Chapter 7: Breaking News
1298 Words
Chapter 7: Breaking News
(Kieran's POV)
The leather booth at Meridian was soft enough to sleep in, but I was too agitated to notice.
"She just sat there," I said, stabbing at a piece of roasted potato, "completely unbothered. Like I was some random vendor off the street. Not a partner. Not someone whose family has done business with the Lowells for fifteen years."
Dominic sat across from me, cutting his steak with the focused precision of a surgeon. He said nothing.
"And that guy," I continued, pointing my fork for emphasis. "That secretary of hers. Sebastian something. Standing there with his arms crossed, smirking at me like I was a joke. Who does he think he is?"
Dominic's knife stopped moving.
"What guy?" he asked. His voice was quiet.
I blinked. "Her assistant. Sebastian Moore, I think. Young, well-dressed. The kind of guy who clearly didn't need the job - too polished, too comfortable around her. They looked like they'd known each other forever."
Dominic set down his fork and knife with a small, precise click against the china.
"How close?" he asked.
"Very," I said, not thinking much of it. "He practically finished her sentences. She let him."
I watched Dominic pick up his wine glass and take a slow sip. His expression was blank. Too blank.
"Anyway," I pressed on, "the point is, I need that contract. The board is already breathing down my neck about the quarterly projections, and if Lowells pulls their business entirely-"
"Then bid for it," Dominic said flatly.
"I don't want to bid for it! I want it secured!" I leaned forward. "Look. You still have some pull with her family, don't you? You were married to her for two years. Surely you can-"
I stopped myself mid-sentence.
Dominic's eyes lifted from his glass and fixed on me. A gaze that seemed capable of killing me.
Right. He had signed the divorce papers. Showing up at the Lowells estate now would get him thrown out on his ear, probably with Caroline's blessing.
"Never mind," I muttered. "Forget I said that."
The silence stretched. I shifted in my seat and reached for my own wine.
"So," I tried, nodding toward his plate. "You're not hungry? You've barely touched the steak."
Dominic didn't answer. He lifted the white linen napkin from his lap, pressed it once to the corner of his mouth, and placed it neatly on the table beside his half-eaten plate.
Then he stood up.
"Dominic-"
He was already walking toward the exit, jacket buttoned, hands in his pockets, moving through the restaurant like the rest of us weren't there.
I stared at the space where he'd been sitting. Then I looked at the bill sitting in the leather folder at the edge of the table.
Two prime cut steaks. A bottle of Bordeaux. Appetizers.
I picked it up, looked at the total, and set it back down.
*Dominic Ashford,* I thought, pulling out my card with a long-suffering sigh, *you are genuinely the worst person I know.*
(Caroline's POV)
Dinner at the Lowells estate was roast lamb with rosemary potatoes and a green salad. Mrs. Henderson had clearly put effort into it. The table was set beautifully, candles lit, everything warm and deliberate.
I sat down, moved the food around my plate, and managed about four bites before I gave up.
"You've barely eaten," my mother said, watching me.
"I'm not hungry," I said.
She exchanged a look with my father across the table. I pretended not to notice.
I excused myself early and went upstairs.
My room was quiet. I changed out of my work clothes and sat on the edge of the bed, still in my thoughts.
*He almost died because of you.*
Kieran's words had been rattling around in my head all afternoon. I couldn't make sense of them. Dominic was never sick. Never weak. He was a wall. Walls don't get sick.
I knocked on the door frame. Mrs. Henderson appeared in the hallway a moment later, wiping her hands on her apron.
"Come in," I said.
She settled into the armchair near the window with the ease of someone who had sat in that spot a thousand times before.
"What's bothering you, sweetheart?" she asked.
"When Dominic and I were married," I said carefully, "do you remember him ever being seriously ill? Hospitalized? Anything like that?"
Mrs. Henderson's brow furrowed. She thought about it genuinely, which I appreciated.
"Ill?" she repeated. "That man?" She shook her head slowly. "Caroline, he barely came home. When he did, he'd walk through the door, go straight upstairs, change his shirt, and leave again. I never once saw him look unwell. He always looked..." she paused, choosing her word, "untouchable."
There it was.
"So he wasn't sick," I said.
"Not that I ever saw." She leaned forward slightly, her voice softening. "Don't let whatever Kieran Sterling said get under your skin. That man has his own agenda. You don't owe Dominic Ashford one more minute of your worry."
I nodded. But the nod was hollow.
She was right that Dominic wasn't sick. But that meant the answer was simpler and worse. He hadn't been staying away because of illness or exhaustion or stress. He stayed away because he didn't want to come home. Because coming home meant coming back to me.
I had spent two years cooking dinners that went cold, leaving the hall light on past midnight, telling myself he was busy, telling myself he was complicated, telling myself I just needed to try harder.
He wasn't complicated. He just didn't want to be there.
I pressed my fingers against my eyes for a moment.
"Thank you, Mrs. Henderson," I said.
She patted my knee and stood up to leave.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
A message from Sebastian.
**Cara, have you seen the news?!**
Before I could type a reply, three more messages came in rapid succession, each one more agitated than the last. The final one was just a string of exclamation marks and a link.
Mrs. Henderson paused at the door, read my expression, and quietly let herself out.
I unlocked my phone.
The notifications had already stacked up - entertainment sites, financial news, gossip columns, all of them running the same story. I tapped the first link.
The headline loaded.
*BILLIONAIRE DOMINIC ASHFORD'S SECRET AFFAIR EXPOSED - MYSTERY LOVER SIX WEEKS PREGNANT.*
The photograph beneath it was clear and professionally framed. Faye Carter, in a soft cashmere coat, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders, walking into a private obstetrics clinic on the Upper East Side. Dominic's hand was at the small of her back. The caption read: *Ashford Group CEO accompanies first love to prenatal appointment.*
I scrolled.
There were more photos. Different angles. The date stamp in the corner of each image.
I knew that date.
On that date, I had been home. I had made dinner. I had waited.
He had told me he was in meetings.
I kept reading. Six weeks pregnant. The clinic was one of the most exclusive in Manhattan. The story had multiple sources, multiple photographs. It wasn't a rumor. It had been happening the whole time, right underneath me, while I smiled and waited and believed the best of him.
A dull, heavy pain bloomed low in my abdomen.
I set the phone face-down on the mattress.
The room felt very still.
*He chose her. He was always choosing her. And I was just furniture in a house he hated coming home to.*
The pain sharpened. My vision blurred at the edges, the bedside lamp bleeding soft and strange.
Before the darkness engulfed everything, I had only one thought.
I will get my revenge. I'm going to make them pay for this-both of them.
- Writer
