Page 163 of Sin

Richard says, “I’ll move forward.”

We end the call and I lower the phone.

Wilder studies me from the couch. “You really don’t care?”

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

I search for anger. For pride. For masculine outrage. For anything. There’s nothing.

“No.”

“Damn.” He leans back. “That’s how you know, I guess.”

“How I know what?”

“That it was already done.”

I look down at my bare left hand.

“Yes,” I say. “It was.”

The divorce gets uglier before it gets better. Jenna doesn’t go quietly. Her first settlement demand is obscene. Her second is worse. Her mother gives three more interviews before Richard’s cease-and-desist finally scares someone with sense into taking her phone away.

For a week, headlines pulse like an infection.

CEO Affair Rocks Pleasure Product Empire

Sinclair Wife Speaks Out

Who Is Laurel Cross?

That one makes me put my fist through the drywall in my apartment.

Wilder, who happens to be there at the time, looks at the hole and says, “Well, that’s healthy.”

I tell him to get out. He doesn’t listen to me.

The shareholders demand assurances. Owen builds a conflict management plan so detailed it could qualify as a hostage negotiation. Tate handles the Sins launch with Laurel from a distance, through emails and carefully documented calls.

She doesn’t return to the office. Doesn’t answer my calls. Hell, she doesn’t even try to call me. Every update I get comes through other people.

I know she’s staying somewhere secure. That she hired the attorney I recommended. That she’s considering the job at Sex Activity Pro.. That she asked that I not be copied on certain emails unless legally necessary. That one nearly drops me. Not because it’s unfair. It’s entirely fair. But she’s drawing lines I should have drawn first. I respect them as much as I hate them.

By the third week, Jenna’s attorney becomes less theatrical. That happens after Richard requests a private meeting and slides a sealed folder across the table. I’m not there when it happens, so he tells me about it afterward.

“He showed her attorney the evidence?” Wilder asks later, sprawled across my couch like he’s moved in against my will.

“Enough of it,” I say.

“And?”

“And suddenly everyone became very interested in dignity.”

Wilder snorts. “Amazing what a six-month affair does for perspective.”

I stare at him.