Make the numbers look sharper.
Don’t ask questions about M&R. It’s above your little accounting brain.
Your little accounting brain becomes a phrase your attorney seems to enjoy quoting.
By the second week, Caleb is no longer just unemployed.
He is under civil investigation.
By the third, Adrian Vale’s company files formal claims.
By the fourth, Caleb is trying to call you from blocked numbers.
You do not answer.
Instead, you begin rebuilding.
Not dramatically.
Not beautifully.
At first, rebuilding looks like sleeping on only one side of the bed because your body still expects someone to criticize how much space you take. It looks like throwing away Caleb’s protein powder, his expensive cologne, his golf magazines, his framed certificate from a leadership seminar he made you pay for. It looks like opening the windows and realizing the house smells different without his anger in it.
Adrian does not rush you.
That surprises you.
Powerful men usually believe desire is a schedule. Caleb certainly did. If he wanted something, the world was expected to rearrange. But Adrian waits, sending only one message after the night of the party.
I am here if you want answers. Nothing more.
For three days, you do not reply.
On the fourth, you write:
I want the letters. If you still have them.
He responds within one minute.
Every one I could keep.
You meet at a small coffee shop in Portland, the city where everything began.
Not downtown.
Not somewhere glamorous.
A quiet place near the river with wooden tables and rain tapping the windows. Adrian arrives carrying a weathered metal box. He looks less like a billionaire today and more like the boy who once split a cinnamon roll with you because neither of you had enough money for two.
You sit across from him.
He places the box between you.
“I kept copies of some letters,” he says. “The originals came back for a while. Then they stopped.”
Your hands tremble as you open the lid.
There are envelopes.
Photographs.
A pressed flower.
A ticket stub from the county fair.
A small silver ring you recognize instantly.
You cover your mouth.
“You kept it.”
