Chapter 3

He leaned down, his lips close to my ear.

"If you don't show up at that press conference, the next time you visit them, there'll be nothing there."

He straightened up and adjusted his cuffs, slow and deliberate.

"Some prices you can't afford to pay."

I clenched my fists.

"Ethan." I stood up and met his eyes. "I'll step aside."

His hands went still.

I took a deep breath. "I'm leaving. The Mrs. Grant seat—give it to her. Is that enough?"

The room went quiet.

I waited for his reaction.

Rage, a sneer, crueler words—I didn't care. Any of it.

After all, this outcome should have made everyone happy.

He'd get what he wanted. Lily would get what she wanted.

And I'd finally stop acting.

But Ethan just fell silent for a few seconds, then laughed.

"Leave? You have no friends, no family, no job. Where exactly would you go?"

He reached out and gripped my chin.

"Isn't this good enough? There are things you just need to turn a blind eye to. Then we're even."

Even. He and I would never be even.

There had been only one month left before the classified report from that year could be unsealed.

I could have laid the truth in front of him. Told him I had never betrayed him.

But now, I didn't want to anymore.

Nothing. That was how five years ended for me.

Lily sniffled softly, her voice thin and delicate.

"Ethan, don't be like this..."

She tilted her face up toward me.

"Emma, I really never meant to come between you two. Could you please take that statement down? The comments online are so awful—my parents are terrified..."

"Take it down?"

I looked at her.

"Without that statement, you'd have stayed 'Ethan Grant's assistant' forever. Now the whole world knows who you are. Isn't that what you've always wanted?"

Lily was instantly speechless.

Ethan pulled her behind him.

That posture—the "I will not let anyone hurt her" stance—was more real than anything he'd done for me in five years.

"Emma Reed."

His voice was like distant thunder before a storm.

"I'll say this one last time. I'm not asking. Figure it out."

He wrapped his arm around Lily's shoulder and turned to leave.

I watched the door close and suddenly felt so tired.

When I married him, I thought he was my safe harbor.

In the end, even my dead parents were dragged from their rest and turned into leverage against me.

Turns out the storm itself was the harbor all along.