Chapter 18
Julian sat alone in his car, parked across from the towering glass building that now bore Katherine’s name—K.Clarke Strategies. It glowed in the evening light, elegant, alive, successful.
Her name was everywhere these days.
On magazine covers. In interviews. On panels next to global executives.
Every time he saw her face, something in his chest pulled tighter, like the thread of regret refusing to snap.
He hadn’t spoken to her since the summit. Hadn’t texted again. She didn’t block him, but her silence was the clearest message she could’ve sent.
She wasn’t angry.
She was finished.
Tonight, Julian had no plan. No grand gesture. He just sat there, watching the glass doors, wondering if she was still inside. If she was laughing at something Noah said. If she had already gone home to a life that no longer had room for him.
When the lights on the top floor switched off, he didn’t wait.
He drove off.
Because he couldn’t face the reality that someone else might be the one walking her to the car, holding her hand, listening to the little things he never took time to hear.
At home, he pulled off his tie and poured himself a drink, but didn’t touch it. Instead, he sat on the couch with an old photo album in his lap. Inside were a few pictures Katherine had once forced him to take—awkward smiles at family events, one blurry photo from a beach day she had planned that he never really wanted to go on.
He flipped to the back and found a single photo he didn’t remember taking.
Katherine, sitting by a window with a book in her hand. Sunlight in her hair. A soft, distracted smile on her face.
She looked happy.
Peaceful.
Unaware of the camera.
Unaware of him.
He closed the album slowly and let out a long breath.
She had looked like that a lot during their marriage.
But he’d been too blind to notice.
The next morning, Julian stepped into the boardroom at Nash Group, only to find an emergency meeting underway. One of their biggest clients had pulled out. The stock had dipped overnight.
And someone had leaked a memo blaming internal mismanagement—hinting that under his leadership, the company had become unstable.
He knew what this was.
His world was shifting, just like hers had.
Except she had risen with hers.
He was starting to fall.
And maybe… he deserved it.
Because five years ago, he thought he was too good for the woman who gave him everything.
Now she was too far above for him to ever reach again.