“What are we going to do?”
Julian looked at her.
For once, he had no answer.
Back in New York, Clara sat alone in the boardroom.
Daniel placed a folder in front of her.
“You can still stop the investigation.”
Clara shook her head.
“No.”
She opened the folder.
Inside were copies of every transaction, every message, and every document Julian thought he’d hidden.
Then Daniel placed one final document on the table.
Clara read it.
Her expression changed.
“What is this?”
Daniel answered quietly.
“Your husband’s father signed this yesterday.”
Clara stared at the page.
It was a confession.
He admitted orchestrating the financial transfers.
He admitted using Sienna.
And he admitted that Julian had known about some of the plan.
Clara slowly closed the folder.
“Then tomorrow,” she said, “we tell the board everything.”
Daniel nodded.
Clara looked through the glass walls of the boardroom at the city outside.
Yesterday, she had walked into a marriage believing she was starting a new life.
Today, she realized she had been invited into a trap.
But Julian had made one mistake.
He thought she was his wife because she loved him.
He never realized she had married him because she believed in him.
And once that trust was gone…
There was nothing left for him to take.
The next morning, Julian’s phone rang.
It was Clara.
He answered immediately.
“Clara, please—”
Her voice was calm.
“Julian, I have one question.”
“What?”
“Did you really think I walked away from the airport because I was hurt?”
Julian said nothing.
Clara continued.
“I walked away because that was the last moment I was willing to give you the chance to tell me the truth.”
A pause.
“Now it’s too late.”
She hung up.
And for the first time since their wedding, Julian understood the real meaning of the empty seat beside him on that airplane.
It wasn’t an empty honeymoon seat.
It was the space where his entire old life had been sitting.
And he had watched it disappear into the distance without even realizing it.
