Page 77 of Letting Go

We slip into his office, and I meanslip, like we’re trying not to let the tension of the entire company cling to our clothes. The door shuts behind us with a softclick, sealing us inside this impossibly sleek, intimidating glass box at the top of the food chain.

Except something’s changed.

The sofa, the one he was draped across the first time I walked in here, legs wide, eyes darker than decency, that sofa is gone. In its place is a desk.Mydesk.

He walks straight to it like it’s been there forever. Like it didn’t just completely derail my blood pressure.

“My advisor can’t really advise me from far away, can she?” he says, already pulling out the rolling chair like a gentleman who’s about to get very unprofessional.

And before I can fire off a snarky comeback or point out that I’m still trying to pretend this is normal, he pulls me in with a hand on the small of my back and kisses me.

Not soft. Not polite. Not the kind of kiss you give someone you’re trying to impress. It’s the kind of kiss you give someone you alreadyhave, but you’re still hungry for. It’s long and slow and solid, and by the end of it I forget what air tastes like.

“You’re gonna do great, baby,” he murmurs.

And then he walks away like he didn’t just scramble every thought I’ve ever had.

I sit down, legs wobbly, pride high, and finally face my desk.

Piles of contracts. Neat stacks. Color-coded tabs. Tiny monsters of bureaucracy waiting to be slain.

It was decided weeks ago, before I even signed my soul away to this place, that every single contract would be reviewed. Renewed.Rewritten.Remuneration would be based on experience and actual performance, not smoke, mirrors, or who plays poker with the CEO.

Because I liked Leonard Marx. I did. He was charming in a country club, mint julep kind of way. But it’s clear as hell, that he hired half the management team between holes on the back nine.

There are women;sharp, brutal, brilliant women; and a few men too, who are running entire departments unofficially while being paid like glorified interns. Meanwhile, these bloated, golf-obsessed, khaki-wearing fossils are just…sitting.

Sitting in their overpriced chairs, sending three-word emails, getting their annual bonus to “motivate them” while people with actual brains and backbones are drowning under the weight of their laziness.

It makes my blood boil.

Which is perfect.

Because if they thought I got this job by riding Caden Marx into a promotion, they’re about to learn what happens when the girl you underestimate walks in with fire in her hands and your job performance on her desk.

Chapter 29

The day of my divorce feels like any other goddamn day.

There’s no thunder. No lightning. No dramatic movie score swelling in the background. Just me, sitting in this weirdly cold courthouse hallway, drinking burnt coffee from a vending machine and wondering how I ever thought I’d feel victorious.

A month ago, I was planning revenge like it was a full-time job. I was ready to torch his world, salt the earth, take every car, every house, everyuglymodernist painting he thinks screams "wealth and taste."

But now? I just want him gone. I want the paperwork signed. I want to stop seeing his name on my bank statements and start breathing air that doesn’t have his cologne clinging to it like a curse.

Ithoughtabout warning him. About his father. About the story the Judge told me, thetruth of his origin.

But then I thought: why should I?

I might not want him dead anymore. But Idefinitelydon’t care if he’s happy.

Because here’s the part no one talks about: he didn’t just cheat. Hepreyed. On a nineteen-year-old girl barely holding it together. A girl who looked up to him like a saviour. Who was drowning and thought he was a life raft, when really, he was just a polished, predatory anchor.

She was depressed and naïve with the emotional boundaries of a wet napkin and a deeply screwed-up relationship with male authority. And the cherry on top?

She was his wife’s sister.

The girl he’d known since she was ten.

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