Chapter 6 - The Dinner of Consequences
Roman didn't raise his voice. He didn't even draw a weapon. He simply walked out onto the covered stone porch, looking down at Julian with the cold detachment of a judge viewing a condemned prisoner.
“You have a lot of nerve, Julian, coming to my doorstep after sending your mistress to assault my wife,” Roman said quietly.
Julian fell to his knees on the wet stone, clutching at the hem of Roman’s trousers in desperate, pathetic submission. “Mr. Calder, please! I’ll lose everything! My career, my home, my freedom! Just give me twenty-four hours to leave the state!”
“You had six months to leave my wife alone,” Roman replied, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper. “Instead, you let her work in the basement of a hotel owned by the people who despised her, while you spent your evenings dining with women who wore stolen jewelry.”
Footsteps echoed softly from the hallway behind Roman.
Norah stood in the doorway, wrapped in her cashmere blanket, looking down at her ex-husband groveling in the rain. There was no triumph in her eyes. There was only a profound, liberating pity.
“Julian,” Norah said, her voice steady and clear above the howling wind.
Julian whipped his head around, hope flashing in his desperate eyes. “Norah! Please! Tell him to call off his lawyers! We were married once—have a heart!”
“When my mother died,” Norah said quietly, “you told me I was grieving too loudly because it made your colleagues uncomfortable. When I struggled to pay for our groceries during your first promotion party, you told me to borrow money from my father.”
Julian froze.
“You never loved me, Julian,” Norah continued, her amber eyes locking onto his. “You loved what I could pretend to be for your career. And the moment I stopped being useful, you threw me away like a broken glass.”
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She stepped back inside, letting the heavy oak door swing shut with a solid, echoing thud.
Outside, Prescott’s security team moved in, hoisting Julian up by his arms and dragging him off the porch toward an unmarked black SUV waiting in the drive. His screaming faded into the roar of the Atlantic storm.
