Page 97 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless
"Of course."
I drop a kiss on his forehead, inhaling the clean scent of him—this miracle we created before we destroyed everything else. No matter what breaks between Jakob and me, this remains whole. This perfect creature who carries pieces of us both, who deserves better than parents orbiting each other without connecting.
Breakfast. School drop-off. Remote work. The agenda ticks through my mind with desperate precision. If I focus on the next task, then the next, I won't have to confront the hollow space behind my ribs where something vital seems to have gone missing.
* * *
The apartment echoes with absence after Jaden leaves. Every surface a reminder of what's been lost—twice now. The silence carries weight, pressing against my skin like an accusation. I've become expert at living alone, at filling spaces with curated independence. Why does it suddenly feel like drowning?
I arrange my makeshift workspace at the dining table—laptop, files, coffee gone cold—the trappings of a woman professionally exiled. The email from RSV arrives in pristine corporate language that barely disguises the execution:work remotely until the White Glove Pivot concludes. Sanitized termination. Career death with benefits.
The numbers blur before me, columns of data that once made perfect sense now swimming like abstract art. I rebuilt my career from the rubble Jakob left behind, only to watch it collapse again under the weight of his name. The bitter symmetry isn't lost on me.
My fingers touch the audit documentation—the weeks of work that brought us back into collision. Something about these pages feels different. Not the content, but the collaboration that created them. This isn't the work of the man who left me. This carries the mark of someone new—or someone I never fully saw.
The memory surfaces without permission: Jakob in the boardroom with RSV, my career hanging by a thread. He didn't rush to my defense, didn't speak over me, didn't shield me from accusations. He stood silent, watchful, letting me fight my own battle. Only when I'd finished, when I'd stood my ground withthe strength I built in his absence, did he step forward. Not to diminish me. To amplify me.
Not the Jakob I married. Not the man who thought protection meant making choices on my behalf.
A knock at my door fractures the thought.
For one wild, weightless moment, I think it's him—come to continue what began in the penthouse, what shattered in my bedroom. My pulse leaps beneath my skin, a traitor to my resolve.
When I open the door, Latanya stands in the hallway—elegant in the casual clothes she wears for her kindergarten class, carrying a bag that smells like overpriced comfort food, wearing the smile of someone who sees too much.
"I took a half day," she explains, stepping into my space with the easy entitlement of long friendship. "Someone told me you were working from home this week."
Someone. Of course. Manhattan runs on rumor, and Latanya has always had an uncanny talent for collecting information others want hidden.
"The White Glove is consuming everything right now," I say, accepting the bag with a nod that doesn't acknowledge the professional catastrophe we're both pretending not to discuss.
"And here I thought Jakob Giannetti was consuming everything." Her voice carries a knife's edge beneath the concern.
My fingers tighten around the counter, a tell I can't control. Latanya's gaze tracks the movement, something sharp flashing behind her friendly assessment—there, then gone, like a shark passing beneath dark water.
"The audit is consuming everything," I correct, voice steady while my body betrays me. "Jakob is... irrelevant."
"Is he, though?" She moves through my kitchen with the familiarity of a woman who has seen me at my worst, extractingcontainers, locating plates, invading the space I've fought to make my own. "You've been avoiding my calls for days. Not answering texts. And suddenly you're back to being the work-obsessed Chanel who doesn't eat or sleep."
I force myself to sit, to take a bite of whatever Mediterranean fusion she's brought. Food turns to ash in my mouth.
"It's been a complicated week."
"Complicated," she repeats, testing the word's inadequacy. "That's a delicate way of describing whatever happened between you two. Last I checked, you were playing happy family at the aquarium. Now you're professionally exiled and looking like someone cut out your organs while you slept."
The assessment lands with uncomfortable accuracy. Latanya has always seen too clearly—the friend who held me when the divorce papers arrived, who watched Jaden when work consumed me, who never judged my choices even when I questioned them myself.
"We're done," I say finally, the words scraping my throat raw. "Whatever was happening between us—it's over."
"What did he do?" Immediate fury darkens her eyes, protective and fierce.
"He kept things from me." The confession feels insufficient against the weight of what actually transpired. "Made decisions about our relationship, our divorce, without telling me the truth."
"So, basically, he was Jakob." Her tone sharpens. "Controlling. Secretive. Thinking he knows what's best for everyone."
I flinch. The assessment isn't wrong, but something about hearing it from her mouth makes my skin contract.
"Yes. And no. There were... complications."
