Chapter 6 - The Price of Calling Me Unstable
Julian’s next mistake was putting his story in writing.
He sent an email to several people connected to Lumen & Pine, including a board adviser and a supplier I had known for seven years.
He described me as emotionally unstable.
He suggested I had become incapable of making sound business decisions.
Then he offered to serve as a temporary point of contact while I “recovered from an unfortunate personal episode.”
Mara forwarded it to Celia before I finished reading the second paragraph.
For a long moment, I could not move.
The wedding had humiliated me.
The invoices had frightened me.
This was different.
He was trying to reach into the place where I had built my own name and replace it with his version of me.
Renee called.
“Don’t answer him directly.”
“I want to.”
“I know.”
“I built this company before he learned how to pronounce half our ingredients.”
“Then let the people who know that say so through their actions.”
The board adviser called a meeting.
I went in expecting pity.
Instead, he asked Mara to present our current financial position, confirmed my authority, and recommended a documented review of every relationship involving Julian’s firm.
Nobody asked me to prove I was sane.
They asked practical questions.
I nearly cried with gratitude.
Meanwhile, the independent accountants confirmed that several payments required recovery efforts. There were unsupported charges, duplicated expenses, and records that did not match the services described.
The total was substantial.
It was also specific.
Specific was better than terrifying.
Celia’s team sent demands, notifications, and preservation instructions. The lender confirmed that no guarantee from me had been accepted and that no loan had closed on the proposed terms.
Julian’s acquisition plan stalled.
His fury arrived in a series of voice messages.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“You’re ruining years of work.”
“You owe me a conversation.”
I listened to the last one only once.
“I made you look good, Vivian. People liked you better when you had me.”
I sat alone in my office after everyone left.
For three years, I had mistaken his confidence for certainty.
Hearing it stripped of charm, I realized how often he had needed me to doubt myself.
Nora found me there.
She had brought takeout and two plastic forks.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then stare at noodles while I eat. That’s also friendship.”
Halfway through dinner, I told her what he had said.
She looked around my office.
At the framed first product label.
The photograph of our original three-person team.
The shelf of bottles that had taken years to get right.
“Interesting,” she said.
“What?”
“That he thinks he made you look good.”
I laughed, then unexpectedly started crying.
Nora moved her chair beside mine.
“I feel stupid,” I admitted.
“You were deceived.”
“I ignored things.”
“Then you’ll learn from them. You don’t have to turn being hurt into another job you failed.”
Two days later, Julian requested a private meeting.
Celia advised that any discussion happen with counsel present.
He agreed, then called me anyway.
I answered because I wanted to hear his voice without being afraid of it.
“Viv,” he said softly.
The old voice.
The kitchen voice.
The one that had made three years feel safe.
“I miss you.”
I looked at the notes on my desk.
“Do you miss me, or do you miss access?”
“That’s cruel.”
“Is it?”
He sighed.
“I made mistakes.”
“Name one.”
Silence.
“The earrings,” he said eventually.
“What about them?”
“I shouldn’t have let her wear them.”
“And Brooke?”
“We got carried away.”
“And the documents?”
“I was going to explain.”
“And the email saying I couldn’t run my company?”
“You weren’t listening to me.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was again.
My refusal had become his permission.
“We’ll speak through our lawyers,” I said.
“Vivian, wait.”
May you like
I ended the call.
For the first time, the silence afterward felt like something I owned.
