Chapter 6 - The Night He Did Not Ask Me to Stay

The second time Vincent and I sat in the same room after I left, there was no mediator.

That was my choice.

By then, the divorce had moved into its final phase. Accountants had completed the property analysis. The Bell investigation had expanded. Isabella had obeyed the no-contact order after the apartment incident.

Nothing required Vincent and me to meet.

That was why I asked.

Mara stared at me over lunch.

“You want to speak with him alone?”

“Not alone. Public place. Tessa nearby.”

“What changed?”

“I’m tired of having every sentence translated through lawyers.”

“That is literally why lawyers exist.”

“I know.”

She studied me.

“Are you considering reconciliation?”

“No.”

The answer came quickly.

Too quickly.

Mara noticed.

“I’m considering understanding what I’m signing,” I corrected.

“That is not the same thing.”

“I know.”

We arranged thirty minutes in a private lounge at the Aurelius during daylight hours.

Neutral ground was impossible when your husband owned half the places where people could meet privately.

So I chose the one where I had successfully run the foundation event.

I wanted one memory in the building that belonged to me.

Vincent arrived first.

Of course he did.

He stood when I entered.

No jacket.

Dark trousers.

White shirt with the sleeves rolled once.

For a second, I remembered mornings in our kitchen when he looked less like the most feared casino owner in Las Vegas and more like a man who could not find the coffee filters.

That memory made me angry.

I sat.

He waited until I did before taking his chair.

Tessa remained outside the glass doors.

Vincent glanced toward her.

“You trust her.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

I had prepared questions.

They were written on a card in my purse.

I did not take it out.

“Why didn’t you fight the divorce?”

His expression changed slightly.

“Because you asked for it.”

“That never stopped you from fighting anything before.”

“No.”

“Then why?”

He looked at his hands.

“When I found your ring, my first thought was to find you.”

I stayed very still.

“I called Enzo. I told him to pull traffic cameras, card activity, property records. Everything.”

Cold moved through me.

Vincent met my eyes.

“Then I saw the emergency room report again.”

He swallowed.

“And I understood that if I used the same machinery I always used to get what I wanted, I would be proving you right.”

I hated how much that answer mattered.

“So you canceled it?”

“Yes.”

“Before Mara sent the no-surveillance terms?”

“Yes.”

I looked away.

Outside the lounge, hotel staff crossed the corridor with trays of coffee.

Ordinary life.

“What did you think when you saw the pregnancy report?”

His face tightened.

“I thought I had missed the most important phone call of my life because I was getting cake.”

The bluntness hurt.

I almost told him not to say it that way.

But there was no kinder version.

“I wanted to tell you in person,” I said.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

He waited.

“I bought a tiny pair of socks.”

His eyes closed.

I had never told anyone that.

Not Mara.

Not my doctor.

Not even myself, really.

“They were ridiculous,” I continued. “Yellow. Too small to look real.”

Vincent’s breathing changed.

“I put them in a gift box. I was going to make you open it after dinner.”

He looked at me.

“Where are they?”

“I threw them away.”

The pain on his face was immediate.

I let him have it.

Not as punishment.

As truth.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I know.”

It was the first time his apology did not make me want to throw something.

That frightened me.

I moved to the next question.

“Did you sleep with Isabella?”

“No.”

No hesitation.

“Did you kiss her?”

“No.”

“Did you want to?”

“No.”

“Did you know she wanted to replace me?”

He paused.

“Not consciously.”

“That is a coward’s answer.”

“Yes.”

I almost smiled.

Almost.

He continued.

“I knew she competed with you. I told myself it was personality. I told myself you were secure enough not to care.”

“You mean convenient enough.”

“Yes.”

There was the word.

I leaned back.

“What did she give you that I didn’t?”

Vincent looked surprised.

Then tired.

“Permission not to change.”

I did not expect that.

He spoke slowly.

“Isabella knew me before the casinos. Before my father died. Before every decision had consequences for hundreds of people. With her, I could keep being the man who solved problems by arriving with money, lawyers, or force.”

“And with me?”

“You asked whether the problem should be solved at all.”

“That sounds annoying.”

“It was.”

A laugh escaped me.

It was small and unwilling.

Vincent looked startled.

So was I.

The moment passed.

He continued.

“You asked me to come home. To take mornings off. To remember people’s birthdays. To go to Red Rock at sunrise.”

I looked down.

“I treated those things as optional because I thought the big things were what proved love.”

“Houses.”

“Security.”

“Money.”

“Private jets.”

His mouth twisted.

“You hated the jet.”

“I hated that you called it practical.”

“It was practical.”

“There are commercial flights.”

“Not practical.”

For three seconds, we sounded married.

The realization hit both of us.

Silence returned.

I asked the question I had avoided.

“Do you still love me?”

Vincent did not move.

“Yes.”

My chest tightened.

“Are you going to ask me not to sign?”

“No.”

That hurt more than if he had begged.

I frowned.

“Why not?”

“Because love is not permission.”

I looked at him.

He held my gaze.

“If I ask you to stay because I finally learned how badly I failed, I make my lesson your responsibility.”

The room blurred slightly.

I blinked.

“I don’t know who taught you to talk like this.”

“A therapist.”

I stared.

Vincent Moretti.

Therapy.

The world had become absurd.

He almost smiled.

“Enzo had the same reaction.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I was becoming unbearable.”

“You were always unbearable.”

“I have been told.”

This time, I did smile.

Then I hated myself less for it than I expected.

We had ten minutes left.

I asked about Bell.

Vincent explained that the redevelopment deal would likely collapse.

He would lose money.

Possibly a great deal.

He seemed unconcerned.

“Does that hurt your company?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re still cooperating?”

“Yes.”

“Because of me?”

“Partly.”

“What’s the other part?”

“Bell believed he could use a person as an asset. That thinking is familiar to me.”

I understood.

He was not only punishing Bell.

He was confronting himself.

Our time ended.

Vincent stood.

So did I.

For a second, we faced each other across a small table.

No lawyers.

No ring.

No cake.

No ghost of Isabella standing between us.

Just two people who had loved each other badly and were trying to tell the truth before paperwork made that love legally irrelevant.

“I have one request,” he said.

My body tensed.

“What?”

“When the divorce is final, let me know you’re safe.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll know through security.”

“I mean from you.”

I considered it.

“No.”

Pain flickered across his face.

I continued.

“But I might tell you if I want to.”

He nodded.

“That’s fair.”

It was.

He walked to the door and opened it for me.

I stopped beside him.

Old instinct made me wait for him to say something final.

He did not.

He did not ask me to stay.

He did not tell me we belonged together.

He did not promise he would win me back.

He simply stepped aside.

So I left.

Outside, Tessa fell into step beside me.

“How was it?”

“Weird.”

“Productive weird or call-your-lawyer weird?”

“Productive.”

We entered the elevator.

I watched the floor numbers descend.

At the lobby, my phone buzzed.

June.

Emergency with Saturday’s wedding florist.

I answered immediately.

By the time Tessa and I reached the car, I was arguing about peonies.

Life had become wonderfully rude about continuing.

That night, after solving the flower problem, I stood in my apartment kitchen and thought about Vincent’s answer.

Love is not permission.

For years, I had believed the opposite in quieter ways.

I had thought loving him gave me permission to excuse what hurt.

I had thought being loved gave him permission to decide what safety looked like for me.

Maybe the marriage had failed long before the mango cake.

Maybe the cake had simply made failure impossible to ignore.

I opened the drawer where Isabella’s letter rested.

Beside it, I placed the card of questions I had never used.

Then I closed the drawer.

Some answers did not restore what was lost.

They only made the next choice honest.

My next choice was already scheduled.

In twelve days, I would sign the final divorce agreement.

And for the first time, I knew I could do it without hating him.

That did not mean I would stay.

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It meant I was finally free enough to decide.

Freedom, I was learning, was not the absence of feeling. It was the ability to feel everything and still choose without being pushed.