Chapter 8
I didn't sleep that night.
I sat on the floor with my back against the front door until my legs went numb, then I moved to the living room sofa and stared at the ceiling until the first gray light of dawn crept through the windows.
The ring never left my hand. I kept turning it over, feeling the smooth band, the sharp edges of the diamond setting, like if I held it long enough it might somehow bring her back.
It didn't.
By seven in the morning, I'd showered and changed into jeans and a sweater that Julianne had bought me last Christmas.
It still smelled faintly of the detergent she used, that lavender scent that had become so familiar I'd stopped noticing it.
I noticed it now. I buried my face in the fabric and breathed deep, and something cracked open in my chest.
I needed to find her. I needed to explain, to apologize, to do whatever it took to make this right.
But first, I had to deal with Chloe.
She'd threatened me last night. Texts, emails, proof of every time I'd crossed a line.
The words had bounced off me in the moment, meaningless compared to the devastation of Julianne's absence.
But in the cold light of morning, I understood what she was implying.
She'd twist our professional relationship into something sordid.
She'd claim I'd led her on, made promises, behaved inappropriately.
And the worst part? Some of it was true.
Not the affair she'd invent. I'd never touched her, never kissed her, never so much as held her hand. But I'd let her get close. I'd confided in her. I'd basked in her attention like a pathetic, middle-aged fool desperate to feel desired. I'd given her ammunition, and now she was going to use it.
I drove to the office on autopilot, my mind churning through possibilities. Fire her before she could quit. Get ahead of whatever story she was planning to spin. Protect myself.
No. Fuck that.
I wasn't trying to protect myself anymore. I was trying to cut out the cancer that had metastasized through my marriage. Chloe Rudolph was a tumor, and I was going to excise her with surgical precision.
The office was quiet at this hour on a Sunday.
Just a few junior analysts catching up on work, a security guard who nodded at me as I badged through the lobby.
I took the elevator to the fourteenth floor and walked past the empty assistant's desk, the one where Chloe sat every day, fielding my calls and scheduling my meetings and slowly, deliberately destroying my life.
I sat in my office and waited.
She'd come. I knew she would. Last night's rejection would be eating at her, and she'd want to either smooth things over or escalate her threats. Either way, she'd show up. Women like Chloe couldn't stand being dismissed.
I was right.
She walked in at half past nine, dressed in a tight skirt and silk blouse, her hair and makeup perfect despite the early hour. She paused in the doorway when she saw me, her expression flickering through surprise, then calculation, then that wide-eyed innocence she wore like a mask.
"Lewis. I didn't expect you to be here today." She stepped inside, closing the door behind her. "After last night, I thought you might need some time."
"Sit down, Chloe."
Something in my voice made her hesitate. Good. She should be nervous.
She settled into the chair across from my desk, crossing her legs, arranging her features into an expression of gentle concern.
"I want to apologize for how I behaved last night.
I was out of line. I should never have come to your house, and I definitely shouldn't have...
well." She ducked her head, playing modest. "I was emotional.
I let my feelings get the better of me."
"Your feelings."
"I care about you, Lewis. I have for a long time. And seeing you so hurt, knowing that Julianne had abandoned you..." She reached across the desk, her fingers brushing my hand. "I just wanted to comfort you. I'm sorry if I overstepped."
I looked at her hand on mine. Slim fingers, manicured nails painted a soft pink.
A hand that had touched my arm a thousand times, that had lingered on my shoulder, that had found excuses to make contact whenever possible.
I'd let her. I'd enjoyed it. And now the thought of her skin against mine made my stomach turn.
I pulled my hand away.
"Let me tell you what's going to happen, Chloe."
Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I'm firing you. Effective immediately. You'll clean out your desk today, and security will escort you from the building."
Silence. Her face went through a rapid series of transformations. Shock. Confusion. Rage. And then, finally, that cold calculation I'd glimpsed last night.
"You can't do that."
"I can. I am."
"On what grounds?" She leaned forward, her voice dropping to something low and dangerous. "I've been nothing but a dedicated employee. I've worked late, I've gone above and beyond, I've anticipated your every need. You have no cause to terminate me."
"I have plenty of cause. Inappropriate conduct. Boundary violations. Showing up at my home uninvited on multiple occasions. Inserting yourself into my personal life in ways that were unprofessional and unwelcome."
"Unwelcome?" She laughed, sharp and bitter. "You didn't seem to find my attention unwelcome when you were confiding in me about your marriage. You didn't seem to find it unwelcome when you were staring at my tits every time I leaned over your desk."
The vulgarity startled me. The mask was slipping, the innocent ingenue giving way to something harder and meaner underneath.
"You told me things you never told her," Chloe continued, her voice rising. "You said I understood you. You said talking to me was the best part of your day. You made me feel like we had something special, and now you're going to throw me away because your wife finally grew a spine?"
"My wife has always had a spine. I was just too stupid to see it."
"Oh, please." She rolled her eyes, all pretense of sweetness abandoned. "Julianne is a dried-up, jealous hag who couldn't handle the fact that her husband found someone younger and prettier to talk to. She drove herself crazy with paranoia, and now she's making you pay for her insecurities."
The rage that flooded through me was white-hot and absolute. I stood so fast my chair slammed back against the wall.
"Don't you dare talk about my wife like that."
Chloe stood too, facing me across the desk, her chest heaving with fury. "Your wife left you, Lewis. She's gone. And instead of accepting that maybe, just maybe, it's because you were already halfway in love with me, you're going to blame this on the woman who actually wanted you?"
"I was never in love with you." The words came out cold.
Certain. "I was flattered by you. I was weak, and vain, and stupid enough to let your attention stroke my ego.
But love? I've never loved anyone but Julianne.
And I let you convince me that her justified anger was jealousy, that her valid concerns were paranoia, that I was somehow the victim in a situation I created. "
"You did create it." Chloe's lips curved into a cruel smile.
"You created it every time you looked at me the way you did.
Every time you stayed late so we could be alone.
Every time you chose my company over hers.
You wanted this, Lewis. You wanted me. And now that you've lost her, you're too much of a coward to admit it. "
"I wanted to feel desired. That's not the same thing as wanting you."
The words landed like a slap. I watched the color drain from her face, then flood back in an angry rush.
"You bastard."
"Maybe. But at least I can finally see what you are.
" I leaned forward, bracing my hands on the desk.
"You're not some innocent girl caught up in something beyond her control.
You're a manipulative, calculating predator who targeted a married man and systematically tried to destroy his relationship.
You showed up at my house uninvited. You crashed my wife's dinner party.
You wore a dress designed to humiliate her in front of hundreds of people.
You fed me lies about her being jealous and unstable while you worked to make her look exactly that way. "
"I didn't make her do anything. She did that all on her own."
"No. You pushed her buttons and then acted shocked when she reacted.
You manufactured crises so I'd need you.
You made yourself indispensable and then used that position to worm your way into my life.
" I straightened, looking down at her with something that felt like disgust. "My wife saw exactly what you were from the beginning.
And I called her paranoid. I told her she was imagining things.
I chose your word over hers, again and again, and I will never forgive myself for that. "
Chloe's expression twisted into something ugly.
"Fine. Fire me. See if I care. But I meant what I said last night.
I have evidence of everything. Every text you sent at midnight.
Every private conversation. Every time you looked at me like you wanted to fuck me on your desk.
I'll go to HR. I'll go to the press. I'll tell everyone what kind of man you really are. "
"Go ahead."
She blinked. "What?"
"Tell them. Tell everyone." I walked around the desk, stopping close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her eyes, the slight smudge in her lipstick.
She smelled like that trendy perfume, too sweet, almost cloying.
I'd once found it attractive. Now it just made me nauseous.
"Tell them I was a vain, foolish man who let a young woman's attention go to his head.
Tell them I confided things I shouldn't have, that I blurred professional boundaries, that I was a shitty husband who didn't deserve the wife he had. It's all true. I won't deny any of it."
"You... what?"
"I don't care about my reputation anymore, Chloe. I don't care about this job, or this office, or what anyone in this building thinks of me. The only thing I care about is getting my wife back. And if destroying my career is the price I have to pay for the damage I've done, then so be it."
She stared at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air. This wasn't how she'd expected this conversation to go. She'd expected me to grovel, to bargain, to offer her money or promises in exchange for her silence.
She hadn't expected me to simply stop caring.
"You're bluffing."
"Try me." I stepped back, putting distance between us. "Now get your things and get out. Security will escort you to your car."
"This isn't over, Lewis." Her voice shook with barely contained rage. "You don't get to use me and then throw me away like garbage. I'll make you pay for this."
"I'm already paying for it. Every second my wife is gone is payment enough."
Something in her expression shifted. The rage flickering into something that might have been confusion, or disbelief. Like she genuinely couldn't understand how a man could care more about his marriage than about her.
"You're pathetic," she spat. "You're a pathetic, middle-aged man chasing after a woman who doesn't want you anymore. She left you, Lewis. She chose to leave. And no amount of groveling is going to change that."
"Maybe not. But at least I'll know I tried."
I picked up the phone and dialed security. "This is Lewis Cage. I need an escort to the fourteenth floor. Ms. Rudolph is being terminated and needs to be accompanied while she collects her belongings."
Chloe's face contorted with fury. "You'll regret this. I swear to God, you'll regret this."
"I already have plenty of regrets. You don't even make the top ten."
The security guard arrived within minutes. Chloe gathered her things in stony silence, shoving personal items into her designer bag with jerky, angry movements. Her eyes kept cutting to me, filled with venom, but I refused to look away. Refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
At the door, she paused. "She's not going to take you back, you know. No matter what you do. Some things can't be fixed."
"Get out, Chloe."
She left. The door swung shut behind her, and I was alone in my office, surrounded by the trappings of a career I'd sacrificed everything for. The corner suite. The expensive artwork. The view of the city skyline that I'd once thought meant I'd made it.
None of it mattered. None of it had ever mattered.
I sank into my chair and pulled Julianne's ring from my pocket. I'd been carrying it with me since last night, unable to let it go.
The diamond caught the morning light, throwing tiny rainbows across my desk. I thought about the day I'd bought it. The nervous excitement. The absolute certainty that Julianne was the woman I wanted to spend my life with.
When had I forgotten that? When had I started taking her for granted, treating her presence in my life as something I was owed rather than something I'd been lucky enough to receive?
I closed my fist around the ring and let my head fall back against the chair.
Chloe was gone. The cancer had been cut out. But the damage remained, spreading through every corner of my life, poisoning everything it touched.
Now came the hard part.
Finding my wife. Facing what I'd done.
And figuring out if there was any way to earn back what I'd so carelessly thrown away.