«You only care about your company,» he continued, shifting his gaze to the daughter. «You don’t even care about the child! You leave her with the nanny or me, who has no idea how to handle her. Just to run out of the house with painted lips and feigned importance. I didn’t expect this from you…»
He said it with such confidence that Emily realized: everything he had just said had been brewing in his head for a long time. And now it all burst out. But she managed to settle the conflict. However, she drew conclusions for herself: soon they had not one, but two nannies, plus additional help from an agency. Emily understood—she could never trust anyone with managing her company; intuition wouldn’t allow it.
Over time, Kyle seemed to resign himself and stopped demanding a place in the business, but Emily linked this to their relationship improving after the daughter grew up. The question of whether she truly loved her husband arose before her often. Sometimes it seemed to her that their marriage was just a compromise, and her husband more resembled a capricious pet that needed constant care. But she couldn’t afford to remain alone, and thoughts of divorce caused internal protest in her. And Ava—their common child, and leaving her without a father was wrong.
Relations with Kyle’s parents also remained complicated. If her mother-in-law tried to stay out and not interfere in their affairs, his father, the former owner of the company, constantly tried to influence the firm’s matters. This led to a major conflict. Kyle was furious when his wife threatened to fire Robert for trying to close a deal behind her back.
«How could you do that to him?» Kyle raged. «He built this company from scratch, and now you want to throw him out like a puppy!»
«He sold the company,» Emily replied calmly. «And he knew perfectly well that without my consent, no one can do anything. He broke that rule, and I can’t turn a blind eye.»
«He didn’t do anything like that!» Kyle objected, but Emily had already made her decision.
«In my company,» she enunciated, «I make the decisions. If your father wants to close deals, he should have warned me.»
Since then, relations with her father-in-law practically ceased. Any meeting with him ended in insults toward her. Emily’s work required a lot of strength and time, especially during business trips, like now.
The young woman had to travel often across the country, and sometimes even fly abroad, to always stay abreast of new trends and not miss opportunities for profitable deals. The real estate market was changing rapidly, and to stay afloat, it required almost round-the-clock analysis of the situation. And now, sitting at another business conference, she was already dreaming of when the last speaker would finish his, in her opinion, endless and boring lecture, so she could head to the train station sooner.
She had been away from home for the second week and missed her husband terribly. She missed their cozy home, quiet evenings.
«Excuse me, is this seat taken?» a voice suddenly sounded right above her ear. The chairs nearby rustled as the stranger settled in. Emily looked up in surprise and saw a tall man about thirty-five, with a strong build and a characteristic «fighter’s» face—either a former boxer or wrestler.
«Sorry to disturb you,» he said, sitting down. «I missed most of the event, but I need to check in, so I decided to sit next to you if you don’t mind.»
Emily smiled a polite but formal smile, then glanced at her watch again. She couldn’t wait for it all to end soon. The speaker seemed to be just getting into it, flipping slides and drawing diagrams, while the audience was clearly losing interest.
The man next to her kept fidgeting in his chair, trying to get comfortable, which slightly irritated her. She glanced at him sideways, and catching her gaze, the stranger immediately apologized:
«Sorry, it’ll be fine in a second. I wasn’t prepared.»
He pulled out an expensive pen, a planner, and a recorder from his bag, which immediately told Emily: her new neighbor was clearly not poor. The items betrayed a well-off person.
Silence settled in the auditorium again, broken only by the rustle of pages and the monotonous voice of the speaker.
«Sorry, were there any brochures handed out?» the man addressed her again. Emily flinched slightly, not expecting the question. She wanted to react irritably but quickly calmed down. After all, he hadn’t asked anything terrible.
«Brochures are at the entrance; you can pick them up when it’s over,» she replied restrainedly, trying not to attract the speaker’s attention.
Unexpectedly for herself, half an hour later, Emily found that she and her neighbor, whose name was Ryan, had already switched to first names and engaged in a lively conversation. Ryan turned out to be an interesting and versatile interlocutor.
«I was just sent here at the last minute,» he explained apologetically, looking at her. «Sorry if I distracted you; I see you’re in a hurry yourself.»
«Yes, planning to leave today,» Emily confirmed, noticing that Ryan was attentively following her frequent glances at the watch.
«To your husband?»..
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