Chapter 8
“You think they’ll choose you?”
“This isn’t about choosing me.”
“It has always been about winning with you.”
“No, Nathan.”
I looked at the empty space on my finger where his grandmother’s ring had once been.
“This is the first time in nine years I’m making a decision that doesn’t require you to lose for me to survive.”
Then I ended the call.
Friday morning, Nathan entered the boardroom with two attorneys.
Laya appeared by video.
Theo sat beside his lawyer.
I sat at the opposite end.
Margaret Sloan played Nathan’s recording.
Nobody spoke for several seconds afterward.
Then Nathan’s attorney said, “Mr. Vale intended to assume responsibility for a child whose biological father refused to do so.”
Theo leaned toward the microphone.
“I did not abandon Miles.”
Laya’s voice came through the screen.
“You told me to handle it.”
“You knew I was married.”
“You told me you were separated.”
“We were separated.”
“For eleven days.”
Margaret struck the table.
“This is a corporate review, not family court.”
I nearly laughed.
Vale Biomedical had spent decades pretending those two rooms were separate.
The findings took twenty minutes.
Nathan knowingly concealed a competing paternity claim.
He approved improperly coded expenses.
He failed to disclose his conflict in the proposed company sale.
He drafted my termination before ending our engagement.
And I had violated internal policy by directing June to copy confidential board material.
I accepted my reprimand.
Then Margaret looked at Nathan.
“The board has voted to remove you as chief executive effective immediately.”
For the first time since the wedding, Nathan looked genuinely shocked.
He turned toward me.
“You wanted my chair.”
“No.”
“You destroyed everything to get it.”
“I wanted you not to sell the company for your own benefit.”
“Same thing.”
“That may be why you lost it.”
Nathan stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
His attorneys followed him toward the door.
Before leaving, he looked back.
“Olivia.”
I waited.
His expression cracked.
“I never meant for it to become this.”
I thought of Laya.
Theo.
Miles.
June.
The researchers wondering whether they would have jobs.
Me standing alone at the back of a wedding holding a silver box.
“That’s the problem,” I said. “You only thought about what you meant to get.”
He left.
For the first time in nine years, I watched Nathan Vale walk away without wondering whether I should follow him.