Chapter 4 - The Weight of the Wedding Ring
I took my wedding ring off while we were over the Atlantic.
It was a five-carat emerald-cut diamond,
heavy and cold.
Ethan had given it to me when the company hit its first billion-dollar valuation.
He told me it was a symbol of our unbreakable bond.
Now,
it was just a piece of pressurized carbon and platinum.
I held it between my thumb and forefinger,
watching the light catch its facets.
It felt like a shackle I had finally unlocked.
I thought about the night Ethan stayed at the Peninsula.
He had taken his ring off too.
Vanessa had made sure the camera caught it on the nightstand.
She wanted me to see the absence of the bond.
She wanted me to know that his skin was free of me.
She didn't realize that a ring doesn't hold a man.
And the absence of a ring doesn't set him free.
His signature on our legal contracts was far more binding than any piece of jewelry.
I placed the ring in a small velvet pouch.
I would give it back to him at the final hearing.
I would give it back in front of the lawyers and the judge.
A final,
glittering exclamation point at the end of a long,
painful sentence.
The plane began its descent into New York City.
The skyline appeared through the mist,
a jagged row of teeth waiting to bite into the day.
I felt a surge of adrenaline.
This was the city where we had signed our first major international contract.
This was the city where Ethan had first realized he could be a king.
And this was the city where he was about to find out that kings can be deposed in a New York minute.
I checked my messages one last time before we landed.
Ethan’s last message was different.
The anger was gone.
The accusations were gone.
"Claire,
please.
Let's talk.
I'm at the Pierre.
I'll do whatever you want."
The king was pleading.
The predator had become the prey.
He was realizing that without me,
he didn't know how to navigate the storm he had created.
He didn't have the maps.
He didn't have the codes.
He was just a man in an expensive suit,
standing in the middle of a collapsing empire.
I deleted the message without replying.
May you like
Silence was the only language he deserved now.
And I was going to make sure the silence was deafening.
