Page 59 of Iridescent
He glances at the screen showing our plummeting position before returning his gaze to me. “The name is down nine percent and still sliding. Compliance is reviewing whether the leak crosses the line into material nonpublic information. If it does, the name goes restricted and we’re done trading it today. If it doesn’t, we still have a window before the bell. We can trim exposure now and take the hit, or hedge the downside and hold overnight while Legal gets in front of it.”
My thumb finds the edge of my watch—pure habit. I barely notice I’m doing it until the metal of the bezel presses cool against my skin. “How much room do we have before this gets uglier?”
“Not much,” Adrian says. “If the sell-off accelerates into the close, tomorrow gets harder. If Compliance restricts the name, we lose the option to move at all.”
“Then nobody touches the name until Compliance clears it,” I say. “Risk, give me worst-case projections by the close and again before the open. Legal, get in front of the board. Have hedge options ready the second we’re clear.”
A few heads nod. Adrian is already tapping out messages, issuing follow-ups before I’ve even finished speaking. Someone on the speakerphone asks about liquidity. Someone else answers. Numbers. Timelines. Exposure. The room keeps moving.
I don’t.
All I hear is her.
That question.
That brutal, taunting question still carving through me from last night.
Tell me, Xavier—was it also part of your plan to kill me for good measure?
The knot of my tie bites into my throat. I drag in a breath and get almost none of it.
Now I can’t stop thinking you want me dead, Xavier. That you want me out of the way so you can be with the woman you’ve always loved.
Fuck.
I hook a finger under my tie and yank it loose. It makes no difference. I still can’t drag in a full fucking breath.
My wife thinks I want her dead. Thinks I don’t love her. Because of me, she had to put her fists up again. Because of me, she cried.
I shut my eyes for a beat.
The whole thing keeps replaying like a punishment I earned and can’t outrun.
I can still see the faint sheen on the surface of the bisque I pushed toward her. The look on her face. The exact moment confusion tightens her features, the way her gaze flicks from the bowl to my face, searching for sense wherethere is none.
For seven years, I have guarded that allergy like it’s my own goddamn lifeline. I have snatched plates away, interrogated chefs about cross-contamination, carried an EpiPen in every jacket I own. I know how quickly it can go bad. I know how little time there is once it starts. I know better.
And still, last night, I pushed that bowl toward my wife without checking what was in it.
I looked her in the eye and told her I forgot.
I didn’t forget.
I was too busy drowning in my own shit to notice what was right in front of me.
For weeks now, guilt has been eating through me from the inside out, tearing open everything I’ve spent years trying to bury. I haven’t been able to think straight.
It was there when I told her we had to cancel our anniversary trip because of work.
It was there when I lied and said I was with my cousin instead of telling her where I’d really been.
It was there when I lay in bed pretending to sleep while she locked herself in the bathroom and ran the faucet so I wouldn’t hear her cry after yet another negative test. I heard every broken sound anyway and stayed where I was, like a fucking coward—letting it gut me because some twisted part of me thought I deserved it.
When morning came, it was still there. I stayed glued to my phone, pretending I didn’t feel her eyes on me. It followed us out of the house. Sat between us in the car. Clung to me even when she gave me a way back to her—and I was selfish enough to hope maybe we’d be okay.
Dinner was where it all went to hell. Isabel walked in. Yara went still beside me. My mother wouldn’t shut up.
By the time my phone lit up under the table, I was already losing my grip. One look at that message—at the receipts of what I’d done—and whatever control I had left gave way. After that, the noise in my head drowned out the woman sitting right in front of me.
