Chapter 42
~ Franklin ~
The following morning, the walls of my office felt like they were closing in.
I spent hours pacing the floor, my mind a chaotic loop of the previous night's discovery.
She was seeing someone else.
How dare she?
The audacity of it was staggering. We were still legally tied; by every definition of the law, what she was doing was betrayal.
Yet, she was moving through the city with this stranger as if her marriage—and I—didn't exist. I pulled my phone out for the tenth time, staring at her contact.
Still blocked.
The silence was a physical weight.
My phone vibrated in my palm. Bella. I hit 'Ignore' without a second thought. She called again. And again.
My irritation spiked into a sharp, jagged anger. I shoved the phone into my pocket, determined to bury my thoughts in work.
Later that afternoon, I was in the middle of a high-stakes investment meeting with one of my primary partners, Mr. Carter.
