“Take it, Emma,” he said. “It should be enough to rent some tiny apartment for a few weeks. Consider it payment for two years of a marriage that should never have happened.”
A soft laugh floated across the conference room.
Madison, Nathan’s mistress, stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows in a fitted crimson dress, scrolling through her phone while inserting herself into the conversation as if she already owned a place there. She talked easily about CloudAxis’s newest artificial intelligence platform, repeating technical concepts she had overheard from Nathan until they almost sounded like her own. Neither of them even bothered pretending to hide the affair anymore, because they assumed the divorce had already erased me from their world.
To Nathan and Madison, I was painfully ordinary. They believed I had come from nothing, worked as a waitress before meeting Nathan, and married far above where I belonged. In their minds, I was simply another woman who should have been grateful that a successful technology executive had chosen her at all.
Neither one of them gave the slightest attention to the elderly notary sitting quietly near the back wall.
The man wore an old tweed jacket, thick glasses, and moved with the deliberate slowness of someone well into his eighties. Throughout the meeting, he had remained silent, reviewing documents without interrupting anyone. Nathan had glanced at him only once, dismissing him as just another forgettable professional hired to witness signatures.
What Nathan never understood was that the old man secretly owned the skyscraper where CloudAxis rented its headquarters. He also knew exactly who I was.
I sat quietly on one side of the conference table in a simple cream-colored cardigan, wearing no jewelry, no designer accessories, and nothing that hinted at the life I had carefully kept hidden. Across from me, Nathan looked every inch like the ambitious technology CEO he had always wanted the world to see. His tailored navy suit fit flawlessly, his expensive Rolex caught the afternoon light, and every gesture radiated complete confidence.
“Let’s finish this, Emma,” he said, pushing the documents toward me. “We’re both tired, and we both know this marriage became a terrible investment.”
