Chapter 39
JANE
For the first time in my life, everything felt like it was falling into place. It was such a strange, fragile realization that I didn’t trust it at first.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to go wrong the way it always had before.
But days kept passing, and instead of disappointment or betrayal, there was calm.
Momentum. A sense that I was finally moving forward instead of being blasted two steps back when I so much as thought about taking one.
Alex was amazing. Truly, infuriatingly, nauseatingly amazing. The more time I spent with him, the more certain I became that I couldn’t have asked for a better partner if I’d tried to design one from scratch.
He listened. He showed up. He didn’t treat my life like a problem he needed to solve or a burden he needed to manage. He treated me like an equal. Like his wife, not a complication. He’d also been keeping his promise, looping me in on everything happening with the company and the board.
No vague reassurances. No behind-the-scenes maneuvering without my knowledge. Every update and every development was shared openly, honestly, and sometimes with a touch of dry humor that made even corporate warfare feel survivable.
It felt inevitable now, like it wouldn’t be long before the board finally did what they should have done months ago and appointed me CEO. The thought made me giddy. So happy it should’ve been illegal.
On top of all that, my uncle was currently in town. Or at least, so I’d heard. Andrew, the human equivalent of a shrug, had finally graced the city of Chicago, where he supposedly lived and worked now, with his presence.
I’d been trying to get a meeting with him for weeks, sending emails, phone calls, and a few polite follow-ups that grew progressively less polite, yet I’d received nothing in response.
So when word filtered through the office that he was actually here, in the building, I grabbed my notebook and went straight to his floor.
His secretary looked up at me, gum popping loudly as she leaned back in her chair. “What can I do for ya?”
“Is Andrew available?” I asked. “I need to speak with him. Now.”
She blew a bubble and shrugged after it’d popped. “Sorry, honey. He’s at lunch.”
“With who?” I pressed.
Another shrug. “Not sure.”
Of course, she wasn’t. Andrew had plucked her from the obscurity of the mail room after, as Colin had quoted, he got a load of her rack when she dropped off an envelope for him.
I stood there for a second, just staring at the woman whose dedication to her job could generously be described as theoretical. Honestly, I couldn’t wait for all of this to be over, but if he wasn’t here, he wasn’t here. Glaring at her wouldn’t magically make him appear.
I left the building and decided to grab lunch outside of the office.
Partly out of spite and partly because I needed caffeine if I was going to make it through the rest of the day without committing a felony.
I stopped at a coffee shop a few blocks away, joining the line snaking past reclaimed wood tables as I studied the chalkboard menu written in cheerful handwriting.
While I waited in line, I pulled out my phone and scrolled absently, my thumb moving out of habit more than interest. Alex’s name jumped out at me from a gossip site, bolded and impossible to miss. My stomach sank as I tapped on it before I could even begin to wonder what I might find.
The picture loaded so slowly, it seemed cruel, but once I saw it, I wished it had never loaded at all. Alex, unmistakable even in a grainy, poorly lit shot, with a woman’s hand gripping his arm as she leaned in close to him.
Too close.
Familiar in a way that made my chest tighten painfully.
Bile raced up the back of my throat and it felt like the floor dropped right out from under me when I recognized the woman, too. Mallory.
The caption was vague but suggestive, the kind of language designed to imply without outright accusing. My ears started ringing, shock putting stars in my vision and making my heart malfunction. I couldn’t even feel my own hands anymore as I shoved my phone back into my purse.
I left without my coffee, not remembering that I’d decided to go home, but finding myself driving there with my hands shaking on the steering wheel. In my mind’s eye, all I could see was that image, over and over again, trying to make sense of it.
Alex and Mallory, so close together that it looked like she was kissing his cheek. Her hand on his arm. Their bodies turned into each other.
Alex wouldn’t do what that article had implied he was doing, having an affair with my father’s former mistress. I knew it in my bones. He wasn’t careless. He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t the kind of man who would jeopardize everything we were building for her.
And yet, a picture like that didn’t appear out of nowhere. Nothing jumped out at me that obviously made it fake or computer generated. I’d take another, closer look, but right now, I was reeling. Because my gut was screaming at me that it was real.
Which meant that he’d seen her. Talked to her. Talked to her like he knew her actually. Let her touch him, even. And he hadn’t told me.
By the time I pulled into my mom’s driveway, my head was spinning. I wasn’t even sure why I was here. Why I hadn’t just gone back to Alex’s apartment like I’d been doing more and more often lately, like that was my home instead of this place.
Even so, I didn’t turn around. I didn’t even think about getting back into my car and heading over there instead.
I just walked into the house, feeling like I’d been dropped headfirst into an alternate universe.
One in which I was seeing strikingly familiar pictures, but of my husband with her this time instead of my father.
I almost threw up right there on the floor, but I managed to swallow the swirling nausea just in time.
My mother walked out of the kitchen as I stumbled down the hall, suddenly beaming when she saw me. “Jane! I wasn’t expecting you.”
I nodded automatically. “Yeah. I just thought I’d stop by.”
She studied my face, her smile finally faltering. “Something is wrong.”
I shrugged, but she wasn’t deterred, taking my arm in a gentle grip and leading me to the kitchen.
Perching on one of the stools at the island, I just sat there while she made tea neither of us really wanted.
I didn’t stop her, though. My mind was too busy racing, trying to rationalize what I’d seen.
It could have been taken out of context. Or maybe Mallory orchestrated the photo, waiting for the perfect moment and then leaning in just enough to make it look compromising. Alex would never fall for her tricks.
I trusted him. I did.
But you trusted your dad too, and look how that turned out. At the realization, my eyelids slammed shut, a headache suddenly brewing behind my temples and the nausea swirling again, more intensely this time.
“I think you’ve been working too hard,” Nora said gently, setting a mug down in front of me. “You’ve taken on far too much responsibility for one person.”
I looked up at her, startled by the shift. “What?”
She sighed, sitting down across from me with her frail, thin fingers wrapped around a mug of her own. “Darling, you’ve been carrying this entire family on your back for years. The company. Your brothers. Me. Doesn’t part of you just want a break?”
I thought of the article. Of Mallory’s smile and her hand on Alex’s arm, caught in a single frozen moment that didn’t tell the whole story but certainly told enough to hurt.
Then I thought about Alex, of how fiercely he’d defended me since the moment we’d met and how he talked about my future at Thayer like it was non-negotiable.
But doubt had a way of worming into the smallest cracks.
Everything had been falling into place and now I couldn’t tell if I was standing on solid ground or if I was right at an edge that was about to give way. I wasn’t in my right mind, hearing myself when I answered her without even thinking about the question.
“Yeah,” I heard my own voice in my ears. “A break would be nice.”
To my mind, a break meant exactly that—a break. A pause. A few days where my phone didn’t buzz every five minutes with emails, updates from the lawyers, or Mallory’s shadow looming over everything like the scent of a decaying carcass.
A break from the bullshit. From the anxiety. From the constant vigilance.
It did not mean a break from my life in general. It didn’t mean stepping away from the company I’d spent years preparing myself to run, or quietly handing the reins to someone else just because I’d married well, but Nora smiled like I’d just confirmed something she’d already decided was true.
“See?” she said warmly. “That’s exactly what I mean.
You’ve been under so much stress for so long, my baby.
” She leaned forward, excitement brimming in her eyes as she launched into a speech I barely heard, my brain just glitching.
“Do you know how lucky you are to have a husband like that? Someone dependable and successful, who wants to take care of you. You should be spending more time with him instead of worrying about Thayer all day and night. Let him handle things. That’s what partnerships are for. ”
She kept going, droning on about how nice it must be to rely on a man like Alex, how freeing it would be to let go a little, and how proud she was that I’d married someone like him. Her words blurred together, a low hum in the background until my phone buzzed against the counter.
I glanced down, my heart almost seizing when I saw Alex’s name on the screen. I didn’t pick up right away, waiting for my mom to stop talking with my thumb hovering over the screen.
“You’ve done enough, Jane,” she said softly, apparently still oblivious that I was waiting for her to finish before I took the call. “It’s time to let someone else take care of you.”
The phone rang again, and this time, I stood up with it in my hand and waved it at her. “I need to take this.”
She smiled. “Of course, darling. Tell him I said hello.”
As I was about to swipe up to answer, Wyatt walked in, home from school with his backpack still slung over his shoulder. He stopped short when he saw me, a wary expression flickering over his features that made me forget all about my phone.
He glanced toward the window, like he half expected Alex to be out there, but then he looked back at me. Hostility rolled off him in waves, more familiar now, but still exhausting.
Suddenly I couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t stand this tension between us on top of everything else. At least this was within my control. I could fix this with him, whatever it was. The rest of it…
“Hey,” I said carefully.
He didn’t respond, just dropping his bag by the stairs and lifting his foot to the first one.
“Wyatt,” I said, my tone sharper than it’d probably ever been with him. “Can we talk?”
His shoulders hunched, defensive as he spun to look at me. “About what?”
“About whatever this is,” I said firmly. “Enough is enough, and I’ve had enough.”
He hesitated, his eyes flicking toward the stairs that would provide an escape. For a second, I thought he was going to bolt again, but then he let out a long, dramatic sigh and gave a small nod.
“Fine,” he said, clearly irritated. “Make it quick.”