Chapter 136:


    “That’s why I got this,” he said, flipping the box open. A massive sapphire pendant rested on white silk. It was beautiful. It was expensive. It was meaningless. “It’s clean. No one has touched it but me. It matches your eyes.”


    Isolde looked at the stone. “You still don’t get it.”


    “What don’t I get? I’m trying to fix it!”


    “You can’t fix a broken trust with a receipt, Grayson,” she said quietly. “You gave my family history to a woman who destroyed my work. You let her y dress-up with my grandmother’s memory. That brooch — I have it back, yes. But every time I look at it now, I see her. I see you.”


    “I took it back from her!” Grayson argued, though he knew it was a lie. He knew Isolde had taken it herself. He was rewriting history to save face. “I made sure she doesn’t have it!”


    “It doesn’t matter,” Isolde said. “It’s contaminated. Just like this marriage.”


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    She reached for the door handle.


    Grayson didn’t move to lock the doors. Instead, he spoke a single clippedmand toward the front. “Liam, get us on the FDR.”


    The car pulled smoothly away from the curb and merged into traffic. The motion was so fluid she almost didn’t register it. They were moving — picking up speed, the city blurring beyond the window.


    Isolde went still. She turned back to him slowly. “Pull over.”


    Grayson stared at her, desperation warping his features. “Not until you listen. You can’t just walk away from ten billion dors, Isolde. You can’t walk away from us. Think about Effie. Think about the share price. If we divorce now, the market will crash.”


    Isoldeughed — a sharp, jagged sound. “The share price? That’s your argument? You’re holding me captive on a moving highway for the sake of your quarterly earnings?”


    “I’m fighting for my family!”


    “No,” Isolde said, raising her braced left arm. “You’re fighting for your assets. This arm — your son did this. That brooch — your mistress wore it. My heart — you broke it five years ago. There is no family here, Grayson. There is only a corporation, and I am resigning.”


    She leaned closer, dropping her voice to just above a whisper. “Tell Liam to pull over now, or I will call 911 and report that I’m in a car with an unstable driver who is refusing to let me out. With the press already following us, that call will cost you a great deal more than a divorce settlement.”


    Grayson searched her eyes. He looked for some trace of the woman who used to bake him cookies, who used to wait up for him.


    He found only steel.


    He exhaled a slow, defeated breath. “Liam. Next exit.”


    Isolde didn’t wait. As the car slowed for the off-ramp, she pushed the door open before it had fully stopped. She didn’t look back. She stepped out onto the curb, straightened her zer, and walked back toward the building without a single falter in her stride.


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