POV Adrian
The driver pulls up to the estate just past midnight. "Have a good evening, Mr. Blackwood."
"Thanks, Marcus." I step out into the cold, noting Elena's left the porch lights on again.
She always does that, even when she knows I'll be late. Wasteful.
The marble foyer echoes my footsteps as I enter, loosening my tie with one hand while scrolling through emails with the other. The silence feels different tonight—heavier somehow, like the house is holding its breath.
But that's ridiculous. It's just exhaustion from another sixteen-hour day, from dealing with the Singapore merger, from that scene with Elena earlier.
Elena. The image of her face when she saw me with Vivian flashes through my mind. I push it away. She had no business showing up unannounced.
There is no need to worry about this—Elena is a coward and will never go against me, against the comfort and opportunities that life with me provides. It's only a matter of time before she submits.
My study offers its usual comfort—leather and mahogany and the lingering scent of Cuban cigars from last week's meeting. I pour three fingers of Macallan, letting the burn wash away the taste of the evening.
The contracts for tomorrow's meeting are exactly where I left them, and I settle behind my desk to review the terms one more time.
That's when I see it.
A single sheet of paper centered perfectly on my leather blotter, Elena's precise handwriting unmistakable even from this distance:
"My lawyer will send you the divorce papers as soon as they're ready."
The scotch glass freezes halfway to my lips. I read it again. And again. Fourteen words that detonate in the silence.
"How dare she…" The words come out as a growl. "How fucking dare she?"
She left just a note like I'm some assistant being informed of a schedule change? After I commanded her to abort a fetus that isn’t even mine?
I was noble—I gave her the illusion of choice. Perhaps I would even have been willing to take her back if she had gotten rid of the fetus. And what did Elena do? Disdain my mercy, decide to play the heroic mother.
I'm already dialing Richardson before I fully register picking up the phone.
"Adrian?" His voice is thick with sleep. "It's past midnight."
"I need you to freeze assets. All of them. Now."
"What's happened?"
"Just do what I’ve told you to."
"Adrian, be reasonable. The prenup guarantees—"
"I don't care what it guarantees. Find a way!"
That's when I noticed another goodbye present. Elena’s keys, sitting beside the note. The keys from our house.
I pick them up, and it's still warm somehow, as if she had just let them out of her hands.
"Adrian? Are you there?"
"I'll call you tomorrow." I end the call, still holding the keys.
Seven years ago, my hands were steady when I dropped the duplicate keys into her palm. She was so young then, twenty to my twenty-eight, crying with happiness as I promised her forever.
When did those tears of joy become tears of pain?
The master bedroom tells the rest of the story. Our bedroom. My bedroom now, I suppose. Her closet door stands open like a wound.
Empty hangers hang like skeletons where her clothes should be—the designer dresses I bought her, the gowns she wore to galas, the silk robes she wrapped herself in on Sunday mornings when we still shared coffee.
The vanity is cleared of her arsenal of perfumes and creams, but their scent lingers—jasmine and vanilla and something that was uniquely Elena.
"When did you pack?" I ask the empty room. "After our argument at the office? Or have you been planning this for weeks?"
I sit on her side of the bed, a side I haven't touched in months. The sheets still smell like her shampoo. God, when did I stop sleeping beside my wife? When did the guest room become my room?
I can't even remember the transition, it happened so gradually. One night because of a late conference call, then another because of an early meeting, then somehow it became every night.
My phone buzzes. Vivian's name lights up the screen.
"Adrian? I wanted to check on you." Her voice is honeyed concern. "How did it go with Elena after I left?"
"She's gone." The words feel strange in my mouth. "She left a note… She wants a divorce."
"Oh my God. Are you okay? You must be devastated."
Am I? I should be. Or should I be relieved? I don't know what I should feel.
"Should I come over?" Vivian asks, and I can hear her already gathering her things. "You shouldn't be alone."
"No." The word comes out sharper than intended. I can picture her face, the small frown she makes when things don't go according to plan.
"Are you sure? I could—"
"I'm sure."
"Adrian, she never appreciated you." Vivian's voice takes on that quality I usually find soothing but tonight feels like nails on glass.
I can still hear the rustling on the other end of the line, and Vivienne kept talking.
"All those years of failures, the fertility treatments that went nowhere, the constant disappointment. You deserve better. You deserve someone who can give you what you need."
"What I need is to be alone right now."
"Of course. But Adrian? This is a good thing. You'll see. She was holding you back."
"Goodnight, Vivian."
"I love—"
I hang up before she can finish. Those words from her feel wrong tonight, here in this room that still breathes Elena's presence.
On the nightstand, our wedding photo watches me—Elena radiant in white, her smile so genuine it makes something twist in my chest.
Gosh, she was magnificent that day. I remember losing my breath when seeing her in a wedding dress for the first time. I felt the luckiest man alive.
And then there’s me in the picture right beside her, actually smiling. Not the practiced smile I wear at board meetings, but a real, happy smile.
When did I stop smiling like that?
I pick up the frame, studying this couple I don't recognize. She looked at me like I was her whole world that day. When did she stop? Or did I stop deserving that look?
"You're pregnant," I say to her image. "You're pregnant and I’m not even sure it’s mine."
The ultrasound. She tried to show me something on that paper, but I wouldn't look. Couldn't look. What if I'd just taken one second to…
No. The timing doesn't work. We haven't been together in months. The math doesn't add up...
I told her to abort our child. The child we spent five years trying to conceive. The child she cried for after every failed treatment while I stood there, useless, watching her break apart piece by piece.
But Vivian’s words keep spinning in my mind. Never anything direct, never anything I could call her on. Just those careful observations.
"Elena seems happier lately, doesn't she?" Or "It's strange how she's been going to appointments alone."
Little drops of poison, so subtle I didn't even taste them going down.
I should feel free. This is what I wanted, isn't it? An end to the disappointment, to the failure, to the monthly cycle of hope and heartbreak.
A sound escapes me, something raw and unfamiliar. Not quite a laugh, not quite anything else. Just noise filling the silence where my wife should be.
My wife is gone. And I sit in the dark and try not to think about what I've just destroyed.