By the time Lumina Tech's response arrived, I had stopped checking my phone for messages from Brent.
He had sent several more.
Some were angry.
Others sounded almost conciliatory.
None changed the fact that he had chosen to leave our marriage and had made sure I understood why.
I no longer felt compelled to answer every accusation.
There were more important things to do.
The financial team notified me that Lumina Tech had supplied additional information for the review.
I read the message at my desk and asked for the documents to be included in the next meeting.
The response would need to be checked against the questions already raised.
I wasn't interested in accepting explanations simply because they sounded reasonable.
I wasn't interested in rejecting them because the company had become personally familiar.
The evidence mattered.
That afternoon, the team assembled the updated material.
I read through the first section, then moved to the supporting figures.
Some details required further examination.
Other questions remained unresolved.
I made notes in the margin and asked the team to identify what could be verified and what still needed clarification.
"We should be able to narrow this down once the remaining information comes in," one analyst said.
"Good. Let's not get ahead of what the documents show."
He nodded.
I knew how easy it was to become attached to a theory once a few facts seemed to support it.
The danger was even greater when a person's name carried a strong reputation.
Some executives were trusted because they had earned that trust.
Others were trusted because they had become familiar faces at conferences and in business publications.
Neither reputation nor suspicion could replace a careful examination of the work.
I had to hold myself to the same standard.
After the meeting, I spent time reviewing the company's funding arrangements.
The investment was substantial enough that we could not ignore the warning signs.
At the same time, cutting off support without understanding the situation could damage a business that might still be capable of recovery.
There were employees who depended on the company.
There were investors who expected us to protect their money.
There were decisions that could not be made carelessly.
I closed the documents and rubbed my tired eyes.
This was the part of my work Brent had never imagined.
Not the title.
Not the money.
The responsibility.
He had believed a successful person was someone who could walk into a room and command attention.
I knew success often meant sitting alone with a difficult decision and accepting that there might be no comfortable answer.
The next morning, I received an update from the review team.
They had made progress, but the findings were still preliminary.
I approved the remaining checks.
No final decision would be made until the relevant questions had been addressed.
Then I moved on to other business.
During lunch, I found myself thinking about Sloane's expression at the restaurant.
She had looked at me with polite pity.
She had assumed my divorce had left me struggling to understand why Brent had moved on.
Perhaps she thought I was jealous of her position.
Perhaps she believed I was trying to impress them with my clothes and my tablet.
I couldn't know.
But I remembered how confidently she had described the difference between people who operated at different professional levels.
The remark had stayed with me because I had heard versions of it throughout my marriage.
Brent had never used the exact same words every time.
He hadn't needed to.
Sometimes it was a joke about my clothes.
Sometimes it was a question about why I didn't attend more events.
Sometimes it was a comment about a colleague whose spouse had a more impressive career.
The message was always the same.
I was supposed to become someone he could show off.
I was supposed to look the part.
I was supposed to make his own ambitions seem more important by comparison.
For years, I had tried to reassure him without challenging the belief beneath his words.
Now I could see that I had been trying to solve the wrong problem.
The issue was never whether I looked successful enough.
The issue was that Brent needed to believe he was the more successful person in our marriage.
No amount of quiet support could have fixed that.
I finished my lunch and returned to work.
Later that day, I reviewed the updated notes on Lumina Tech.
The company still faced questions that required answers.
The team had not reached a final conclusion.
I asked for the review to continue and made it clear that any decision about funding would need to be supported by the completed findings.
Then I signed the document and returned it to the folder.
That was all.
No dramatic order.
No personal threat.
No attempt to make Sloane suffer for the way she'd spoken to me.
I had no interest in becoming the person Brent seemed to think I was.
That evening, I walked home through streets still crowded with people finishing their workdays.
I stopped at a small shop and bought something simple for dinner.
The cashier asked whether I needed a bag.
I said yes.
It was an ordinary exchange, forgotten almost as soon as it happened.
I liked that.
I liked being able to move through the world without every interaction turning into a measurement of status.
At home, I put the food on the counter and made tea.
Then I sat at the desk and opened the latest financial summary.
The review had not reached its conclusion.
There was more work ahead.
I read the outstanding questions and wrote down what needed to happen next.
My phone lit up beside the laptop.
Brent's name appeared again.
I let it ring.
When it stopped, I turned the phone facedown and returned to the screen.
I wasn't avoiding him because I wanted him to worry.
I was avoiding the same circular conversation in which he demanded explanations but refused to consider anything that challenged his assumptions.
If he ever learned the truth about my position, I suspected his first reaction would be to reinterpret our marriage through that new information.
He might wonder why I hadn't told him.
He might insist that I had deceived him.
He might suddenly remember every time he'd dismissed my work and try to explain it away.
I couldn't decide how he would react.
But I could decide that I would no longer shape my life around his expectations.
I finished reviewing the report and closed the laptop.
The room was quiet.
My tea had gone cold beside me.
I carried it to the kitchen and rinsed the cup, then returned to the desk to organize the papers for the next day.
Lumina Tech remained under review.
Sloane remained its CEO.
Aegis Capital remained responsible for protecting its investment.
And I remained responsible for making sure the process was fair.
Nothing had been decided merely because of a restaurant encounter.
Nothing would be decided because my former husband had chosen a woman whose title impressed him.
The work would speak for itself.
For the first time in a long while, I was content to let that be enough.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: The Questions Behind Lumina’s Numbers Became Too Important to Ignore
My Husband Said I Was Going Nowhere, Then Left Divorce Papers Beside the Laptop I Used to Hide My Real Life
Part 8 of 12
