Chapter 2: Divorce Decree Signed
1292 Words
The office smelled of eucalyptus and cash.
Ethan sat in the center of the room, where glass walls clanged out over the blinding spires of midtown Manhattan. The skyline shone in autumn light, sharp and gold, but it held no warmth. The sleek furniture of the conference room—chrome edges, dark wood, a single bonsai—was as cold as the man who sat in it.
Across the glass desk, Miles Dorn fastened his cufflinks and tossed a stack of papers in the direction of Ethan with the clinical efficiency of a mortician offering a last cadaver.
"It's done," Miles said, rattling the top sheet. "As of nine twenty-eight this morning, you and Celeste Kensington-Bane are no longer bound by law. You are once more a free man."
Ethan was unmoving.
Miles cleared his throat and settled in, clasping his hands between his knees. "Fourth time's the charm?"
Ethan's lip snarled—but not into a smile. "You rehearsed that?"
"I had options." Miles gave a tired smirk, but it dissolved beneath Ethan's icy glare. "Would you like to review the previous terms? Not that there's much to discuss. She waived all rights to alimony. Again."
"Of course she did," Ethan breathed.
He sat back in the leather chair. The silence that followed was not awkward. It was practiced. Expected. These were the kinds of silences you built up from years of signing away pieces of your life.
Miles pushed the papers another inch. "Just have to sign and initial the last page."
Ethan didn't reach for the pen. Instead, he looked up at the wall-mount television in the corner of the room.
There she was.
Celeste. Stately in navy-blue sheath dress, pearls at her throat, surrounded by aides as she came onto the Capitol Hill stage. Across the bottom of the image, a headline crawled: "SENATOR-ELECT CELESTE KENSINGTON ADDRESSES EDUCATION REFORM."
The people in the background held signs. Mothers for Celeste. Equality Now. Future First.
She smiled on camera—inexplicable, elegant, everything the public had dreamed of. The piano accompaniment to the work was subdued, respectful. It was a coronation.
"Do you mind turning that off?" Miles asked, his hand around the remote.
"No." Ethan didn't bat an eye. "Leave it."
Celeste's voice bounced off the walls. Steady, firm. "We have to invest in the communities that have been left behind for too long. Our public schools are not a cost. They are our public trust."
Applause.
Ethan's fist tightened on the table.
Miles coughed. "They love her."
"They always did.".
The camera cut to a montage: Celeste helping paint a mural, embracing a sobbing mother in Detroit, talking with fervent intensity into a microphone. In each cut, she had appeared transcendent—free from taint or shadow.
Ethan was not included in any of them.
"She's rewritten the narrative already," Ethan breathed. "I'm a footnote. If that."
"To be fair, you requested it quiet."
"I financed her campaign. I got her to half that room. I wrote her damn policy playbook."
Miles didn't flinch.
Ethan at last lowered his eyes from the screen and glared down at the contract in front of him. His name. Her name. Four pages of dry text outlining the end of five years, under the heading of "irreconcilable differences."
A convenient catch-all that said nothing and covered everything.
He took hold of the pen.
And then, without signing, he set it back down.
“I’ll have a courier bring it,” he said. “Later.”
Miles gave a small nod. “Of course.”
Ethan stood, buttoning his charcoal-gray coat. As he turned toward the door, the television behind him cut to a panel discussion. A commentator laughed, “You know what they say about the Kensington Curse, right? Any woman who marries Ethan Bane becomes a powerhouse—after she leaves.”
Laughter.
"Maybe he should start charging tuition."
Ethan's shoulders braced.
Miles, uncomfortable, picked up the remote and muted the screen.
"You know that's not right," he attempted.
"But it's memorable," Ethan replied wryly. He then left.
---
The hallway outside was filled with city scenes, each pane of glass another reminder of how far he had built himself up—and how alone he now stood. The elevator dinged open and Ethan stepped inside.
Forty-three floors dropped into silence.
By the time he made it to the penthouse, he was no longer furious. Just. hollow.
The door slid shut behind him with a hiss and locked automatically. He unbuckled his coat and slung it over the back of the nearest chair. No servants today. He'd given them the week off.
He didn't want witnesses.
Jazz playing in the background again—same album by Coltrane replayed. This time, it was creased, slightly warped. The vinyl crackle was incorporated into the rhythm. He did not switch it off.
Ethan got up and went to the desk. He pulled open the drawer. There, beside a Montblanc pen and an unopened pack of thank-you cards, was the cream envelope he had written two nights ago.
The final letter.
He'd planned to leave it. To vanish. Quietly. No funeral. No legacy. Only the stillness of vanishing.
But fate had other plans. And a dead car battery in the middle of nowhere.
He did not open the letter. He did not have to. He knew it by heart.
He closed it back in the drawer and shut it gently.
And instead, he occupied the edge of the couch, swiveled around to view the skyline, and watched the city continue moving as if he weren't there. Yellow taxis. Helicopters scattered across the sky. Sirens in the distance. Life was rowdy, colorful, mercilessly alive.
And he was totally still.
His phone buzzed.
CAMILLE: Heard the message. Still standing?
He read the message. His thumb stayed suspended. He didn't reply. He deleted it.
Of all of his former wives, Camille was the one who had sliced the deepest. The one who'd left him not for fortune or glory, but because she just lost her love for him. She'd told him, in a voice he'd never heard that soft: "You drain everything you touch."
He'd tried to explain to her that she was mistaken. That she was bitter. That the problem lay with them.
But the statistics were condemning. Four marriages. Four walkaways. One constant.
Him.
He rose up from the couch and crossed over to the window. The sky had grayed to pewter, massive clouds blowing in from the west. Rain would arrive any minute now. The glass quivered slightly under the force of the wind, as though it, too, was tired of holding.
There was a loud tap on the door.
Ethan froze.
No one came here uninvited. Ever.
He inched his way over slowly, nearly hesitantly, and opened the door.
It wasn't human.
It was an envelope. Hand-delivered. A pale gray linen envelope with gold lettering and a wax seal: The Manhattan Journal.
He took it and opened it indoors.
It was a feature request. A profile. "The Man Behind the Empires." A radiant puff piece on Celeste's career would like to include him—briefly. A paragraph. A quote. Something to acknowledge "the silent support behind her success."
Ethan tossed it in the trash mindlessly.
Quiet friend. That was all he was anymore.
He returned to the window.
The clouds had gathered, and the first drops of rain tapped gently against the glass.
Somewhere in the apartment, the saxophone of Coltrane mourned like a soul in a jail cell that wanted out.
And Ethan Bane, once the man who knew everything, at last surrendered to himself—
He had no idea what came next.
But perhaps, perhaps, the journey wasn't finished with him.
---
- Writer
