Chapter 162. Jessica’s Ultimatum

The Cornish cottage was a bubble, a fragile world of salt-stung air and shared, unspoken truths. But the real world, with its deadlines and its dangers, had a way of bursting bubbles. Leon arrived just past noon in a different, equally anonymous vehicle, bringing supplies, encrypted updates, and Jessica.

She entered the cottage like a force of nature contained within a perfectly tailored navy suit. The wind had tousled her steel-grey bob, and there was a tightness around her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights spent fighting legal fires on multiple continents. She took in the scene with one sweeping glance: the single, rumpled bed visible through the open bedroom door, the two mugs side-by-side on the table next to the glowing laptop, the palpable, quiet energy that hung between Anton and Sabatine—an energy that was no longer just professional or even just tense, but settled, synced.

Leon gave a slight shake of his head, a silent warning to them both, and went outside to patrol the perimeter.

Jessica set her briefcase on the rough-hewn table with a definitive thud. She didn’t sit. “The audio deepfake is spreading. It’s been picked up by seventeen major financial networks and three intelligence committees. The narrative is hardening: you’re not just compromised by your relationship, Anton, you’re the architect of the conspiracy, and Sabatine is your handler or your dupe, depending on which pundit you listen to. The board is in a panic. They’re an hour away from voting to permanently suspend you, powers or no powers.”

Anton stood by the fireplace, his posture deceptively relaxed. “They don’t have the votes.”

“They will if the government freezes corporate assets pending investigation, which the Home Secretary is now strongly considering thanks to Roland Cross’s relentless lobbying.” She turned her laser focus on Sabatine. “Your medical honeypot was a clever idea. It also gave them a roadmap to your physical vulnerabilities. The attack at Stonehaven wasn’t just an attempt to capture or kill you. It was a field test. They now have real-time data on your defensive responses, your escape patterns, the capabilities of your protection team. You’ve been digitized, Mr. Stalker. You’re a profile in their database.”

Sabatine absorbed this without flinching, but Anton’s jaw tightened, a muscle leaping.

“We have forensic evidence breaking down the audio fake,” Sabatine said, his voice level. “We can go public with it today.”

“And it will be dismissed as a sophisticated cover-up!” Jessica’s composure finally cracked, her voice rising a fraction. “Don’t you see? You’re fighting a war on two fronts, and you’re losing the propaganda battle because you refuse to acknowledge the central weapon they’re using!”

She took a step forward, her gaze pinning first Anton, then Sabatine. “It’s this.” She gestured sharply between them. “This… thing. This unspoken, all-consuming thing that is in every look, every touch, every decision you make! The world smells it. Roland Cross is feasting on it. He doesn’t need to prove the audio is real; he just needs people to believe you’re capable of the betrayal because you’re ‘blinded by an illicit affair.’ And as long as you treat it like a dirty secret, as long as you dance around it in public with statements about ‘trust’ and ‘professional respect,’ you give him all the power!”

The room was silent except for the crackle of the newly built fire. Anton’s face was a marble mask, but his eyes were stormy. Sabatine had gone very still.

“What are you suggesting, Jessica?” Anton’s voice was dangerously soft.

“I am not suggesting. I am telling you, as your friend and your counsel, that you have reached a crossroads.” She crossed her arms, a statue of grim pragmatism. “Option one: You end this. Now. Publicly. Sabatine resigns his position, leaves the country with a generous severance and a new identity, and you both issue statements regretting the ‘confusion’ and ‘inappropriate blurring of lines.’ You go back to being a solitary billionaire fighting for his company’s survival. It’s clean. It’s defensible. It might even save the company.”

The air in the cottage turned to ice. Sabatine felt the words like physical blows, each one a nail in the coffin of the fragile future they’d just begun to imagine. He didn’t look at Anton. He couldn’t.

“And option two?” Anton asked, the ice in his voice matching the temperature of the room.

Jessica’s gaze didn’t waver. “Option two: You stop hiding. You look the world in the eye and you admit what this is. Not in a leaked photo, not in a vague personal statement. You stand together, in front of a camera, and you define it, on your terms. You call it a relationship. You call it a partnership. You call it love, if that’s what it is. You take the weapon out of their hands by making it a shield. You say, ‘Yes, we are in love. And that love is the reason we fought so hard for the truth, not a reason to doubt it.’”

She let the audacity of it hang in the air. “It’s a nuclear option. The fallout will be immense. The traditional investors will flee. The tabloids will have a field day. You will be a global spectacle. But you will be an honest one. You will control the narrative. And you will be together, fighting the real enemies, not shadows of your own making.”

She looked from one to the other, her expression softening from lawyerly fury to something akin to sorrow. “But you cannot keep walking this knife’s edge. This middle ground of secret glances and private touches while the world constructs a sordid fantasy around you. It is unsustainable. It is leaking into every strategic decision. It is making you both reckless. The attack at Stonehaven was a direct result of your combined, emotionally compromised judgement to leave the city.” She paused, her voice dropping. “Either you admit what this is, or you will destroy each other, and everything you’ve built, trying to protect it.”

The ultimatum echoed in the bare stone room.

Neither man spoke. Anton had turned to look out the window at the raging sea, his back a rigid line. Sabatine stared at the floor, his mind reeling. Jessica had articulated the terrifying, unspoken fear that had taken root in him since the boardroom: that his presence was a destabilizing force, a vulnerability Anton couldn’t afford.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.

Jessica watched them. She saw the conflict on Sabatine’s face—the old guilt warring with a fierce, defensive love. She saw the immense weight of the choice on Anton’s shoulders—the empire he’d inherited and expanded versus the man who had shown him how to feel human within it.

They didn’t say a word. They didn’t have to.

The guilt in Sabatine’s downcast eyes was answered enough. Guilt for the trouble, for the exposure, for loving a man whose world was so ill-suited for such a messy, human thing.

The defiant, agonized love in Anton’s posture, even as he refused to turn around, was answer enough. A love that would rather watch the empire burn than exile its heart.

Jessica sighed, the sound weary and final. She had her answer. They would not choose the clean, safe path. The truth, messy and dangerous as it was, had already claimed them.

“Very well,” she said, her voice all business again. She opened her briefcase, pulling out a fresh legal pad. “Then we prepare for Option Two. We will need a statement that is both a declaration and a deflection. We will need to pre-emptively sue Roland Cross and the networks for defamation and violation of privacy, linking their smears directly to their clients’ criminal activities. We will need to coordinate with a sympathetic media outlet for an exclusive, in-depth interview—not about the scandal, but about the investigation, with your relationship as the motivating backdrop, not the focus.” She began scribbling notes. “We will also need to prepare for a shareholder revolt. I’ll start drafting the legal frameworks for a potential leveraged buyback of dissenting shares.”

She was already five steps ahead, building the fortress for the truth they had chosen.

Anton finally turned from the window. His eyes found Sabatine’s across the room. There was no question in them. Only a shared, grim resolve. Jessica’s ultimatum had forced the hidden thing into the light, and in its glare, they saw only one path forward: together.

Sabatine gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.

Anton turned back to Jessica. “Do it,” he said, his voice calm at the center of the hurricane. “Burn the playbook. We will write a new one.”

Jessica nodded, a flicker of respect in her tired eyes. “Then let’s get to work. We have approximately forty-eight hours before the board vote. We’re going to give them something else to talk about.”

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