Chapter 5 - The Glass WallAmbrose’s eyes locked onto mine through the gap in the door, his gaze dropping to the curve of my waist where my hand rested.
"Jackie, please," he begged, his hands trembling as he gripped the wooden frame. "I know I hurt you. I know I committed an unforgivable sin. But you can't do this through lawyers. You can't freeze the company assets—the board is talking about emergency meetings! They’re questioning my leadership!"
I stared at him, feeling a strange, hollow sensation in my chest. Even now, standing outside a hotel room begging his pregnant wife for mercy, his secondary concern was still his board of directors. His power. His precious reputation.
"You brought this on yourself, Ambrose," I said softly. "You thought you were invincible. You thought you could have a loyal wife waiting at home to bear your heir while you played games with Victoria Sterling in Greenwich Village."
"Victoria was nothing!" he yelled, his voice cracking with desperation. "It was business that turned stupid! Her father was threatening to block the merger unless I... unless I showed personal commitment to their family! It was a leverage game that got out of hand!"
I let out a cold, bitter laugh. "A leverage game? Is that what you call putting another woman’s body ahead of your wife’s dignity? You traded our family for leverage?"
"No! That’s not what I meant!" He reached through the narrow gap, trying to grab my hand, but I stepped back out of his reach. "Jackie, I love you! I have always loved you! Everything I built... the money, the tower, the reputation... I built it for us! For our daughter!"
"Don't you dare talk about our daughter," I whispered, my voice dropping an octave, deadlier than a blade. "You didn't think about her when you spent three nights a week smelling like another woman’s expensive perfume. You didn't think about her when I was in the emergency room at sixteen weeks with elevated blood pressure, while your secretary told me you were in 'unreachable meetings.'"
Ambrose winced as if I had struck him across the face. The memory of that night hit him like a physical blow—the night he had turned off his phone while sitting in a dark restaurant with Victoria, while I sat alone in a sterile hospital room listening to our baby’s heartbeat on a monitor.
"Jackie... I didn't know you were in the ER that night... Marcus didn't tell me—"
"Because you told Marcus to keep everyone away!" I shouted, tears finally spilling over my eyes. "You built a wall around your dirty little secrets, Ambrose! And now that wall has collapsed on top of you!"
"I'll fire Marcus," Ambrose sobbed, dropping to his knees right there in the hotel corridor, his hands clutching the carpet. The most powerful man on Wall Street was kneeling on the floor of the Mercer Hotel, weeping like a child. "I'll resign from the board. I'll give Victoria’s father back his company. I'll give you everything, Jackie. Just come home. Please... don't take my baby away from me."
I looked down at him. A year ago, seeing Ambrose Blackwell on his knees would have broken my heart into a thousand pieces. I would have dropped to my knees beside him, wrapped my arms around him, and promised to fix whatever was broken.
But pain changes a woman. It burns away the soft, naive parts of her until only iron remains.
"You can see your daughter when she’s born, Ambrose," I said quietly. "Under court supervision. But you will never, ever come home to me again."
May you like
I pulled the door shut and engaged the deadbolt.
Behind the heavy wood, I heard him drop his head against the panel, let out a gut-wrenching sob, and call my name until hotel security finally arrived to escort him from the floor.
