“I am starting a new design firm called Keystone Studio,” I told them. “I want you to be the founding partners with actual equity in the company.”
They were stunned that I knew exactly which parts of the Waterfront project they had designed. I told them I was done rewarding the wrong values and wanted to build something honest.
Simon’s mother visited me a week later, looking older and less certain than before. She tried to tell me I was being unfair by embarrassing her son in public.
“He lived with me for years without ever asking who I was because the version he had was convenient,” I told her. She eventually admitted she had misread me, but I corrected her by saying she simply measured me by what she valued.
The divorce was handled through cold legal documents and valuation dates. We had one final meeting in a boardroom where Simon finally asked why I never told him the truth.
“I needed to know if you could love me without the money,” I said. He had no answer for that, and the lawyers quickly finished the paperwork.