Chapter 82
Rowan's POV
The mahogany drawer stuck halfway, forcing me to jiggle it loose with more force than necessary. Papers scattered across my desk—merger documents, acquisition proposals, the usual debris of running an empire. But wedged in the back corner, beneath a stack of old business cards, was something I'd forgotten existed.
A small velvet box, deep blue, with my initials embossed in silver on the lid.
I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. The weight was familiar, though I couldn't remember when I'd last held it. Inside, nestled in cream silk, was a pair of platinum cufflinks. Simple at first glance—just polished metal catching the afternoon light streaming through my office windows.
Then I looked closer.
The engraving was so fine I had to tilt them toward the light to make out the pattern. My family crest. Not the full elaborate design that hung in oil paintings at my mother's house, but a simplified version—the shield, the oak branch, the single star that represented our founding generation. The kind of detail you'd only know if you'd spent hours studying our family history.
My fingers tightened around the cufflinks until the edges bit into my palm.
Three weeks. It had been three weeks since I'd signed the divorce papers, since I'd watched Lena walk out of that lawyer's office with her spine straight and her eyes empty of anything resembling regret.
Three weeks since I'd realized that the woman who'd given me these cufflinks—who'd spent time and money and thought on a gift I'd never even worn—was gone.
I set the cufflinks on my desk, staring at them like they might explain where everything had gone wrong.
A knock interrupted. "Come in."
Jack entered, and I knew immediately something was off. My assistant moved with the precision of a man who'd spent five years anticipating my needs before I voiced them. Today, he looked like he'd forgotten how to breathe properly.
"The Whitmore contracts," he said, setting a folder on my desk.
I opened it. Scanned the first page. Stopped.
"This says four hundred million."
Silence.
"Jack. The Hartwell deal is for forty million. Not four hundred."
He went pale. "I'll fix it immediately."
I closed the folder and leaned back. "Sit down."
"Mr. Reynolds, I—"
"Sit."
He sat, shoulders rigid, like a man waiting for execution.
"Tell me," I said quietly, "what mistakes you've made in the past two days. All of them."
His jaw worked. "Monday morning. I misreported the quarterly projections in the board meeting. Off by a decimal point."
"And yesterday?"
"I sent important documents to the wrong email." His voice was flat. "I caught it and recalled the message within a minute, but—"
"But it happened." I watched him. "And today makes three. Jack, in five years, you've never made more than six errors. Now you've made three in forty-eight hours. So either you're having a breakdown, or something's happening that you're not telling me about."
He stared at his hands.
"I'm not firing you," I added. "But I can't help if I don't know what's wrong."
"There's a legal situation." The words came out strangled. "Personal. I'm handling it."
"What kind of legal situation?"
"A lawsuit." He exhaled slowly. "My ex-girlfriend is suing me for fraud. She claims I made false promises to get her to move here, then abandoned her. Her lawyer sent a demand letter last week."
I kept my face neutral. "And did you do that?"
His head snapped up. "No."
"Then we'll deal with it." I pulled out my phone. "Go handle your work. Take the rest of the day if you need to. We'll talk more later."
He nodded and left, moving like a man reprieved from a death sentence he knew was only postponed.
After the door closed, I sat there turning the cufflinks over in my hands, thinking about promises. About the ones we make explicitly and the ones we make through silence. About the difference between fraud and just... failing to live up to someone's expectations.
---
Wednesday, I heard the gossip.
I'd gone down to the executive floor to meet with the CFO about quarterly numbers. On my way back, I passed the break room and heard voices—too low to be meant for public consumption, too careless to notice I was within earshot.
"—can't believe Jack Harrison, of all people—"
"I heard she moved here because he promised to marry her, then ghosted her the second she arrived."
"Typical rich guy behavior. They think they can say whatever they want to get what they want, then just walk away."
"Someone said she's suing him for fraud. Good for her."
I kept walking, but the words clung like smoke. By the time I reached my office, I'd made a decision.
I texted my secretary: Pull any internal communications about Jack Harrison. Rumors, complaints, anything circulating in the company.
Her response came within an hour: There's talk on the internal forum. Anonymous posts suggesting Harrison engaged in 'predatory dating practices.' Nothing actionable, but the sentiment is spreading.
Of course it was. People loved a scandal, especially when it confirmed their biases about wealth and power.
At the same time, I shut down any discussion of these rumors on the forum.
However, the next morning, the situation exploded.
One of Silverton's legal blogs—the kind that styled itself as "advocating for victims"—published a piece titled "When Corporate Power Protects Predators." The article didn't name Jack, but it referenced "a high-ranking assistant at a major manufacturing firm" who'd allegedly used false promises to manipulate a woman into uprooting her life.
By noon, the Reynolds Industries internal forum was on fire. People demanding to know if we were "protecting an abuser." People calling for Jack's termination. People sharing their own stories of men who'd lied and manipulated and walked away unscathed.