Inside the conference room, I saw him first. Adrian sat at the table with the posture of a man who believed space belonged to him by default. He wore a charcoal suit I once pressed with careful hands, and he smiled with the same confident curve that used to signal a lie delivered without apology.
Beside him sat Lillian Moore, once his assistant, now his lover, her copper hair styled to demand attention she had not earned. Her gaze slid over me with a sharp curiosity that felt less like interest and more like appraisal.
At the far end of the table, Eleanor Walsh sat upright with regal stiffness, fingers wrapped around a designer handbag like a weapon. Her eyes narrowed the moment she saw me, her mouth already prepared for judgment. The three of them looked at me the way people look at a debt they resent having to acknowledge.
I did not sit when Adrian gestured toward an empty chair, because I refused to accept permission from a man who had broken vows like glass. I remained standing and let the silence speak first. I reminded myself that the last time I stood in a room with them, I walked out with a divorce decree and a scar I refused to turn into poetry.