Chapter 5 - The Woman He Chose|
Sophia Reynolds had never intended to become the other woman.
At least, that was what she told herself when she sat in Vincent's penthouse office three days after my departure, wearing the diamond bracelet he had given her.
The bracelet caught the light whenever she moved her hand. She had imagined it would make her feel powerful.
Instead, it reminded her that Vincent had gone pale when he saw my ultrasound.
He had left her at the hospital without another word.
He had not called her afterward.
And when she went to the mansion to speak to him, his chief of security told her she was no longer authorized to enter the private residence.
Now she sat across from Vincent's desk while he reviewed a stack of documents.
“Are you going to keep pretending nothing happened?” she asked.
He didn't look up.
“What happened?”
“Claire walked out on you. She's pregnant. And you've barely spoken to me since.”
Vincent set down his pen.
“Claire is my wife.”
“Your wife whom you told me you didn't love anymore.”
His gaze lifted slowly.
“I never said that.”
Sophia's face flushed.
“You said she was an obligation. You said your marriage was a mistake made before you understood what your life would become.”
“I said I had changed.”
“You told me I was important.”
“You are my employee.”
The words struck her with humiliating force.
Sophia stood.
“Then why did you buy me the bracelet?”
Vincent looked at it.
For the first time, he seemed to see it clearly—not as a gift, but as evidence of the kind of man he had become.
“Because I was careless,” he said.
“Careless?”
“I gave you something that should never have been given.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but anger kept them from falling.
“You made me believe you were going to leave her.”
“I shouldn't have.”
“So that's it? You get to ruin my life, then send me back to my desk?”
Vincent rose.
“No. You will return to work, and you will keep our professional relationship professional. If you cannot do that, you may resign.”
Sophia stared at him.
The man who had held her hand across the restaurant table now stood behind his desk, speaking to her as if she were a minor inconvenience.
“You're choosing her.”
“I'm choosing to stop making excuses for myself.”
Sophia laughed bitterly.
“She doesn't even want you.”
His jaw tightened, but he did not deny it.
That silence frightened her more than anger would have.
She walked toward the door, then turned.
“You know what the worst part is, Vincent? You made me think I was winning.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“So did I.”
After she left, Vincent stood alone in his office.
His phone showed three unanswered calls to my number. He had sent messages through his assistant, through his lawyer, and once through the housekeeper who had given me the envelope.
I had answered none of them.
He could negotiate with rival families, silence threats, and make men twice his size reconsider their choices.
He had no idea how to speak to a woman who no longer wanted to hear his voice.
His chief of security, Marcus, entered without knocking.
“Sir, we have a situation.”
Vincent looked up.
“What?”
“Someone accessed the security archive from the night Mrs. Moretti left the estate.”
“Who?”
“We're tracing it. The access came from an internal terminal.”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“Lock down the system.”
“Already done. There's something else.”
Marcus placed a printed report on the desk.
A vehicle registered to one of Vincent's shell companies had followed Madison's car from the maternity ward. It had not been assigned to Claire's protection detail.
Vincent stared at the plate number.
“Who authorized this?”
“No one on our current roster admits to it.”
“Find out.”
Marcus hesitated.
“Sir, there's one more detail. The vehicle was seen outside the apartment again last night.”
Vincent's eyes turned cold.
“Was it one of ours?”
Marcus nodded.
Vincent's hand closed around the report.
He had spent years convincing himself that keeping track of me was protection. Now someone inside his own organization was following me without his authorization—and he could not tell whether they were trying to help him bring me home or make sure I never got the chance to leave.
May you like
For the first time, his fear was not about losing his wife.
It was about discovering who else believed they had the right to control her.
