Chapter 2

A week later, I tried to bridge the gap. I cooked his favorite dinner, a complicated French dish my grandmother had taught me. I waited for him to come home.

He walked in late, smelling of Jessica' s perfume. He saw the table and sighed, an annoyed, weary sound.

"Clara, what is all this?"

"I thought we could have a nice dinner. Talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," he said, loosening his tie. He walked past me to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. "I'm not hungry."

He went into the bedroom and closed the door. The lock clicked shut.

The rejection was a physical blow. He was punishing me, not just for the photo, but for Jessica's constant, perceived suffering. He wanted me to repent for a sin I never committed.

The next day at work was worse. He stripped me of my biggest project, the one I had built from the ground up for months.

He announced it in the team meeting.

"I'm transferring the 'Odyssey' project to Jessica," he said, not looking at me. "She's earned a chance to lead. We'll consider it compensation for the recent stress she's been under."

The room was silent. Everyone knew it was my project. They saw the public stripping of my work, my achievement. I felt my face burn with humiliation, but I kept my expression blank. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.

I wanted to quit. I wanted to walk out, call my father, and leave this life behind. But I stayed. My one-year deadline wasn't up. I still had a sliver of hope, a stupid, stubborn belief that the man I fell in love with was still in there somewhere.

That hope died a month later.

The company's biggest product launch of the year was a disaster. A critical marketing component, managed by Jessica, failed completely. The fallout was immediate and massive. Our stock price dipped. The board was furious.

Ethan called me into his office. Jessica was already there, crying silently in a chair.

"This is a catastrophe," Ethan said, his voice dangerously calm.

"I can fix it," I said immediately. "I know the campaign inside and out. I can draft a recovery plan tonight."

"No," he said. "You're going to do more than that. You're going to take the blame."

I couldn't have heard him right. "What?"

"Jessica can't handle this. A scandal like this would destroy her," he said. "You, on the other hand, are strong. You can take it. You will issue a company-wide apology for the 'oversight.' You will take full responsibility."

It was the ultimate betrayal. He wasn't just asking me to cover for her incompetence. He was asking me to sacrifice my career, my professional integrity, to protect the woman who was systematically destroying my life.

"And if I say no?" I whispered.

His eyes were like ice. "Then we are done, Clara. This is your choice. Protect the company, protect her, or walk away from everything."

He thought he was offering me an ultimatum. But he was also offering me a cage.

"If you do this," he continued, his voice softening into a manipulative caress, "I'll take care of you. You won't have to work. You can stay home. We can finally have peace."

He didn't understand me at all. He thought what I wanted was his money, a life of leisure. He had no idea that all I ever wanted was him.

I looked from his cold face to Jessica' s false tears. The fight went out of me. A profound exhaustion settled deep in my bones.

"Okay," I said, my voice hollow. "I'll do it."

The words felt like poison in my mouth. I drafted the email, my fingers numb on the keyboard. I hit send, and with that single click, my career at Innovatech was over.

He placed me on an indefinite "leave of absence." I became a prisoner in our minimalist Silicon Valley home, waiting for a man who no longer saw me. The peace he promised felt like a tomb.