Chapter 9 - The Broken Boss
The boardroom cleared out until only Vincent and I remained standing beneath the recessed lights.
The city of Chicago sprawled out beneath the glass windows, cold, massive, and indifferent to the wreckage of our personal lives.
Vincent stood by the window, his shoulders slumped, looking like a man who had survived a war only to find his home in ashes.
He slowly walked toward me, his expensive leather shoes clicking softly against the floor.
He didn't look like a feared mob boss; he looked like a beggar approaching an altar.
"Claire," he whispered, his voice cracked and hollow. "Emma... how is Emma?"
"She is safe," I answered, keeping my arms crossed, maintaining the impenetrable barrier between us.
"Her fever broke two days ago. She is coloring pictures at Julian's cottage."
"Can I... may I see her?" he asked, tears welling in his red-rimmed eyes, threatening to spill over his dark lashes.
"No, Vincent," I said softly, the words cutting through the air like a razor blade.
"You don't get to walk back into her life just because you solved a corporate problem."
Vincent sank onto the edge of the conference table, burying his face in his hands, his broad frame shaking with silent, devastating sobs.
"I was so blind, Claire," he wept, his voice muffled by his fingers.
"I thought I was being honorable. I thought I was fixing the past. I didn't see that she was manipulating me... I didn't see that I was destroying everything that mattered."
"You chose to be blind, Vincent," I said, refusing to let sympathy erode my resolve.
"Every time your phone rang, you made a conscious choice to put another woman before your wife and child."
"You left Emma shivering in a hospital bed because Sophia claimed she was scared of the dark."
"A child never forgets who was there when the room was cold."
Vincent looked up, his face pale and wet with tears, staring at the empty ring finger on my left hand.
"I signed over fifty-one percent of the company voting rights to you today, Claire," he whispered.
"I don't care about Moretti Enterprises anymore. Take the hotels, take the shipping, take every dollar in the vaults."
"Just please... don't take my family away from me."
"I am not taking your family, Vincent," I replied, picking up my leather briefcase.
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"You threw us away. If you ever want to earn the right to be Emma's father again, you will have to rebuild yourself from the foundation up."
I walked out of the boardroom, leaving him alone in the high, silent tower, with nothing to keep him company except the echo of his own regret.
