Page 178 of Sin

I was not that man.

I wanted you, and I let that wanting become bigger than what was right.

Then I fell in love with you, and somehow that made me both better and worse.

Better because loving you made me want to tell the truth. Worse because by the time I admitted the truth, you were already standing inside the wreckage with me.

I hate that.

I hate that your name was dragged into my failures. I hate that strangers decided they had the right to judge you, insult you, threaten you, and reduce you to the worst thing they thought they knew about you. I hate that you had to move because your home no longer felt safe. I hate that you had to sit in a lawyer’s office while the internet learned your name. I hate that I couldn’t come to you. I hate that staying away was the responsible thing.

I have never hated responsibility more.

But I stayed away because you asked for distance.

Because your attorney was right.

Because Owen was right.

Because for once, loving you could not mean reaching for you just because I was in pain.

That’s been the hardest lesson of my life and I’m learning it late.

I know that.

I am trying to learn it anyway.

The divorce is moving forward. Jenna will be taken care of. Fairly. Privately. Without revenge. She hurt me too; in ways I did not know until recently. I found out she had someone else years ago. I expected to feel rage. I didn’t. That was how I knew, maybe more clearly than anything else, that our marriage had been over for a long time.

That doesn’t excuse what I did. Her betrayal does not erase mine. Pain is not a ledger, and I am not interested in balancing accounts with cruelty. I didn’t expose her affair and I won’t. I know what it feels like to have private shame made public, and I will not become the kind of man who uses pain as a weapon simply because someone else aimed first.

The settlement is fair. She wanted blood. Half the company. More money than I could calculate without laughing or breaking something. My attorney did his job. Hers did hers. Eventually, everyone remembered that a marriage ending does not need to become a public execution. SINsual Adult Toys is still mine. The house is no longer ours. I suppose it hasn’t been for years.

I moved into an apartment near the office. It is expensive, sterile, and completely without personality. Wilder says it looks like a place where feelings go to be audited. He’s not wrong.

I sleep badly there when I sleep at all.

I keep thinking about your apartment. Not the old one. The one I don’t know. The one you had to find because of me. I think about whether you feel safe there. Whether you have enough locks. Whether you sleep with the window open. Whether you’re eating.

I wonder if you hate me.

Some days, I think you should. Then I hate myself for hoping you don’t.

I heard about Sex Activity Pro. I want to say I hope you don’t take it. That would be honest.

It would also be selfish.

So here’s the better truth, the one I am trying to be strong enough to give you:

You should do what is right for you. Not for me. Not for SINsual Adult Toys. Not because staying proves anything. Not because leaving proves anything.

You earned that offer. Every part of it. Your brilliance earned it. Your work earned it. Your vision earned it.

I’ve watched rooms full of powerful people stop and listen when you speak. I’ve watched you take an idea and shape it into something bold, beautiful, and commercially dangerous in the best possible way. I’ve watched you defend your designs with clarity, humor, and a complete inability to tolerate stupidity.

You are extraordinary.

You were extraordinary before I touched you.