Waverly's POV
Four days of business only, and I have perfected the art of living inside a man's house without acknowledging that he exists in it.
I work from the guest room with the door closed. I communicate through Nadia or Ridley — never directly, never face to face. I eat alone at the kitchen island, wash my plate and put it back in the cabinet so the morning leaves no evidence that I sat there.
When we cross paths in the hallway, I address him like I address hotel concierges. Polite, brief, eyes past his face.
"Good morning." "Excuse me." "I'll send that through Nadia."
He lets me do it. That's the part I wasn't prepared for.
My phone rings while I'm reviewing financial statements on the guest bed. Nadia's name is on the screen, and I pick up expecting a case update.
"Gary is demanding a face-to-face with you," Nadia says with no preamble. "His attorney proposed a meeting to discuss asset division. Gary insists on speaking to you directly with both legal teams present as witnesses."
My hand tightens on the phone.
Of course he does.
Of course Gary Pryce cannot sign a piece of paper without turning it into a performance. He wants the lawyers to see him being reasonable while I am the difficult one.
Manipulative son of a bitch.
My hand tightens on the phone. "And your recommendation?"
"My recommendation is to decline. My professional assessment is that refusing gives his side ammunition to claim you're uncooperative, and that claim has weight with a judge." She pauses. "I hate this, but he's forcing your hand on purpose and it's working."
"When?"
"Tomorrow. I've arranged a neutral office downtown. Waverly, if you do this, you let me control the conversation. You answer what I tell you to answer and nothing else."
"I'll be there."
***
Gary arrives in a navy suit I recognize — his charming-witness suit, the one he wore to our last investor dinner. His hair is freshly cut. His shoes are polished. He looks like he is auditioning for the role of concerned husband, and the casting director would hire him on the spot.
The office Nadia chose is beige and impersonal, a conference table between us like a border neither army has crossed yet. His attorney — a woman in her fifties with reading glasses on a chain — sits to his left. Nadia sits to my right, her folder already open.
Gary smiles at me across the table, and the warmth in it is so practiced it could be framed.
"Waverly." He says my name softly, proprietary, like I'm a painting he's showing guests. "You look good. How are you feeling? I've been worried about you."
"Let's stay on topic," Nadia says. "Asset division. We have concerns."
"I want to talk about the baby…." Gary ignores her while his eyes stay on me. "I have a right to be involved, Waverly. You know that. Whatever is happening between us… I'm still this child's father."
The word ‘father’ coming from his mouth makes my stomach clench, but I keep my expression neutral. Nadia's hand presses flat against the table beside me — a signal to let her handle it.
"Where are you staying?" Gary asks, tilting his head. The concern in his voice is immaculate. "And do try not to lie because I reviewed the parking garage footage from the night of the gala."
He pauses, letting the words settle.
"Imagine my surprise watching my wife climb into Beckett Morrow's car at midnight with a suitcase. I really hope you aren't making decisions you'll regret, Waverly. For the baby's sake."
The threat is wrapped in fatherly worry and delivered with a sad smile. I recognize the technique because it's the same tone I heard in my own head when I signed over my board seat.
Gary didn't have to convince me — I convinced myself. I couldn't carry his child, so I handed him my company instead as if professional sacrifice could balance out biological failure. Every document I signed was an apology my body couldn't make.
And Gary, the bastard he is, just simply held the pen out and let my guilt do the work for him.
I open my mouth when the conference room door suddenly swings open, Beckett walks in like he owns the building.
What the actual hell is happening here?
He pulls out the chair beside Nadia and extends his hand across the table to Gary's attorney as he sits. "Beckett Morrow. Apologies for being late."
Gary's composure holds for exactly two seconds. His jaw flexes, his fingers flatten against the table, and the warm concerned husband vanishes like stage makeup under rain.
"I wasn't aware my wife's personal affairs required your supervision," Gary says. His voice is still controlled, but the edges are sharp now.
"They don't." Beckett settles into the chair like the furniture was built around him. "My interest is in the business assets, not the marriage. Your attorney can confirm that both are on today's agenda."
Gary's attorney glances at Nadia.
Nadia's expression gives nothing away, which tells me she didn't know about this either.
"Interesting timing, Morrow." Gary leans back. "You're clearly circling a vulnerable woman to steal a company. Everyone in this room can see it."
"The company was never yours, Gary." Beckett doesn't raise his voice or lean forward. He stays exactly where he is, and the stillness radiates outward like a frequency Gary can't match. "You married into it. You renamed it. You ran it into a fifteen percent revenue decline over three fiscal years. I don't need to steal what you're already losing."
"You arrogant piece of—"
"Mr. Pryce." His attorney puts a hand on his arm but he shakes it off.
"You think you can walk into a room with my damned wife and question how I run my business?!"
Gary is on his feet now, his palms flat on the table as he leaning forward. The polished suit and the charitable smile and the fatherly concern are gone.
This is the Gary I know.
He needs elevation to feel powerful. Standing because sitting makes him equal to the people he's trying to control.
Beckett on the other hand just crosses one ankle over his knee and smiles. He’s watching Gary from below like he has already won the exchange and is simply waiting for the other person to realize it.
"Sit down, Mr. Pryce," Nadia says calmly. "Or this meeting is over."
Gary's attorney pulls him back into his chair and the silence that follows is sharp enough to cut glass. Gary straightens his tie and looks at me, only at me, for a long time.
Then his face reassembles into the version I'm supposed to miss. "Come home when you're ready, Waverly. The door's always open."
I hear the leash in it. The invisible collar he's been tightening for years, disguised as an invitation.
His attorney follows as he stands up and leaves, the door clicks shut behind them.
I count to ten before I turn on Beckett. "You had no right to be here."
My voice is low and tight, and I can feel the heat climbing my throat.
"I didn't ask for a bodyguard. I didn't ask you to sit beside my lawyer and measure your dick against my husband's in front of the people who will decide whether I keep what's mine."
Beckett meets my gaze and doesn't flinch.
"Do you even understand what you just did? You walked into that room and made me look like a woman who needs a man to speak for her. You gave Gary's attorney every reason to argue that I'm not operating independently, that I'm being managed by you."
I press my palms flat against the table because my hands want to shake and I will not let them.
"That is exactly what Gary has been telling the court. That I can't make decisions on my own. And you just handed them proof."
"I saw the meeting on Nadia's calendar," he says. His voice is even, stripped of the charm and the deflection and the polished ease I've watched him deploy since the first night. "I couldn't let you sit across from him alone."
"That was not your decision to make."
"You're right." He holds my gaze without wavering. "It wasn't."
He doesn't apologize. He doesn't justify or explain or spin it into a joke. He sits in the silence of his own admission and lets me be angry without trying to fix it.
I stare at him across the table where Gary sat thirty seconds ago, and the fury is real — hot and righteous and earned. But underneath it, in the place I will not let Beckett Morrow or anyone else see, there is gratitude so sharp it makes my ribs ache.
Gary's mask cracked the moment Beckett walked through that door. The warm husband, the concerned father, the reasonable man — all of it disintegrated into the possessive rage I've been living with, and for the first time someone else was in the room to witness it.