Chương 6
Of course she had.
The message contained no apology.
Only one sentence.
“You have embarrassed my family enough.”
I read it twice.
Then I deleted it.
Not because it did not hurt.
Because I refused to let her words decide who I was.
A few minutes later, Maya appeared at my door.
“You’re still here.”
“So are you.”
“I own less expensive shoes.”
I looked down.
She was right.
Her shoes were practical.
Mine were not.
The observation made me laugh unexpectedly.
A real laugh.
Small.
Brief.
But real.
Maya smiled.
“There she is.”
“Who?”
“The person who laughs.”
I looked away.
“I don’t feel like laughing.”
“You did anyway.”
That was the annoying thing about Maya.
She noticed things before I was ready to admit them.
“I have a question,” she said.
“What?”
“Do you still love him?”
The question sat between us.
I could have lied.
I was good at lying when the lie protected something important.
But not with Maya.
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Do you trust him?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
That was the answer.
Maya picked up her bag.
“You already know the difference.”
After she left, I opened the investment file again.
The approval decision was scheduled for Friday.
Three days.
Three days to decide whether I could separate the businessman from the wife.
I went home that night instead of staying at the office.
That was unusual.
My penthouse felt different now.
Before the wedding, it had been my safe place.
After the wedding, it felt like a museum of a person I used to be.
There were no pictures of Jonathan here.
I had never wanted my private life displayed.
But there were small reminders.
A book he had recommended.
A blanket he complained was too soft.
A plant he had insisted I needed because “every office woman needs something alive in her home.”
I hated that I smiled at that memory.
I hated that some memories still had warmth.
I made pasta because I was too tired to order food.
The sauce burned slightly.
Jonathan would have teased me.
The thought came automatically.
Then I stopped.
That was the strange grief nobody explained.
You did not only lose the person.
You lost the tiny reactions you built around them.
The jokes.
The routines.
The expected comments.
The invisible conversation that existed before either person spoke.
My phone rang while I was cleaning the pan.
Jonathan.
I almost ignored it.
Almost.
Then I answered.
“Hello.”
For several seconds, there was only breathing.
“Are you home?”
I looked around.
“Why?”
“I just wanted to know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
His voice sounded tired.
“I guess it isn’t.”
I leaned against the counter.
“What do you want?”
“I met with my father.”
I said nothing.
“He knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That you left.”
The silence afterward felt strange.
Not surprising.
Just heavy.
“How did he react?”
Jonathan laughed quietly.
Not happily.
“Like you would expect.”
“What does that mean?”
“He thinks I let my emotions control me.”
I looked down.
“Does he?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
That answer was unexpected.
“My father doesn’t apologize easily,” Jonathan said.
“Neither do you.”
Another pause.
“That’s fair.”
The honesty caught me off guard.
“I talked to him for two hours,” Jonathan continued.
“About what?”
“About everything.”
I waited.
“My childhood.”
I said nothing.
“About how I spent my whole life trying to prove I wasn’t just Robert Miller’s son.”
There was something different in his voice.
Not an excuse.
A confession.
“I thought if I built something successful enough, nobody could look down on me.”
I sat at the kitchen table.
“Jonathan.”
“I know.”
I closed my eyes.
Again, those words.
But this time, they sounded different.
Less defensive.
More exhausted.
“I know that doesn’t explain anything.”
“No.”
“I know being afraid doesn’t give me permission to hurt you.”
The room became quiet.
I wanted to say something.
I did not know what.
“I’m not calling because I expect you to forgive me,” he said.
That surprised me.
“Then why?”
Another pause.
“Because I spent all day trying to convince people I wasn’t the person they saw last night.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“And?”
“And I realized I was more focused on proving I wasn’t that person than admitting I was.”
The honesty hurt.
Because it was the first time he sounded like the man I remembered.
But I had learned something.
A familiar voice did not mean a safe person.
“I need time,” I said.
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
A small breath.
“Sorry.”
For some reason, that almost made me cry.
Not because everything was fixed.
Because it wasn’t.
Because a real apology could still arrive too late.
“I have a decision about NexoCloud coming soon,” I said.
His breathing changed.
Only slightly.
But I noticed.
“You mean the investment.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t ask you to approve it.”
That was the right answer.
And somehow, it made everything harder.
“Good.”
“I also won’t ask you to reject it.”
“Good.”
“I just want you to make the decision you would have made before me.”
I stared at the dark window.
Before him.
That was the person I was trying to find.
Not the woman who had been married.
Not the woman who had been hurt.
The woman who knew herself before she started shrinking.
“I’ll let you know what happens,” I said.
“Okay.”
The call ended.
No dramatic goodbye.
No promise.
No impossible repair.
Just two people standing on opposite sides of something they had broken.
The next morning, an unexpected email arrived.
It was from Vanguard’s internal security team.
Subject line: NexoCloud Conflict Review.
I opened it.
The first sentence changed everything.
Jonathan Miller had not been honest about his role in the company’s financial situation.
And someone inside NexoCloud had evidence.
The email contained a secure link and a warning that the information had been submitted through an internal reporting channel.
May you like
I clicked it.
The first document was a financial review prepared by someone inside NexoCloud.
