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As I was wrong about so many things. Fletcher turned out to be controlling in ways that took years to fully understand. It started small.
Suggestions about my clothes. My friends. The way I spoke in public.
Convinced me that my family was beneath his social circle. Made me financially dependent on his monthly allowance. What I had mistaken for protection was actually possession.
For 25 years, I had lived as Fletcher’s wife, playing the role he had scripted for me. I learned to be quiet at dinner parties. To dress appropriately for his business functions.
To ask permission before spending money or making plans. I became the kind of woman who apologized for existing too loudly in spaces where I wasn’t wanted. But I never forgot Julian.
I carried our love story inside me like a secret wound that never quite healed. I kept his grandmother’s emerald ring hidden in my jewelry box, though I told myself I would return it someday when the pain wasn’t so sharp. I read the business news religiously.
Following his career from a distance as he built his own empire without his parents’ help. I celebrated his successes and mourned his failures from afar. Always wondering if he ever thought of me.
Now, sitting in Fletcher’s car as he raged about the humiliation I had caused him, I clutched Julian’s business card and felt something I hadn’t experienced in decades. Hope. Whatever had brought him back into my life—whatever cosmic joke or cruel twist of fate had made him the new CEO of Fletcher’s most important client—it felt like a second chance I had never dared to dream of.
The business card felt like fire in my hands as I sat in our bedroom that night, staring at the simple white rectangle with silver embossing. Julian Blackwood. Chief Executive Officer.
Blackwood Industries. A phone number. An email address.
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