He looked suddenly younger in the worst way—not innocent, but underdeveloped, like a man whose confidence had been leased from the room around him and was now being repossessed piece by piece. “You’re my wife,” he said, as if that explained everything and erased everything at once.
“No,” I said. “I was.”
Then I nodded to Maris.
She handed the first packet to each board member. It contained the full investigative summary: expense misuse, falsified entertaining reports, inappropriate relationship exposure with a direct-report line through marketing, retaliatory staffing decisions, deleted-device communications recovered under company policy, and the audio transcript from the loading-bay security feed behind the gala hall. Ryan’s voice, clear enough to make several people at the table sit slightly straighter:
You smell like sour milk.
You’re swollen.
You embarrass me.
I’m the CEO. That’s your job.
You’re ugly and useless.
Don’t let anyone see you with me.
The transcript was six pages long.