Chapter 4The Day I Stopped Being Mad

“We never imagined you’d end up… struggling this much.”

Sera took a deep breath, pulled a checkbook from her wallet, and quickly wrote a number.

“Take this. Consider it a little compensation from me. The pin hasn’t changed.”

Rhys’s face momentarily flickered with displeasure, but he quickly forced a look of sympathy.

“You truly don’t need to treat us like enemies, Cole.”

“And you don’t have a Seraphina looking after you, like I do. A man your age, carrying debt, with no one to rely on—it must be so hard…”

“I’m not alone.”

I cut him off. I reached out and pushed the offered check away.

As I adjusted my jacket sleeve, the subtle sparkle of a diamond ring on my left hand—my other ring finger—was momentarily visible.

“I’m married. And I’m doing very well.”

Both of them froze.

Rhys reacted first, his smile turning subtly conspiratorial.

“Oh, really? Congratulations, Cole.”

His eyes darted up and down. “So, your current wife…”

My phone conveniently buzzed with a string of texts from someone urging me to hurry home. I looked down, quickly replying, and answered with deliberate casualness. “A few years older than me, actually.”

Rhys drew out the syllable. “Oooooh. I thought your type was always fixed, Cole. You know, young and bursting with life.”

“Enough!”

Sera’s face darkened. She looked at me with a mix of disappointment and anger. “Adrian Cole, do you really have to resort to this kind of self-sabotage?”

“Marrying an older woman just to run a street stand and pay off debt for her?”

“Is this the life you want? Have you forgotten you were the Adrian Cole who commanded the room on Wall Street?”

I hit the send button on my text, then looked up, meeting her gaze.

“Seraphina. You’re crossing a line.”

She flinched. “I just… I don’t want you to live like this.”

“Don’t bother.”

I was unequivocal. “Because I have never wished either of you well.”

Looking directly at them, I spoke slowly, distinctly.

“I have never forgiven you.”

“I just refuse to waste any more of my precious time and life tangling with two rotting people.”

“I’ve paid my check. I’m leaving.”

With that, I grabbed my bag and turned without hesitation.

A muffled argument erupted behind me.

“Seraphina, what was that? Are you going soft on him now that you see his pathetic life?”

“Rhys, stop this! Don’t forget your place!”

“My place? I’m your husband! Don’t forget you were the one who climbed into my bed first!”

“Shut up! We’re going home!”

I didn’t slow down, walking straight to the door.

Time is the fairest judge.

No one can permanently occupy the moral high ground. And when the velvet curtain is lifted, the sight of the decay beneath is the most repulsive of all.

I had barely stepped out of the diner when hurried footsteps sounded behind me.

Sera caught up and grabbed my wrist once more.

“Adrian, listen to me…”

Her breath was ragged. Her eyes, in the gathering dusk, were complex and unreadable.

“Actually, after you left, I…”

Before she could finish, a clear, high-pitched child’s voice chirped from behind her.

“Dad!”