01: Effective immediately

ARIANA

~

Nathan is on his knees between my cousin's legs.

They don't notice me at first.

For one impossible second, I wish they did.

I wish Nathan looked up immediately. I wish Meredith saw me standing there. I wish they had to watch my world collapse before I was forced to.

The office door hangs half open beneath my hand. My pulse pounds so violently that it drowns out everything else, a deafening reminder of the thirty-minute drive that brought me here.

This can't be Nathan.

My brain rejects the image outright, desperately searching for another explanation because this is the man I've spent four years loving. The man I'm supposed to marry in two months.

The man who called me this morning asking if I was free tonight because, after nearly a month of cancelled plans, business trips and barely catching each other between schedules, he finally had time for me.

This can't be him.

Except... It is.

Over thirty minutes ago, I was sitting in my office at Blackwood Publishing worrying about Corrine's manuscript and dreading that Delaine might succeed in taking the project I'd spent weeks fighting to keep.

Now, none of that matters. Nothing cuts deeper than what's in front of me.

The image on my phone had been easier to dismiss as a cruel joke. Or deepfakes. I told myself someone who hated me had decided to play a vicious game. Believing a stranger could manipulate a photograph was easier than believing Nathan could betray me.

The message had come from an unknown number.

‘Thought you should know.’

Three photographs followed.

Photographs of them wrapped around each other like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I stared at them for nearly five minutes, trying to convince myself they weren't real. Nathan would never do that.

He'd never lie to me.

He wouldn't destroy everything we'd spent four years building.

So I drove here to prove myself right.

Instead, I found this.

Meredith's hands are tangled in his hair while her head is thrown back against the couch and her lips parted in ecstacy as Nathan continues eating her out like he belongs there. Both of them are oblivious of my presence.

For what feels like forever, the room feels suspended and I just stand there like a fool realizing that I'm probably the most oblivious person in the room.

Meredith notices me first. Her expression is hazy for half a second before reality crashes into it completely.

“Nate—” His name leaves her in a gasp. He doesn’t stop so she pushes at his shoulder, frantically. “Ariana—Ariana!”

Nathan groans, reluctantly pulling away from her. "C'mon. You know Ariana can't—" he starts saying but stops when he notices she's not paying attention and her eyes are wide ahead of her.

He whips his head back and God, I have never seen someone lose color that fast.

“A… Ariana?” My name sounds foreign when he says it, like it doesn’t belong in this room.

He shoots to his feet while Meredith scrambles to fix herself with shaking hands.

My brain short-circuits trying to force him back into the version of himself I walked in here believing in.

Nathan steps forward too quickly, like motion alone can rewind what just happened.

“Ana—fuck—this isn’t what you think.” The words come out broken, rushed, desperate.

Meredith is still scrambling to fix herself, refusing to meet my eyes like I’ve become something she can avoid by not looking at directly.

But I don’t look at her.

I don’t look at anything except him.

"What?" I ask, sounding surprisingly smug despite the rage burning in my chest. "You know Ariana can't what? Can't come here around this time?"

I never came to the company frequently. We had lunch outside and I let him do his work. So, he's right, I can't be here around this time. God, I've been such a fool.

Nathan takes another step forward. “Ana, please—let me—”

My hand moves before my brain catches up, connecting with his cheek. The sound lands sharper than his voice, cutting fiercely through the room.

His head turns slightly with the impact.

The room stills.

Even Meredith freezes.

The sting from the slap settles in my hand as I lower it. I look at him. Really look and almost laugh.

Five minutes ago, despite having the evidence in my hand, I never truly believed Nathan would do this to me. The worst part is, if I’d walked in here and found them in almost any other situation, I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it.

Because I trusted him that much. Even if I never trusted Meredith.

He knew that.

He knew she was one of the few people I’d never been able to fully warm to. Not because we openly disliked each other. We didn’t. Meredith was always polished, soft-spoken, careful with the way she presented herself. But something about her had always felt off to me.

Yet he brought her here.

Into this building. Into this office.

Into my office.

The office my father trusted him to take over after he stepped down two years ago. Back then, it made sense. We were eventually going to merge everything anyway. Now...

A painful sting cuts through my chest and a lump starts forming in my throat. I swallow, forcing my expression to settle into place as my hand slides into my pocket, reaching for my phone.

“Baby, look at me,” Nathan finds his voice once again. “Just give me five—”

“Stop talking.” That shuts him up faster than anything else so far.

My thumb moves across the screen and then I dial.

“Send security up to the CEO’s office,” I say when the call connects, my voice steady enough to pass for routine. “I need it cleared immediately.”

There’s a brief silence on the line before, “Yes, Ms. Halberg.”

I don’t end the call yet. My gaze shifts and Meredith stiffens the moment it lands on her, like she already understands what’s coming.

I speak again into the phone, still calm. “Remove Meredith Halberg from building access. She should never be allowed to set foot into this building again.”

Meredith takes a step back, like the words physically hit her.

“Nate—” she starts, but her voice cracks halfway through.

My face darkens.

Nate.

That’s what she called him. It doesn’t sound forced. It sounds like she’s said it long enough for it to become familiar. And she’s saying it now because she thinks he will save her. That cracks something inside of me.

“Also notify the board,” my hand tightens around the phone. “Nathan Holloway is no longer acting CEO of Halberg Enterprises. Effective immediately.”

Silence.

Then a sharp inhale on the other end.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I end the call and slide the phone back into my pocket.

Only then do I look at Nathan properly. His expression has changed now. It’s not just shock anymore. It’s realization.

Fear.

I walk toward the door, stopping at the threshold when he speaks again.

“You can’t do this, Ana.” he says, voice lower now. Still desperate. “I know you’re angry but this is insane—It’s not funny—”

“Funny?” I tilt my head, my glare sharp enough to cut through him. “Since when did the owner of Halberg Enterprises become a fucking comedian, Mr. Holloway?”

His face pales when it finally dawn on him that I am not joking for a second. I want him—and her—out of my fucking building.

I don’t wait for him to recover as I storm toward the elevator. The assistants scramble to avoid looking at me when I close in. Their actions suddenly draws a new level of awareness and humiliation out of me.

If they've known enough to react like that, for how long has Nathan been cheating on me exactly?

My knees nearly fail me as I stumble into the lift once it arrives. Once I'm inside, I rest against the paneled wall, hearing my pulse roar in my ears.

I keep my eyes fixed on the glowing numbers above the doors because if I look anywhere else, something inside of me might split open. By the time the doors open into the lobby, my chest aches.

Still, I keep moving.

Through the glass doors. Past the stares I can feel but refuse to acknowledge. Into the cold air waiting outside. It hits my face sharply, but it doesn’t help.

Nothing does.

I barely remember getting into my car. Only that my hands are shaking hard enough against the steering wheel that I have to grip tighter just to steady them.

One block passes.

Then another.

By the third, the city has turned blurry around the edges.

A sound breaks out of me before I can stop it.

“No… God, no…”

I pull the car toward the curb too fast, shoving it into park with trembling hands.

And then I break.

The tears hit all at once, violent enough to steal the air from my lungs. I press the heel of my palm against my chest like I can force myself to breathe through it.

Oh God.

A strangled breath leaves me.

My fingers fumble for my phone blindly before I finally unlock it, pressing the first name my brain reaches for.

The line rings twice before Ivy's bright voice crackles through.

“Hey Ari,” she beams. “What’s—”

“Please, come get me.”