Chapter 5: Walking Away

Sliding the neat white page across the table, the attorney stated, "This is the final document." Legal bindingness of the divorce follows from your signature. 

Lillian fixed her eye on the paper. 

Her moniker. His title. A marriage reduced to ink on a page. 

She swallowed, fingers encircling the pen. 

Vanessa sat next her, still but present, her presence grounding. Lillian was staring, waiting, observing her best buddy. 

She had practiced this one thousand times in her mind. She had fantasised about being free, triumphant, relieved. 

She only felt, though, painful hollowness. 

Her fingers shook just once, then she steadied them. 

She would not jump right away. 

She cherished him. He had not loved her at all. The truth is that. 

She let the pen drop to the page. 

Davenport, Lillian. 

Not Ashford, though. NOT Blackwood. Just Lillian. 

Her chest became like a stone, the finality of it sinking in there. 

She put the pen down. 

Vanessa stretched across to cover Lillian's hand with hers. "It's finished." 

Lillian nodded, but the terms seemed alien. 

Was it ever accurate for him? 

Had any of that meant anything? 

Had she really lost years of her life waiting for a man who never once turned around? 

She considered the way Damon had signed the paperwork in front of her, his face invisible, his motions fluid. 

Not hesitate. There is no regret. 

For him, it had been absolutely simple. 

Taking the paperwork, the attorney checked her signature by turning the pages and nodded. "The end of the week will see everything finished. You are not legally connected to Damon Blackwood as of right now. 

Lillian choked on her breath. 

That marked it. 

Vanessa gripped her hand one more, her hold kind. You did it, Lillian. 

Lillian let out a breath, then looked down to the document. Her signature locked into history; the ink was dry. 

The title that had imprisoned her to Damon Blackwood vanished. 

She no longer belonged to him. 

No longer Mrs. Blackwood. 

By lunchtime the headlines were all around. 

"DAMON Blackwood & Lillian ASHFORD DIVORCE Finalised!" 

"END OF A POWER COUPLE: INSIDE THE BLACKWOOD SPLIT!" 

"BILLION-DOLLAR BREAKUP: WHAT LED TO LILLIAN WALKING AWAY?" 

On morning programs, news anchors broke out the specifics. Eager for a view of the billionaire at the centre of it all, paparazzi packed the streets outside Blackwood Enterprises. Social media went crazy with conjecture. 

She left him, then? 

At last did he become bored? 

Was the reason Valhalla? 

Damon sat in his personal lounge in his apartment, a tumbler of whisky sloppily in hand. The TV ran headlines in the background, flickering between news announcers, paparazzi video, and old pictures of him and Lillian at charitable events. 

He stared at the screen hardly at all. 

One arm hung over the edge as he stretched out, the smooth leather chair under his form bending to fit him. His face revealed nothing, no humour, no annoyance. simply quiet. 

Seraphina was at the bar behind him sipping a glass of red wine. 

She hummed under her breath, her face one of sheer delight as she turned over her phone. She finally mumbled, a smile pulling at her lips. "There is no dead weight anymore." 

Damon gave no reply. 

Approaching from the arm of his chair, Seraphina stayed close. Her neat fingers moved slow and deliberately along the border of his sleeve. "I'm not sure why you're even viewing this garbage," she asked. " You ought to be celebrating." 

Still, he kept quiet. 

She sighed, drank her wine, then set it down on the glass table next to him. "There is no more pretending to care or boring charitable dinners. Right now, she is out of your life. 

At last Damon drank his whisky slowly, the fire cutting against his neck. His fingers laid firm, calm against the cool glass. 

She raised her head in a slant. "damon?" 

His hold on the tumbler sharpened. 

Not sufficient to shatter it. 

Just enough to sense on his palm. 

The TV kept running, Lillian's name flickering across the screen again and over. 

His teeth closed. 

Smoking, Seraphina ignored the change in the air. " Honestly, I'm not sure what kept you so late." 

Damon breathed gently and set his cup down with exacting accuracy. 

He cast no glance at Seraphina. 

He cast no glance at the TV. 

Rather, he started for his phone. 

And his face stayed blank as his fingers hung over the screen. 

Lillian's hands seized the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening against the leather. The car's air was thick, heavy, squeezing her chest. 

Her stop was mandated by the red light ahead. 

And with that there it was. 

She had not meant to drive this direction. Had not intended to return anywhere near this location. But fate had a nasty sense of humour, guiding her directly to the building where everything had begun and where it had finished. 

It stood exactly as it always had: strong, untouchable, chilly. 

Her heart turned agonisingly in her chest. 

She had passed those doors many times sporting beautiful clothes and a grin that covered her loneliness. Always the ideal wife, always the afterthought, she had accompanied Damon at press conferences, at gala events, at business dinners. 

She had held out for him to see her. to select her. 

Though he never had. 

Her eyes strayed to the top stories, where his office tower above the city. Was he right now in there? Slightly neglecting the woman who had just signed away his name, he sat at his desk with a glass of whisky. 

Did he experience anything at all? 

She pulled a sour smile at her mouth. It meant nothing now. 

Lillian let out a slow exhaled, her fingers flexing around the wheel. Clung to her, the memories begged her to hang on a little bit longer. 

But she wouldn't. 

The light flickering from red to green changed colour. 

She squeezed her foot to the petrol. 

Her car shot ahead, past the life she had been too long clinging to and past the structure formerly a prison. 

She stopped not once but twice. 

She didn't think twice. 

She murmured three last words, "I'll never look back," when Blackwood Enterprises's skyline vanished in her rearview mirror. 

There was no regular hum of life, no quiet rustling from the bedroom, no aroma of Lillian's perfume hanging in the air. 

His teeth clenched. 

This was his desired state of affairs. his choice. 

Why then did the silence seem to be so... oppressive? 

He moved farther inside, his eyes glancing over the immaculate furniture, the shiny flooring, the costly artwork on the walls. All in queue. Everything undamaged. 

Except that she wasn't here. 

Damon looked at the slightly open bedroom door. He paused, just momentarily, then forced it open. 

The space was perfect, unspoiled. As if no one had ever slept in it, the bed was perfectly made. 

His eye strayed to the nightstand. 

Afterwards he noticed it. 

A gleam of silver. 

He drew in, his slow, deliberate footsteps. Though little and simple, the thing laying on the polished wood could as well have been a bullet to the chest. 

The marriage ring of Lillian. 

He turned to look at it. 

The fragile band caught the faint illumination of the bedroom lamp, unmoved, deserted. She had dropped it behind her. 

A part of him expected her to hang onto, a memento of her failing, a reminder of what she had lost. 

Not quite, though. 

She had gone entirely away. 

Damon gasped sharply, fingers clutching around his sides. He ought to have felt let off. He had directed a finale like this. 

Then, why did the sight of the ring on his nightstand seem like a gut-reversing punch? 

His fingers trembled and hung on the metal. He didn't pick it, though. 

Rather, he stood there staring at it, a terrible weight straying against his chest. 

The penthouse had never been home, never felt cosy. 

Currently, though? 

It felt then like a hollow, dead shell. 

His memories returned to evenings when Lillian had been here, cuddled up on the sofa reading a book and gently giggling at something he had hardly been listening to. He recalled the sound of her voice filling the voids, the peaceful solace knowing she was there brought. 

disappeared. 

She vanished. 

Damon tightened his mouth and turned abruptly away. 

But the quiet trailed him out of the bedroom. 

And he loathed it, for the first time in his life. 

He raised the glass to his mouth so the whisky may burn down his throat. 

Taste was different. 

Another drink, slower this time, he rolled the brandy over his tongue. The bite of well-aged whisky, the silky warmth, the sharp kick had always delighted him. But tonight everything was different. 

tonight, it was hollow. 

He exhaled, gently setting the glass down more forcefully than required. In the empty penthouse, the faint clink against the bar sounded less than it ought to have. 

emptiness. 

That was the state of this place today. What it had always been like. 

He ought to have had relief. 

He had acquired what he had sought, his divorce finalised, Lillian gone from his life. There is no more subdued grudging. No more waiting for a woman who had never really fit his universe. 

Then why did the quiet seem to be closing in on him? 

His eyes strayed across the room, skimming it. Everything seemed in order. The sleek black bookcases, the leather armchairs, the floor to-celling windows gazing out over the city. The same flat he had spent years living in. 

Still, there seemed to be something wrong. 

Before he knew where he was headed, his feet took him towards his desk. His fingertips slid over the polished surface, cold and familiar under his touch. 

He then started to see it. 

The empty void. 

His eyebrows wrinkled. 

For years, just one silver frame had rested there. Lillian's picture. 

She had always teased that she looked too serious in the picture, had never liked it, but he had kept it regardless. Of course not for sentimentality either. only out of habit. 

It was no longer here. 

In his chest a slow, disturbing sensation twisted. 

She had carried that with her. 

He drew back from the desk, inhaling hard. His jaw tightened as something strange slid under his skin; his fingers curved into fists. 

Annoyance Not number. 

irritation? Maybe. 

Something else? 

He refused to call it. 

Once more grabbing his glass, the taste was even more sour than before as he raised it to his lips. 

Damon set it down and exhaled. 

His mental whisper said this was nothing. That had no bearing on anything. That

Lillian had been nothing more than a contract name. 

But he started wondering as he stood there, staring at the empty space her picture used to occupy. 

If she were nothing, why did it seem as though something was absent?