5. The Bombshell
1205 Words
Dovey slumped into the chair across from Enid, his legs suddenly unable to support him. She looked nothing like the woman he'd married, nothing like the broken housewife who'd discovered his betrayal five years ago.
This Enid was a stranger—beautiful, powerful, and utterly in control.
"I don't understand," he said finally. "How did you build all this?"
"The same way you built your empire." She returned to her seat with her perfect her posture, and her expression unreadable. "Hard work, strategic thinking, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win."
"But you had nothing when you left. No money, no connections…"
"I had something you never gave me credit for." She leaned forward slightly. "Intelligence. And then, you gave me all the money I needed."
"The divorce settlement…:"
"Was enough to get me started, but not much more. Everything else, I earned." She pressed a button on the conference table, and a screen descended from the ceiling. Financial charts and graphs appeared, showing the meteoric rise of Knuckles Consulting Group.
"Four years," she continued. "That's how long it took me to build a company strong enough to compete with yours. One more year to surpass you entirely."
"Why tell me this? Why reveal yourself?"
"Because the anonymous destruction wasn't satisfying enough." Her eyes held a coldness he'd never seen before. "I wanted you to know it was me. I wanted you to understand that the woman you threw away came back stronger than you ever imagined."
Dovey stared at the financial projections. Her company's revenue was double what his had been at its peak. "What do you want from me?"
"Nothing you can give me. I already took what I wanted."
"My clients."
"Your reputation. Your financial security. Your peace of mind." She smiled. "Everything you took from me."
"I never meant for…"
"You never meant for me to fight back." She stood and walked to the windows. "You expected me to disappear quietly, use the press to tarnish your image which you can regain with connection. Or maybe send angry letters through my lawyer, eventually move on and forget what you did to my family's legacy."
"Enid, please…"
"Do you know what happened to Miriam's company after you gave her my family's assets?"
The change of subject caught him off guard. "What?"
"She ran it into the ground within eighteen months. All those resources you stole from me, were wasted. My grandfather's company, dissolved for parts and sold to pay her debts."
He'd known Miriam was struggling, but he hadn't realized the extent of her failure. "I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't. You were too busy trying to salvage your own reputation after our divorce became public." She turned back to face him. "But I knew. I made it my business to know everything about both of you."
"Where is she now?"
"Irrelevant. She served her purpose in my revenge. Now she's just another failed businesswoman in a city full of them."
"And what about me? What's my purpose in your revenge?"
"You're the main event." She pressed another button, and new documents appeared on the screen. "These are the contracts for your three remaining major clients. All of them have termination clauses that can be triggered with thirty days' notice."
His blood turned to ice. "You can't be serious."
"I'm having lunch with the CEO of Morrison Tech next week. Dinner with the Hendricks Group the week after. By the end of the month, you'll have no major clients left."
"That will destroy everything I've worked for."
"Yes." Her voice was matter-of-fact, as if she was discussing what to choose from a food menu. "It will."
"Enid, please. We can work something out. Some kind of partnership, or…"
"There's nothing to work out. This isn't a negotiation."
"What about what we had? Our marriage meant something right? What about the last night, didn’t it mean anything at all?."
"Our marriage meant everything to me." For the first time, real emotion crept into her voice. "Which is why your betrayal hurt so deep. And that night was…"
The conference room door opened, and Patricia entered carrying a tablet cutting off the conversation. "Ms. Knuckles, your 3 o'clock is here."
"Already?" Enid glanced at her watch. "Thank you, Patricia. We're almost finished here."
As Patricia turned to leave, a small voice called out from the hallway. "Mama? Can I come in now?"
Dovey's heart stopped because that was a child's voice, and not just any child but hers. Enid's eyes widened in what might have been panic, but she quickly composed herself.
"Just a moment, sweetheart," she called back.
"You have a child," Dovey whispered.
"Yes."
"How old?"
Enid hesitated for just a moment too long. "That's not your concern."
But the door was already opening wider, and a small boy ran into the room. He looked about four years old, with dark hair and green eyes that were unmistakably familiar.
He was wearing a small suit that matched his mother's professional attire, and he moved with the confident energy of a child who was used to being in adult spaces.
"Mama, I finished my reading," the boy announced, then noticed Dovey. "Oh. Hello."
Dovey couldn't breathe. The child looked exactly like him at that age. The same dark hair, the same green eyes, the same stubborn chin. Even the way he stood, with his hands clasped behind his back, mirrored Dovey's own childhood posture.
"Maven," Enid said carefully, "this is Mr. Addams. He was just leaving."
Maven. The name registered somewhere in Dovey's shocked mind, but all he could focus on was the child's face. His face, miniaturized and softened by youth and innocence.
"How old is he?" Dovey asked again, his voice barely audible.
"Maven, go wait with Patricia," Enid instructed. "We'll go to the park in a few minutes."
"But Mama…"
"Now, sweetheart."
The boy left reluctantly, casting curious glances back at Dovey. When the door closed behind him, the silence in the conference room was deafening.
"He is four years old right?" Dovey asked, but not in a question tone manner.
Enid lifted her chin defiantly. "I told you before, it is none of your business."
"He is mine right? He's mine, I know that in my guts."
"Then your guts has some issues." She walked to her chair and began collecting her files. "Maven is the most important thing in my life. Everything I've built, everything I've accomplished, has been for him."
"I have a son."
"You have nothing." Her voice was ice-cold. "Maven doesn't know you exist, and he never will."
"You can't keep him from me."
"Watch me." She headed toward the door, then paused. "Oh, and Dovey? If you try to claim parental rights or interfere in any way with my son's life, I'll destroy what's left of your company so thoroughly that you'll be lucky to get a job managing a coffee shop."
"Enid, please…"
But she was already gone, leaving him alone in the conference room with so many thoughts.
He had a son. A four-year-old boy who looked exactly like him.
And the woman who'd given birth to that boy had just declared war on everything he had left.
- Writer
