Miles Sullivan shattered the silence by pinning yet another accusation on me.
Right on cue, Marlene snapped out of her daze and turned on me, shouting:
"Jacob!"
"Stop making up excuses!"
"If you don't want to be here, then get out! As of today, you're fired!"
Look at her—lashing out from sheer humiliation.
I was silent for a few seconds.
"Fine."
"What?"
Marlene blinked, caught off guard.
"I hope you—all of you—don't live to regret this."
My gaze swept across every face in the room before settling on Marlene's. I unclipped my employee badge, tossed it on the floor, and walked out.
Eighty employees followed in lockstep.
Once we cleared the banquet hall, I told them to go home and wait for further word. Then I pulled out my phone and dialed a number.
"Miss Delgado."
"Put the Henson Group contract on hold. I have a better deal to discuss with you."
If this place didn't want me, plenty of others would. Wherever I took these eighty people, companies would be fighting to have us.
"Oh?" Doreen Delgado's voice drifted through the line, tinged with amusement. "What's this? Judging by your tone, are you looking to stray? Run into this big sister's arms?"
She'd come all the way from Grandview to find me. When she learned I was married, she'd been quietly hoping for a divorce ever since—using the contract as an excuse to stay close.
I was about to respond when footsteps sounded behind me.
"I'll send you the details."
I hung up. I'd assumed it was Marlene chasing after me, but it turned out to be Miles Sullivan.
"Jacob!"
"Now do you see how powerful a first love can be? No matter how much you sacrifice for Marlene, she's still wrapped around my finger."
Miles sauntered toward me, his smirk stretching so wide it practically touched his ears. The smugness rolled off him in waves.
"You might be forgetting something," I said, regarding him with flat indifference. "Marlene wasn't the only one who came begging me to come down from that mountain."
With that, I turned and walked away.
Three years ago, Henson Group had imploded—teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Marlene's grandfather, Felix Henson, was on his deathbed.
He'd ordered every member of the Henson clan to take the family's ceremonial token and kneel for three days and three nights before the gates of Shadow Peak Academy, just to recruit me.
They called me a once-in-a-generation business prodigy.
On his deathbed, Felix entrusted me with his final wish: marry Marlene and pull Henson Group back from the brink.
I owed the old man a debt—a kindness from years past—so I agreed. Over three years together, I'd grown genuinely fond of Marlene.
She was gentle. When I worked late, she'd bring me a warm glass of milk. She'd knead the tension from my shoulders.
She'd lay out my clothes for me every morning.
A few times, when I'd pushed myself to collapse and ended up hospitalized with a high fever, she sat at my bedside through the night without leaving.
She was attentive to my feelings. If anyone disrespected me, she was the first to shut it down.
When I was upset, she'd speak to me softly until the storm passed.
She told me that once the company was stable, she wanted to have a child together—a happy little family of three.
Today was the first time she'd felt like a different person entirely.
I went home.
I stood in front of our wedding portrait, staring at it, unable to stop the question gnawing at me—had three years of tenderness all been an act?
Then something caught my eye.
The portrait looked like it had been shifted recently. I reached up and lifted it off the wall.
Behind it was another photograph.
Marlene and Miles.
It looked like it had been taken years ago. They were young, sitting beneath a canopy of cherry blossoms, their smiles sickeningly sweet.
In that moment, everything crystallized. No matter how much life had battered her, Marlene had never forgotten Miles Sullivan. Not for a single day.
Everything she'd done—the devoted wife, the perfect partner—had been a performance. All for the company.
Buzz. Buzz.
My phone vibrated. Marlene's name on the screen.
"Dad wants us to come for dinner."
In private, she used to call me "honey" without a second thought. Now it was just one clipped sentence—and the line went dead.
