across from a woman I’d once imagined a future with, I found myself thinking about my wife.
“Why are you still married?” Jules asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I was giving you a chance to rethink the question.”
She folded her hands around her cup. “You just told me how much you resented Conrad controlling your life. Your marriage came out of one of his deals, so why are you still in it?”
“You know nothing about my marriage.”
“I know how it started.”
“That doesn’t tell you what it became.”
“Then tell me.”
I looked toward the window, where people moved along the sidewalk carrying shopping bags and coffee. “It’s been six years.”
“That explains how long you’ve stayed. It doesn’t explain why.”
“You’re remarkably interested in this.”
“I’m curious.”
“No, you’re pushing.”
She smiled slightly. “Fine. I think you became comfortable with a life you once resented.”
“I’m perfectly capable of leaving.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
I opened my mouth and found myself considering the question more seriously than I wanted to. “There are companies involved. Shared investments, developments, long-term agreements between both families.”
She shook her head. “You’re still explaining your personal decisions through Conrad’s business interests. Would Winslow Retail Group collapse if you filed for divorce tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Would Edison lose his company?”
“No.”
“And Conrad?”
“Sadly, he’d survive.”
That made her laugh. “Then the companies aren’t the reason.”
Payton appeared in my mind immediately — home by now, probably reading in bed with three books stacked beside her even though she could only read one at a time.
At breakfast with one leg tucked beneath her, complaining about my coffee.
The expression on her face when she asked whether I had hated marrying her.
“We have a life together,” I said.
Jules was quiet for a moment. “Are you happy?”
“Marriage isn’t measured by whether you’re happy every minute.”
“I didn’t ask that. Are you happy with Payton?”
The question irritated me more than it should have.
Payton and I rarely fought. We respected each other’s independence, knew each other’s habits, had developed routines that worked.
She understood how demanding my job could be, and I knew when she needed space before she ever asked for it.
Our marriage was stable. I had always considered that important.
“Do you love her?”
“Enough questions.”
“That one seemed fairly important.”
“It also isn’t your business.”
She sat back. “Fair.” Then, after a moment: “You married someone Conrad selected for you. You can admit that without insulting Payton.”
My hand stopped around my cup. “I made the decision to marry her.”
“After Conrad made refusing expensive enough that you couldn’t justify it.”
“It was still my decision.”
“Then make another one now.” She held my gaze.
“Stay married if that’s what you genuinely want.
If Payton is the person you want beside you, there’s your answer.
But if you’re staying out of habit, obligation, or fear of another war with Conrad, you’re giving him the same control he had six years ago. ”
Anger rose in me, mostly at how difficult the argument was to dismiss. When had I last actively decided to remain married? I had never woken up on an anniversary and reconsidered the contract. Payton and I had simply continued building routines around each other until staying became ordinary.
“You could leave,” Jules said quietly.
For the first time, I treated the idea as something concrete. Divorce would mean lawyers, separate houses, and the end of the public alliance our marriage represented. Conrad would be furious, which held considerably less power over me at thirty-eight than it had six years earlier.
I could make the decision myself.
Then I imagined telling Payton, and something tightened in my chest. I pictured her packing books into boxes, clearing her clothes from our closet.
I imagined coming home to a house where I wouldn’t hear her laughing with my mother or find her asleep beside me.
The freedom Jules described felt unexpectedly hollow.
“You don’t have to spend your life living with a decision someone else made for you,” she said.
For the first time in six years, divorce felt possible. I told myself the discomfort that followed was guilt over hurting Payton. It would take me far too long to understand how badly I had misnamed it.
I returned to the office believing the conversation with Jules had given me clarity.
For six years, I had treated my marriage as permanent.
It began with lawyers, corporate agreements, public statements, two families tying their business interests together.
Somewhere along the way, I’d stopped considering whether any of those things still required Payton and me to remain married.
Jules had forced me to acknowledge that I could leave.
I tried to work after that and made it through three pages of a quarterly report before admitting I hadn’t absorbed a word.
My phone sat beside my hand. I unlocked it and opened my messages with Payton — mostly practical exchanges.
Dinner at seven? Your mother called, she wants us there Sunday.
You left your charger, I put it in your briefcase.
Two weeks earlier, she’d asked whether I needed her at a foundation dinner, and I’d replied with two words: Yes. Thanks.
Efficient communication had always suited me. Looking at the messages now, I wondered when our marriage had become so easy to reduce to schedules and reminders.
If I asked for a divorce, Payton would probably handle it with the same composure she brought to everything else.
She might even feel relieved. I tried to imagine that future — her books gone from our bedroom shelves, half the closet empty, the bathroom counter losing the collection of products I’d spent years pretending weren’t slowly taking over my side.
Coming downstairs without finding her at the kitchen island reading while I checked email. The house going quiet.
I told myself the discomfort came from losing familiar routines after six years together.
Then another thought arrived. Eventually, Payton might meet someone else.
My attention left the report completely.
I pictured a man walking into The Turning Page and making her laugh, taking her to dinner, learning that she hated lemon in her water, discovering how easily she could lose an hour talking about books.
At some point, he might place his hand against her lower back in a crowded room.
My jaw tightened. I pushed away from the desk and walked toward the windows.
A divorce would give Payton the freedom to build whatever life she wanted. I understood that, and I had no right to object to what came afterward. Understanding didn’t make the image of another man touching her any easier to tolerate.
I checked the time. Payton was probably at The Turning Page with Kim — she usually visited on Wednesdays, often stopping at the bakery two blocks away for almond pastries. She’d insist she wasn’t hungry and eventually eat half of one. I knew all of that without having to think about it.
My phone buzzed. A message from Payton: Are you home for dinner tonight?
I stared at the screen longer than the question deserved before replying. Yes. Around seven.
Her answer came almost immediately. Okay. I’ll be there.
The tension in my chest eased, and the ease of it irritated me.
My assistant opened the office door a moment later. “Sorry to interrupt. You have the operations call in five.”
“I know.”
She studied me briefly. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.”
Her expression suggested she didn’t believe me, but she had enough sense to leave the subject alone. “Conference room?”
“I’ll join remotely.”
“Got it.”
After she left, I looked at Payton’s message again.
Perhaps Jules was right about one thing.
Payton had become so deeply woven into my daily life that I no longer remembered what it felt like to live without her.
I had spent six years learning her routines, preferences, moods, and habits while insisting the knowledge came with marriage.
The thought of losing those things bothered me. The possibility of another man knowing them bothered me far more. I had an explanation for that too.
Possessiveness. Six years of marriage had trained me to think of Payton as my wife, and some territorial instinct objected to imagining another man occupying a place I had considered mine for years. Calling it possessiveness let me keep the feeling simple.
I returned to my desk and forced myself back into the quarterly report. A few minutes later, my eyes dropped to my wedding ring. I turned it around my finger once.
If I ended our marriage, Payton would eventually move on. She deserved the chance to find someone who could give her whatever she had spent six years hoping to get from me.
I understood that.
I simply couldn’t stand imagining it.