Chapter 4 Give Us A Minute

Zane started the engine, and for the first few minutes, neither of us spoke. The city moved around us while I stared through the window, watching storefronts and traffic lights pass without really seeing any of them. The faint floral scent of Jovi's perfume still lingered inside the car, making it impossible to forget where she had been sitting only hours earlier.

“So... he's your new boss?” Zane finally asked.

I turned toward him. His hands remained fixed on the steering wheel, his attention carefully focused on the road.

“Yes.”

He nodded, but the conversation died there. A few blocks passed before he spoke again.

“Nerissa, I'm so sorry.” His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “This is all my fault. All of it. But please... don't blame Jovi. She's fragile. She was scared of him. You saw how he is.”

A quiet breath escaped me. Even now, somehow, we had come back to her.

“How fragile she is. What she needs. What she's afraid of.” I kept my eyes on him. “Even after I found you with her in our bed, you're still asking me to understand her.”

“She was our friend first,” he said defensively.

I looked at him. For years, I had accepted that explanation. I had watched Zane remain protective of Jovi even after she left him for Vance, and I had convinced myself that his loyalty to her was something I simply had to live with. But sitting beside him now, I couldn't pretend I didn't understand what it meant anymore.

“I stayed after she left you,” I said. “I was there when you couldn't get out of bed. I listened to you talk about her, and I stayed because I loved you.”

“Nerissa—”

“I thought that eventually it would be enough.”

He tightened his hands around the steering wheel. “I love you. Our marriage matters to me.”

I looked at him, waiting for him to say something that would make those words mean more than they did. Instead, he kept his eyes on the road and said quietly, “But it’s different with her.”

“With Jovi, it’s just…” He hesitated, as though he were still trying to find a way to explain something I had already spent years understanding. In the end, he gave up trying to soften it. “It’s always been her.”

I turned toward the window. That was the truth I had spent five years trying not to see, because as long as Zane never said it aloud, I could keep pretending that our marriage had a chance of becoming something more than the life he settled into after Jovi left. But even now, after everything that had happened, he was still trying to make me understand her.

“Stop the car.”

“Nerissa, we need to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing left to talk about.”

He glanced at me, then slowed toward the curb. Before the car had fully stopped, I reached for the door.

“Nerissa—”

I stepped out and closed it behind me. The morning air was colder than I expected, but I barely noticed. Zane lowered his window, and although I could feel his eyes on me, I kept my gaze on the road ahead. A taxi was approaching, so I raised my hand and waited until it pulled over.

I climbed into the back seat and closed the door.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“The Astera Spire.”

As the taxi pulled away, I looked through the rear window and watched Zane’s car disappear into the traffic behind us. I couldn’t bring myself to go home yet. Every room would still look the same as it had yesterday—the bedroom, the photographs, the things we had chosen together—but I knew I would no longer be able to look at any of them without remembering what had happened.

Work was different. At work, I knew who I was, what I was supposed to do, and what was expected of me. So that was where I went.

---

The elevator at Astera moved smoothly through the building, its polished brass and mirrored panels reflecting every detail I didn't want to see.

My eyes were swollen, my hair was disheveled, and a faint trace of last night's makeup remained beneath my eyes. I looked nothing like the woman who had left home yesterday morning.

The argument with Zane replayed itself anyway. It's always been her.

A tear slipped down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly, but another followed. I lowered my gaze, hoping the elevator would reach the executive floor before anyone saw me like this.

When the doors opened, Vance Blackwood was standing outside with his assistant. He stopped when he saw me. His assistant glanced between us, but Vance barely acknowledged her reaction.

“Give us a minute.”

She nodded and walked away.

Vance stepped into the elevator, and the doors closed behind him. For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

I kept my eyes on the floor numbers, trying to regain control of myself. After everything that had happened the night before, standing in front of Vance with tears still on my face was the last thing I wanted.

“Are you all right?”

I shook my head, unable to trust myself to speak, and Vance didn't press me. Instead, he reached for the control panel and pressed the emergency stop, bringing the elevator to a smooth halt between floors. When I turned toward him in surprise, he shifted slightly until his body blocked the security camera in the corner.

“I don't think you need an audience right now.”

The simple consideration caught me off guard. I looked away before he could see how close I was to crying again, and for a few seconds, he let the silence remain without asking anything more.

“Harrington is waiting in the boardroom,” he said eventually. “The meeting was moved forward.”

I looked at him in surprise. “I thought it was tomorrow.”

“It was.” He glanced at his watch. “You have twelve minutes.”

I frowned. “Twelve minutes to do what?”

“Present.”

I stared at him, certain I had misunderstood. “You want me to present to Harrington?”

“You handled the Scandinavian reports, and you know the numbers better than anyone else on the team.”

I hesitated. “But the raw data—”

“Shows an efficiency gain they're not accounting for,” he finished. “They're focusing on acquisition costs without considering the long-term reduction in operational waste.”

I looked at him for a moment before my mind automatically returned to the figures. “They're treating the acquisition costs as the main expense because they're not factoring in the reduction in operational waste over time.”

“Exactly.”

I let out a quiet breath and looked down at myself. “I've never presented to a board before.”

“You know the numbers better than anyone else on the team.”

“Harrington will expect you. Or the CFO.”

“He'll get the person who understands the data.”

I looked at my reflection in the elevator doors. The woman staring back at me looked exhausted, still wearing yesterday's clothes, with swollen eyes and hair that had barely survived the night. I looked nothing like someone who should be walking into a boardroom, but beneath all of that, I was still the same person who had worked through those reports, studied the numbers, and understood exactly where the current projections were wrong.

Vance watched me for a moment before asking, “Can you do it?”

I met his eyes through the reflection, then turned toward him. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He released the emergency stop, and the elevator resumed its climb. Neither of us spoke again until the doors opened on the executive floor. Vance stepped out, adjusted the cuff of his shirt, and glanced back at me.

“Twelve minutes, Ms. Sullivan.”

He walked away, leaving me alone for another second before I stepped out and headed toward the boardroom. I wiped the last trace of tears from my cheek as I went, going over the Zenith numbers in my head and forcing my attention back to the work waiting for me.

My marriage was falling apart, and I still didn't know what I was going to do about Zane or Jovi. I wasn't ready to make those decisions yet, but I knew what I could do now. I knew the numbers, I knew the analysis, and I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

Whatever happened to my marriage, my work was still mine. That was enough to carry me to the boardroom.

I stopped outside the glass doors and looked inside. Harrington was already seated at the center of the long conference table, surrounded by several senior executives, with papers and presentation packets arranged neatly in front of them. They were waiting.

I glanced down at myself once more. My clothes were still wrinkled from yesterday, my hair barely presentable, and there was no hiding the exhaustion in my face.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The conversation around the table faded. Several executives looked up, their eyes briefly moving over my clothes and tired face before settling on the laptop in my hands. Harrington's eyebrows rose, and someone at the far end of the table exchanged a glance with the man beside him.

Vance was already there.

He sat near the head of the table, one hand resting beside the documents in front of him. His eyes found me immediately, and his gaze moved from my wrinkled clothes to my face before returning to my eyes.

His jaw tightened slightly. I lowered my gaze for a second, suddenly aware of exactly how I must look.

Vance pushed his chair back and stood. The room fell completely silent.

He looked around the table before turning his attention back to me. “Gentlemen, this is Nerissa Sullivan.”

Every eye in the room returned to me.