Page 36 of Neglected By Her CEO Husband

There it was. The whole architecture, and the small old want at the bottom of it, and for one long beat I just looked at her, because I'd spent months mistaking this for loyalty.

More intense than the desire, though, was the jealousy. When she spoke of Maddie, her voice soured. Her words grew sharp edges like teeth.

"You're right that I need an equal," I said. "I had one. Actually, no. She's not an equal, she's too damn good for me. My brother was right about that."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting the ache that had been building there since Maddie had left. "Pay attention, because I'm only going to say this once, and then you're going to want to remember it accurately for your lawyers. Madeline ran the human half of this company for eight years without a title or a salary, and she never got one fact wrong and never burned one bridge, and the first night of this crisis she asked me, in the car, in thirty seconds, whether anyone had verified the accusation. And do you know what I did?" I laughed bitterly. "I scolded her for it. For reminding me of my humanity. For keeping the focus on the one thing that mattered."

"Damon—"

"No," I snarled. "You shut up and you listen. She is better than you and better than me in every way that has ever mattered to me, kinder, smarter where it counts, braver, and the only advantage you ever had over her is that you were willing to do this, and she would rather have died than hurt anyone. You're not her equal. You're not mine either, and not because I'm anything special. I was stupid and you farmed it."

I picked up the desk phone and called security, and I kept my eyes on her while I did it, and she stood very straight with her chin up and her hands quiet at her sides, recalculating all the way down.

"Dr. Cavendash is leaving the building," I told the desk. "Two escorts. She takes her coat and her purse and nothing else. Make sure she's locked out of all her accounts by the time she leaves the lot."

"Damon!"

"The phone stays with me." I set it on the blotter between us, face up, the thread still open. "It's evidence. Legal will image it within the hour, and the next time you see me, Emily, it will be in a courtroom, and I will be the most prepared witness you have ever faced in your life. You taught me that. Two a.m., remember."

Security took her out past the glass walls of the bullpen, every head turning, and she walked it with her spine straight and her face composed, because she was always going to walk it that way, and I stood in her office with her phone and the agency letter I never found and felt no triumph at all. Just the arithmetic, finally correct, and arriving months too late to spend where it mattered.

27

DAMON

Icould have let it end in her office, the phone imaged, the lawyers loosed, the clean corporate removal that never becomes a story.

I did it in the ballroom instead.

It took legal the better part of two weeks to be ready, and I spent them saying nothing publicly, which nearly killed me. They imaged the phone within the hour, the wire went back to an account that went back to Emily through one tissue-paper layer, and forensic accounting, once it knew what it was looking for, found the rest, the wording she'd sent Raina the night before the gala, the second payment released the morning the coverage held.

Counsel wanted a settlement and a sealed exit. I told them the first lie in this story had been told to three hundred people with cameras running, and the truth was going to get the same room.

Same ballroom, near enough. Same board, the same press we'd let in, a livestream to the same floors, witness for witness. I stood at the podium I'd held during the worst quarter of my life, and on the screen behind me, where we'd once run the data that was going to save us, I ran the texts.

Raina's name redacted at her lawyer's request, the hospital's name redacted, nothing else.

You could hear the room stop breathing.

"Months ago a frightened woman stood where I'm standing and accused our drug of putting her father in the hospital," I said. "Every word of it was scripted, paid for, and aimed, by our own head of research, who then volunteered to lead the response to the crisis she built. The science was never in danger. She knew that. It was the point. You cannot stage the debunking of a true accusation, in her words." I let that sit. "Brighton had been picking at our trials for months and the rest of what we found is now with prosecutors, and I won't get ahead of them. But the corporate crime is not the part I'm ashamed of."

I'd written the next part over and over and thrown every version away, and in the end I just said it.

"She found a family with a dying father and turned their worst year into a prop. A man watched his own daughter accuse a medicine on the news from a hospital bed, and the woman who arranged it slept fine, and for months I let that woman tell me who everyone was. Including my wife." The room was very still. "The worst decision I made this entire year wasn't made in a lab or a boardroom. It was made in a room like this one, the night I stood next to my wife while she was insulted, and said nothing, because the person doing the insulting had made herself indispensable."

I took a deep breath, looking into the camera. Looking at her, even though I knew there was a damn good chance she was never going to see this. This wasn't about hoping she would forgive me, or making some grandstanding attempt to get back in her good graces. I didn't deserve that. But I needed her to know, and this was the only way I could reach her. The only way I could make sure the world knew exactly who she was, and what a fool I'd been to throw her away.

"Madeline, my wife, was right about all of it," I said slowly. "The first night of this crisis she asked me whether anyone had verified the accusation. I want that on the record. This company was founded on the people it helps, the people who trust us with their health, and Madeline is the one who's always remembered that. She's the one who's always encouraged me to be the man I want to be. A man she deserves, even if I've fallen incredibly short of that over the last eight years."

Emily wasn't in the room. Her lawyers had advised her not to be, which I took as the first sound advice anyone had given her in a year. It didn't matter. Emily didn't matter. The room she'd played like an instrument heard every word, and the floors watched on the stream.

Maybe Maddie was watching somewhere too, but I doubted it. I needed to say it anyway.

"I want to be clear that while Dr. Cavendash was conspiring with Ms. Playne, the person who is truly responsible for this mess is me," I said calmly. "I am responsible for this company, and over the last several years, it has lost sight of its original purpose. The focus has been on profit, and that's on me. But things are going to change. I firmly believe our products are safe, and the independent trials will show that."

I paused, trying to stay focused when my mind was hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away. With Maddie, wherever she was.

"But I'm also inviting a fully independent panel to conduct a full audit and bring everything to light, so the public can be equally confident. And I want to also be clear that I hold no malice toward the Playne family. Ms. Playne was manipulated by a bad actor in her most difficult moment, and a trust has been set up to pay for all of Edward Playne's medical bills, as well as to make sure the family is able to move forward and beyond this mess comfortably. And privately. I'm going to ask that the press give them the time and space to do that."