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Chapter 32: THE SIGNATURE
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2025-12-24 16:00:44
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WHICH MAN STAYS? Chapter 32: THE SIGNATURE
DANIEL’S POVThe lawyer, a crisp man named Evans, arrived at nine. He set his briefcase on the dining table with a soft click. The sound was final. The papers were inside. The most important document of my life.“Standard post-nuptial separation agreement,” Evans said, laying out the pages. “Very clean. She retains primary physical custody of the child, Leo. You have generous, scheduled visitation. She keeps personal effects, a vehicle, and the house in the hills. You retain the penthouse and all other major assets.”I nodded. Primary custody. It was a necessary concession. Clara’s price was a public divorce. A clean break made me look decisive, not weak. Maya would be comfortable. That was good for the narrative. It made me look merciful. Leo would still be mine in every way that mattered. Visitation could be negotiated, expanded. For now, the deal with Clara was all that mattered.“She understands the terms?” Evans asked me, as if she weren’t in the house.“She understands,” I said.
WHICH MAN STAYS? Chapter 31— THE ALLIANCE
LIAM’S POVThe warehouse on pier 12 smelled of salt, rust, and old fish. It was a different kind of trap than the one Daniel had set for me, but a trap all the same. Just emptier. The message from Thomas had been clear. She’ll see you. Not ‘wants to see you.’ Not ‘agreed to meet.’ She’ll see you. Like a queen granting an audience.I got there early. She was earlier.Clara Finch stood at the far end of the open space, a silhouette against the dirty window, backlit by the dull orange glow of the city at night. She didn’t turn when I entered, just let the echo of my footsteps announce me.“You look like hell,” she said, her voice bouncing off the corrugated metal walls. It was flat. An observation, not an insult.“Daniel has my life. What’s your excuse?” I stopped a few yards from her, my hands in my pockets so she wouldn’t see them clenched.Now she turned. The light caught her face. She looked older than I remembered, but not worn. Sharpened. Like a blade that’s been honed on a stone f
WHICH MAN STAYS? Chapter 30— THE CAGE
MAYA’S POVThe penthouse was too quiet. It was the kind of quiet that hummed, a low, electric buzz just under the surface of everything. I moved through the rooms like I was walking through a museum after hours. Everything was where it was supposed to be, expensive and clean and dead.Leo was asleep in his room, exhausted from the chaos of the move. My mother-in-law was in the guest suite, her silence a heavier thing than Leo’s. She hadn’t spoken to me since I walked back through the door. She just looked at me with a disappointment so deep it felt like a physical weight. She thought I was weak. She didn’t understand that weakness had nothing to do with it. This was a surrender. A strategic retreat. I had traded my freedom for Liam’s.But where was my bargaining partner?Daniel had come home last night after his “emergency meeting.” He’d looked through me, his face pale, his eyes focused on something miles away. He hadn’t asked about my day. He hadn’t gloated about his broadcast victo
WHICH MAN STAYS? Chapter 29— THE PETITION
DANIEL’S POVThe door clicked shut. The sound was final. A judge’s gavel. I stood in the center of the office, the silence she left behind ringing in my ears. Forty-eight hours.My hands were cold. I flexed them, trying to get the blood back. This was my desk. My view. The leather of the chair was still warm from where she’d been sitting. A ghost had walked in and put her hand right through my chest.I couldn’t lose this. Not now. Not after everything. Maya was finally back under my roof, where she belonged. The public narrative was perfect—the wronged CEO, the treacherous brother, the loyal wife returning. I was on the verge of having it all, the complete picture. And Clara… Clara was a relic. A scandal sheet story. She couldn’t just reappear and take it.I grabbed my phone. My hand shook. I had to think. The board. They owed me. I’d made them money. I’d smoothed over the mess after the old man died, after Clara’s disgrace. I navigated to a number. Richard Vale. The oldest member, th
WHICH MAN STAYS? Chapter 28— THE OWNER’S RETURN
CLARA’S POVThe chair behind the CEO’s desk was softer than I remembered. Or maybe I was just harder. I let my fingers trail over the polished mahogany, the same desk my father had sat behind for thirty years. The air in the room still smelled like him—old leather and sharp peppermint—underneath the new, expensive cologne Daniel had started wearing. The scent of a man playing dress-up.Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city was laid out like a toy model. My city. My view. Or it had been, until I decided to let a lie do the work of the truth.I never went to prison. The handcuffs they photographed were for show. The trial was real enough, the charges my ex-husband crafted were brutal, but the verdict was a negotiated silence. My lawyer, a man my father trusted, knew a judge. We cut a deal. Instead of a cell, I got a passport and a directive: disappear. Let the world think I was locked away. It was cleaner that way. The scandal would die with me out of sight. I took my daughter,
WHICH MAN STAYS? Chapter 27— RECKONING
LIAM’S POVThe phone was a live thing in my hand, buzzing over and over. I watched the screen light up with names I knew—old friends, a few guys from the gym, my accountant. I sent them all to voicemail. The only call I wanted was one that wouldn’t come. Maya’s name stayed silent on my screen.I’d driven straight to my house after the warehouse. My mind was a riot: Daniel’s voice on the broadcast, the hidden cameras, the trap so perfectly laid. He’d used our mother as bait. He’d used Sasha as proof. And Maya… she knew why I was there. She had to know it was a setup. But knowing and believing are two different things when the whole world is screaming a lie at you.I pulled up outside. The light was off. One look at the dark, still windows and my stomach dropped. I knew before I used my key.The door swung open to a hollow quiet. “Maya?”Nothing. I walked through the small living room. Leo’s little shoes weren’t by the mat. His coloring book was gone from the coffee table. I moved to th
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