He stood in front of my desk, swaying slightly, his hands clasped behind his back like a schoolboy called to the principal’s office. “Aurora. I don’t know where to start.”
“Start with the truth.”
He swallowed. “Stella’s in jail. The police say she’ll be charged with fraud and embezzlement. She’s looking at ten years.”
“And the money?”
“Recovered. All of it. The Key Group will survive.” He paused. “Because of you.”
“Because of me,” I agreed. “Not for you. For your parents. For Caleb. They were good to me.”
“I know.” His voice cracked. “I know I wasn’t. I know I treated you like—” He stopped, struggling. “Like a servant. Like you didn’t matter. And you did. You mattered more than anyone.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Ethan, why are you here?”
“Because I want another chance.”
“No.”
“Aurora—”
“No.” I stood. Walked to the window. The bay was calm today, the fog burned off by morning light. “You don’t want another chance. You want my money. You want my connections. You want the safety net I represent. But you don’t want me. You never did.”
He came up behind me. His reflection stood next to mine in the glass—two people who looked almost the same but were worlds apart. “That’s not true. These past few weeks, I’ve realized that I never stopped loving you. I was just too stupid to know it.”
“You loved having me. There’s a difference.”
“Aurora, please—”
I turned. Met his eyes. “You want to know the difference? When I was Aurora Wen, the nobody, I begged for your attention. I cooked your meals. I cleaned your house. I waited up until 2 AM just to hear about your day. And you never once looked at me like I was enough.”
His face crumpled. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix four years.” I walked back to my desk, picked up the divorce papers he’d signed three weeks ago, and handed them to him. “You wanted a divorce. You got one. Now live with it.”
He took the papers. His hands were shaking. “What about your identity? You lied to me for four years. You were the Wen heiress the whole time, and you let me believe you were a nobody. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“It counts for exactly this.” I sat back down. “I hid who I was because I wanted to be loved for me—not for my family’s money. And you proved that even without my money, you couldn’t love me for me. You loved Stella. You loved having someone take care of you. But you never loved Aurora.”
He stood there for a long time. The papers rustled in his grip. “Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?”
I looked at the ring mark on my finger—or rather, the lack of one. Four years of wearing a wedding band, and the indent had faded in three weeks. Bodies knew how to heal. Hearts took longer.
“You can leave.”
He left. The door clicked shut behind him, and I was alone with the bay and the fog and the forty-seven missed calls I’d never return.
—
Ryan knocked twenty minutes later. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t believe me. He walked to my desk, set down a cup of coffee—one sugar, no cream—and sat across from me. “You know, for an ice queen CEO, you’re surprisingly soft.”
“I’m not soft. I’m efficient.”
“You just saved your ex-husband’s company from bankruptcy and his parents from financial ruin. That’s not efficient. That’s soft.”
