I thought about Seraphina, about her timing. She’d come back from London “briefly,” said she’d heard about the marriage, and said she wanted to talk.
What if the conversation wasn’t coincidental? What if Esmeralda had reached out to Seraphina first?
I couldn’t prove it. But the architecture of it was Esmeralda’s. Every piece.
“Kill the story,” I said.
“I’m already working on it. Legal is drafting cease and desists. PR is preparing a statement. But Christopher, the photos are out. They’re shared. They’re trending. Killing the story now is like trying to put a fire back in the match.”
“Then contain it. Statement from my team. Seraphina was an old friend. The meeting was brief. The marriage is strong.”
“Is it?”
I stopped walking. “What?”
“Is the marriage strong? Because I need to know what I’m defending before I defend it.”
“Trisha.”
“I’m being practical. If this is a real marriage, I’m fighting for it. If it’s still a contract, I’m managing optics. Those are different strategies.”
“It’s real.” I said it without hesitation. “Fight for it.”
“That’s all I needed to hear. Go back to your meeting. I’ll handle the press. But Christopher? Call your wife. She needs to hear this from you, not from a news anchor.”
I called Miley. It rang five times and went to voicemail.
I called again. Voicemail.
Again. Voicemail.
I texted. Called again. Nothing.
The rest of the day was a war on two fronts. Trisha managed the press while I managed the board. Paul Hargrove called an emergency session todiscuss the optics. Three board members wanted a statement. Two wanted to know if Seraphina was available for the company’s holiday party, which I chose to believe was a joke because the alternative was committing a felony.
I sat in that boardroom for four hours while the woman I loved wasn’t answering her phone. Every fifteen minutes I checked the screen under the table. No missed calls. No texts. Nothing.
At six, I left the office. Drove home faster than I should have. The whole way I rehearsed what I’d say. The truth. All of it. Seraphina was closure. The papers were for the contract, not the marriage. The ring was in the dresser drawer wrapped in velvet. I’d planned everything. I’d had it all figured out, which should have been my first warning because nothing in my life had ever gone according to plan and the universe apparently wasn’t about to start making exceptions.
The house was dark.
I opened the front door and the silence hit me before the cold air did. No sound of anyone existing in a space that had become alive in the last two months because of the woman who lived in it.
“Miley?”
Nothing.
I walked through the house, kitchen empty, her shoes gone from the hallway, living room untouched. I took the stairs two at a time, into our bedroom. The bed was made—not as I’d left it that morning, with the sheets tangled and her pillow still dented from where she’d slept. Made. Smooth. Empty.
I went to the study.
The letter was on my desk, beside the divorce papers. Her name was signed on the line.
I picked up the letter and read it standing. My hands started shaking by the second paragraph and didn’t stop.
You can’t compete with history. You can’t make someone choose you when their heart is still in someone else’s hands.
The floor went out from under me. Every certainty I’d built in the last few weeks dissolved. She thought I was choosing Seraphina. She thought the papers were my exit.
