Chapter 6 The Proposal

Vance wasn't just talking about the merger.

I looked at him for a moment, trying to understand what exactly he was offering me. The meeting with Harrington had changed something between us. An hour ago, I had walked into his office feeling like a woman who had lost control of her entire life. Now I was standing in front of Vance Blackwood with a multimillion-dollar deal moving forward because he had trusted me to handle it.

“What do you want from me?”

Vance turned away from the windows and faced me fully. “I want us to work together.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't immediately do so. He simply held my gaze, as though he expected me to understand that he wasn't talking about another presentation or another project.

“As a team,” he added.

The words settled between us.

I folded my arms loosely. “On what?”

“On making sure neither of us becomes the person everyone feels sorry for.”

I frowned.

Vance walked toward his desk but didn't sit down. “Your husband made his choice. My wife made hers. They have convinced themselves that whatever exists between them is something bigger than the damage it causes everyone around them.”

His voice remained even, but there was enough bitterness in it now that I knew he wasn't speaking about them as an abstract business problem.

“Zane will continue protecting her because that's what he's always done. Jovi will continue giving him reasons to do it. They'll tell themselves that they're confused, that circumstances forced them into this, that their feelings are too complicated to ignore.”

He paused and looked at me. “And eventually, they'll expect everyone else to understand.”

I lowered my eyes for a moment.

He wasn't wrong.

I'd already heard it from Zane. She's fragile. She's scared. She needs me.

It had always been about why Jovi needed him, never about what his choices had done to me.

“What do you suggest?” I asked.

“We stop making it easy for them.”

I looked up.

Vance came around the desk, resting one hand against its edge. “You work for me. You're good at what you do, and after today, people are going to know it. I'll make sure of that.”

I understood where he was going, but I let him continue.

“You'll be seen beside me at company events. You'll represent projects that matter. I'll make sure no one mistakes you for someone who simply happens to work at Astera.”

“And you?”

“I'll continue doing my job.”

A faint smile touched my mouth. “That doesn't sound like much of a plan.”

“It will be when people start talking.”

That made me smile despite myself.

Vance's expression remained composed. “They'll see two people moving forward while the two who betrayed us are still trying to explain themselves. We don't have to tell anyone what happened. We don't have to make a scene. We simply stop allowing their choices to define ours.”

I stared at him. It was such a Vance solution. No shouting. No public confrontation. No desperate attempt to make them regret what they'd done. He wanted to move forward so decisively that eventually their affair would become nothing more than an embarrassing detail in the lives we had left behind.

“And what exactly are we to each other while we're doing this?”

“Partners.” The answer came without hesitation.

I looked down at my hands. After five years with Zane, the word felt strange. I had spent most of my marriage trying to be his wife in every way he needed, while never quite knowing what I was to him in return. Now this man, who barely knew me outside the office seven years ago, was offering me something far simpler.

A place beside him.

“And in private?” I asked.

Vance's eyes remained on mine. “We don't lie to each other.”

Something tightened in my chest.

“Everyone else can believe whatever they want,” he continued. “But if we're going to do this, you tell me the truth. I do the same.”

I thought about the years I'd spent accepting half-answers from Zane, noticing things I didn't want to notice and pretending they meant something else because the truth was too painful to face. That promise should have frightened me. Instead, it was probably the first thing Vance had said that made me want to trust him.

I took a slow breath. “What happens if I say no?”

“Nothing.” He didn't try to persuade me.

“You go back to your work. I go back to mine. We handle our respective problems however we choose.”

“And if I say yes?”

His gaze didn't leave mine. “Then we stop reacting to what they've done and decide what happens next.”

I thought about Zane in the car. His face when he had admitted that there would always be a part of him that belonged to Jovi. I thought about the apartment waiting for me, the bedroom where I'd found them, and the life I had spent years trying to preserve even when I was the only one holding it together.

I didn't want to go back to being that woman.

“What is the first step?”

For the first time, something resembling satisfaction appeared in Vance's expression. “Tonight.”

He picked up his phone from the desk. “The Lexington Club. It's private enough that people feel comfortable talking, which means they'll notice who arrives with whom.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You already planned this?”

“I started planning the moment I realized we were going to have to work together.”

He typed something into his phone. “Dinner. Nothing inappropriate. Nothing we need to explain. We sit together, we talk business, and we let people draw their own conclusions.”

“And if they ask?”

“Then we tell them the truth.”

I looked at him.

“We're working together.”

His phone chimed. A second later, mine vibrated in my hand. I pulled it out. A message appeared on my screen.

Unknown Number: The Lexington Club. 8 PM. Dress the part. — V

I looked across the room at him. “You could have just told me.”

“I wanted you to have my number.”

I saved it. For a moment, my thumb hovered over the contact name. Then I typed:

My Partner

I sent a simple reply.

I'll be there.

Vance glanced at his watch. “Good. Then I'll see you tonight.”

I left his office without another word.

---

I didn't go home immediately. Instead, I stopped at a store I normally would have walked past without looking inside. I chose a black dress after only a few minutes, paid for it, and carried the bag back to the apartment.

Zane was waiting for me. The dining table had been set with candles, two plates, and a bottle of wine. He had cooked dinner himself, which would once have touched me. Tonight, it only made something ache inside my chest.

He stood when I entered. “Nerissa.”

I set my bag down.

“I thought we could talk.”

“I have a work dinner tonight.”

His expression changed. “Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“With who?”

I picked up the bag and walked toward the bedroom.

“Nerissa.”

“With my boss.”

I left him standing beside the table. Twenty minutes later, I came back out wearing the black dress.

Zane was still there. His eyes moved over me, and the confusion on his face slowly hardened into something else.

“You're wearing that to a work dinner?”

I checked my earrings in the hallway mirror. “Yes.”

“With Vance Blackwood?”

I met his eyes through the reflection.

He didn't wait for my answer. “You're not going to tell me you slept with him.”

My hand stopped for a moment. I looked at him. “You really want to have this conversation?”

“You came home from a hotel with him this morning, and now you're dressing like that to go out with him tonight. What am I supposed to think?”

I turned back to the mirror and adjusted my earring. “Whatever you want.”

His breathing became heavier. “Nerissa, answer me.”

I picked up my bag.

“How long has this been going on?”

I finally turned around. “Nothing has been going on.”

“Then why are you acting like this?”

I stared at him. “Like what?”

“Like you suddenly don't care.”

A bitter smile touched my lips. “I stopped caring about what you think the moment you brought Jovi into our bed.”

His face tightened. “That isn't fair.”

“Fair?” I almost laughed.

“I spent five years trying to be a good wife to you, Zane. I stood beside you when Jovi left you for a richer man. I listened to you talk about her for months. I helped you put your life back together, and when you eventually married me, I told myself that maybe you had finally chosen me.”

He looked away.

I continued before he could interrupt. “When your company nearly went bankrupt because you signed that contract without reading it properly, who stayed up with you until morning? Who helped you convince the client not to walk away? Who rewrote your proposal until three in the morning because you needed another sponsorship?”

“Nerissa—”

“And when you got that promotion, do you remember why your presentation was ready?”

He said nothing.

“I was sitting beside you while you slept. I hadn't slept for three nights. I had cramps so bad I could barely sit upright, but I still finished it because you told me it mattered.”

His face had gone pale.

I looked at him for a long moment. “And you stood here tonight asking whether I'm loyal.”

“I never said you weren't loyal.”

“You didn't have to.”

I picked up my coat. His eyes followed me.

“I wasn't the one who spent years imagining someone else while pretending to love you.”

His expression changed. He knew exactly what I was talking about. There had been nights when I'd woken and found him staring at Jovi's photograph on his phone. Nights when he thought I was asleep. Nights when he would come back to bed afterward and hold me as though nothing had happened.

I had noticed. I had always noticed.

“You think I didn't know?” I asked quietly.

He swallowed.

“I knew about the photograph. I knew what you were doing when you thought I was asleep. I knew how often you went back to her even when you were lying beside me.”

“Nerissa, I—”

“I stayed anyway.” My voice broke slightly, but I didn't look away. “That was my mistake.”

The room fell silent. I walked toward the door.

“Nerissa.”

I stopped, but I didn't turn around.

“I don't know what you're trying to do.”

I looked back at him. “For the first time in five years, neither do I.”

Then I walked out.

---

The night air was cool when I stepped onto the pavement. A black car was waiting at the curb, exactly when Vance had said it would be.

I got inside. My phone vibrated before the car had even pulled away.

Zane: Nerissa, please. We need to talk about this.

I stared at the message without replying. Another vibration came almost immediately.

My Partner: The first move is ours. See you soon.

I locked my phone and placed it beside me.

The city moved past the window in a blur of lights and reflections. For years, I had measured every decision by what would keep Zane happy, what would keep our marriage together, what would stop him from drifting further toward the woman he had never really stopped loving.

Tonight, for the first time, I wasn't thinking about what Zane wanted. I was thinking about what I wanted.

The car slowed as we approached the Lexington Club. I looked at my reflection in the dark window. The woman staring back at me was still tired. She was still hurt. Nothing Vance had said in his office had magically erased what happened.

But she was no longer sitting at home waiting for someone else to decide what she was worth.

The car stopped. I stepped out, adjusted my dress, and walked toward the entrance.

Whatever happened tonight, I knew one thing. I wasn't going back to the life I'd left behind.