Chapter 4 - Victoria’s Perfect Seat at My Table
Victoria Hail moved quickly after I left.
She had waited years for a place beside Adrien.
Within ten days of our separation, photographs appeared of her entering Moretti headquarters.
Then leaving the mansion.
Then sitting beside Adrien at a charity board meeting.
The gossip columns did what gossip columns do.
Mafia King Rebounds With Old Friend.
Victoria Hail Steps Into Elena Moretti’s Place.
Chicago’s New Power Couple?
I ignored all of it.
Mostly.
One photograph bothered me.
Victoria sitting in my chair at Adrien’s dining table.
Not because I wanted the chair.
Because she was smiling as if she had won it.
Nathan caught me staring at the article during lunch.
“Stop.”
I locked my phone.
“I wasn't doing anything.”
“You were emotionally torturing yourself with online photographs.”
“Very strategic.”
“Delete the app.”
“You sound ninety.”
“I am fifty-six and peaceful.”
I smiled.
Then he pointed toward my laptop.
“Your client needs you. Your ex-husband does not.”
That became my rule.
My client needs me.
Adrien does not.
For three weeks, it worked.
Then Moretti Holdings began to appear inside my professional life.
Not directly.
Through counterparties.
A trucking company delayed a deal because Moretti Logistics had missed a financing milestone.
A vendor requested new payment guarantees.
A bank analyst asked whether I believed Moretti Holdings remained stable.
I refused to comment.
Nathan noticed.
“You can recuse yourself from anything connected to Adrien.”
“I don't need to.”
“Maybe emotionally.”
I looked at him.
“Do you think I’m compromised?”
“No.”
“Then I work.”
That answer mattered to me.
I did not want my career defined by avoiding my husband.
Soon-to-be ex-husband.
Rebecca kept correcting me.
“Your petition has been filed.”
“Good.”
“He hasn't contested.”
“Good.”
“He hasn't signed the settlement.”
“That sounds like Adrien.”
“He requested thirty additional days.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“He says asset schedules are incomplete.”
“Are they?”
“Yes.”
I sighed.
“Then fine.”
Rebecca studied me.
“You're disappointed.”
“No.”
“You thought he might refuse because he wanted you back.”
I hated good lawyers.
“They charge too much because they notice things.”
She smiled.
“I’m not saying you want him back.”
“I don't.”
“But you want him to regret it.”
I looked away.
Maybe.
That was the humiliating truth.
I did not want Adrien.
But I wanted the man who discarded me publicly to wake up one morning and understand exactly what he had destroyed.
I wanted him to miss my voice.
My coffee.
The way I corrected his tie.
The way I sat beside him during impossible meetings.
I wanted him to look at Victoria and realize she was not me.
That was not love.
Not exactly.
It was injury asking to be witnessed.
In Adrien’s world, Victoria was beginning to discover the difference between wanting my position and performing my role.
At the mansion, a family dinner went badly.
Lucia told me months later.
Victoria had reorganized the seating chart.
That sounds insignificant.
In the Moretti family, seating was diplomacy.
She placed Matteo Moretti beside Dominic Russo, unaware that the two men had not spoken since a failed casino partnership.
She seated Senator Caldwell near a developer under federal investigation.
She placed Lucia beside a woman who had insulted her dead husband.
By dessert, two men had left.
Lucia had stopped speaking.
Adrien looked furious.
Victoria laughed.
“Everyone is so sensitive.”
Adrien stared at her.
“Elena knew these things.”
Victoria's smile disappeared.
“She had six years.”
Something about that answer irritated him.
Because I had not arrived knowing.
I learned.
I paid attention.
I cared whether his mother was comfortable.
Whether his brother felt respected.
Whether business partners were placed where old grudges would not become new problems.
Invisible work.
Again.
The kind only noticed after it stopped.
Two days later, Adrien discovered another issue.
Julian Hale had deleted several audit files.
The IT department recovered them.
Inside were emails between Julian and Conrad Hail.
Not enough for criminal proof.
More than enough to show coordinated financial manipulation.
Adrien summoned Victoria.
She arrived angry.
“You're treating my father like an enemy.”
“He stole from me.”
“No.”
“He moved money through entities he controls.”
“It was contractual.”
“Because your people wrote the contract.”
“You signed it.”
That sentence again.
Adrien stared.
Victoria crossed her arms.
“Elena poisoned you against me.”
Adrien laughed softly.
“She hasn't spoken to me in three weeks.”
“She doesn't need to. You're obsessed with proving she was right.”
“Because she was.”
Victoria's expression changed.
“Then why did you leave her?”
Silence.
It was the question nobody had asked him directly.
Victoria stepped closer.
“You stood in front of two hundred people and said it was over.”
“I remember.”
“You told me you were tired of her questioning every decision.”
“I remember.”
“You said she didn't understand the world you lived in.”
Adrien’s jaw tightened.
He had said those things.
Not because they were entirely true.
Because Victoria repeated what he wanted to hear.
Elena is controlling.
Elena worries too much.
Elena resents your success.
Elena doesn't trust your judgment.
The irony would eventually make him sick.
The woman who actually protected his empire had been framed as the obstacle to it.
Victoria touched his arm.
“You made the right choice.”
Adrien looked down at her hand.
Then at her.
“Take your hand off me.”
She froze.
“Adrien.”
“Go.”
Her face hardened.
“You think Elena is coming back?”
His eyes sharpened.
“I didn't say that.”
“She isn't.”
Something inside him reacted.
Victoria saw it.
Smiled bitterly.
“She looked relieved when you divorced her.”
That landed.
Hard.
“Get out.”
Victoria left.
That same evening, I attended my first major client dinner since returning to work.
The CEO of Harbridge Manufacturing toasted my restructuring plan.
“You saved us three months.”
I smiled.
“Your team did the hard part.”
Nathan shook his head.
“There she goes.”
“What?”
“Giving everyone else credit.”
The table laughed.
I froze.
Everyone else moved on.
I didn't.
Adrien used to do the same thing.
Not maliciously.
I had learned from him.
Make yourself smaller.
Call your work support.
Let the important man remain important.
After dinner, Nathan walked with me to my car.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
I leaned against the door.
“I think I forgot how to be proud of myself.”
Nathan's expression softened.
“Then practice.”
“How?”
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“I saved Harbridge three months.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Elena.”
I sighed.
“I saved Harbridge three months.”
“Again.”
“I saved Harbridge three months.”
“How much interest expense?”
“Approximately eight hundred thousand dollars.”
“So?”
I smiled despite myself.
“I saved Harbridge eight hundred thousand dollars.”
“There she is.”
I laughed.
Across the city, Adrien sat alone at a dining table designed for twenty-four people.
My chair remained empty.
Victoria had not returned.
For the first time since announcing our divorce, he did not tell himself I would come back.
May you like
He began to understand I might not.
And that frightened him more than any financial problem.
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