Chapter 2 - THE EMPTY CHAIR AT THE DINNER TABLE
Adrian Moretti had never understood silence.
In his world, silence meant fear, calculation, or surrender.
When Claire stopped answering him, he assumed she was angry.
When her attorney refused his meeting request, he assumed she was negotiating.
When Daniel told him to leave her alone, he assumed his adviser had lost his nerve.
Then he opened Claire's old study.
The room smelled faintly of lavender and paper.
Her telescope was gone.
Her astronomy books were gone.
Even the ridiculous ceramic moon she'd bought during their honeymoon had disappeared.
Adrian stood in the doorway.
He had given Claire a diamond necklace worth more than most people earned in a decade.
She'd left it behind.
He had given her a Bentley.
She'd left that too.
But she'd taken the ceramic moon.
That disturbed him more than he wanted to admit.
Daniel appeared behind him.
“Your attorney called.”
Adrian didn't turn.
“What did she say?”
“Claire won't meet.”
“Then I'll go to Boston.”
Daniel's expression hardened.
“No.”
Adrian turned slowly.
“Excuse me?”
“Don't.”
The word hung between them.
Daniel had worked for Adrian for twelve years. He had negotiated hostile acquisitions, survived threats, and watched his employer make men twice his age tremble.
But he had never spoken to Adrian like this.
Adrian stepped closer.
“Remember who you're talking to.”
“I do,” Daniel replied. “That's why I'm saying it.”
Adrian stared.
Daniel continued.
“You can't send men after your wife because she filed for divorce.”
“She is my wife.”
“She is a person.”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“Watch yourself.”
Daniel didn't move.
“Claire didn't disappear. She left. There's a difference.”
For a long moment, Adrian said nothing.
Then he looked toward the empty desk.
“What does she want?”
Daniel sighed.
“She told you.”
Adrian glanced at the letter lying beneath the wedding ring.
Now I choose myself.
He read those words every night.
He still couldn't understand how five years of marriage could end with a single sentence.
Daniel watched him.
“Adrian, you didn't lose her the day she boarded that plane.”
Adrian looked up.
“You lost her every time you made her feel replaceable.”
That evening, Adrian called Sophia.
She answered from her penthouse in Manhattan.
“Darling, I was beginning to wonder where you went.”
He closed his eyes.
“Claire left.”
Silence.
Then Sophia laughed softly.
“Oh, Adrian. She'll come back.”
He stared.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because women like Claire don't walk away from men like you.”
Adrian felt something cold settle in his chest.
The sentence sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
May you like
It sounded like something he would have said a month earlier.
For the first time, he hated hearing it.
