Chapter 108: Broken Marriage

The line went dead. Dorian slowly turned his head toward Adrian.

"What was that?"

"Far be it from me to lie to a Heathcliffe sibling. Y’all are vicious."

Dorian narrowed his eyes at him, then reached for his own phone. He opened the family group chat.

The women in his family were losing their minds. The announcement that Naomi would be attending the Blackstone Leadership Forum with him had triggered a collective emergency.

Not because of Dorian. Nobody cared about him. The problem was Camille. His family had decided that putting Naomi in the same room as Camille without preparation was the social equivalent of sending someone into battle barefoot.

Message after message scrolled past. Who was dressing Naomi? Did she have a stylist? What designer would she wear?

Did Naomi have anything suitable for the cameras? Dorian rubbed a hand over his face.

Okay.

Maybe he should have thought of that. He just hadn’t believed Naomi had anything to worry about.

Camille was Camille. Permanently camera-ready because that was practically her profession. Naomi was simply...

Naomi.

Dorian liked that. He liked the summer dresses.

The jeans.

The T-shirts.

The easy way she looked. He particularly liked the black lace robe. And, if he were compiling a ranking, his favorite thing for Naomi to wear remained absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, his family was now pointing out something he had conveniently ignored. Camille was superficial.

Which meant she would absolutely notice everything. And if Camille smelled even the slightest opportunity to make Naomi feel like she didn’t belong in that world, she would take it.

He scrolled through another cluster of messages. Dorian sighed. He had accounted for the speech.

The reputational value.

What he had not accounted for was the fact that women required an entire military operation before appearing at formal events.

Men had it easy. You threw on a suit, made sure your shoes matched and showed up. Dorian typed quickly into the group chat.

Send stylist details to Adrian.

He hit send. Now came the harder part. He had to tell Naomi. Dorian sighed again. He wasn’t even sure the woman cared about what she put on.

*****

Naomi was just leaving the house when the doorbell rang. She stopped halfway down the stairs. That was strange.

Everyone who knew Dorian knew he would be at work by now, and this was very much his house. People did not usually show up here looking for Naomi.

She changed direction and headed toward the door. Before opening it, she checked through the peephole. Her eyes widened immediately. She pulled the door open. "Tessa!"

Tessa barely gave her time to move before she stepped forward and wrapped both arms around her. "I’m so sorry," Tessa whispered against her shoulder. "I’m so sorry I was mad at you. I was just too angry."

"Hey, I understand."

Tessa shook her head. "No, I shouldn’t have—"

"You absolutely had the right to be angry."

"You don’t have to apologize to me, okay? Come on in." Naomi closed the door behind her and led her into the living room. She settled Tessa on the couch, then sat beside her.

Only now did Naomi really look at her. Tessa looked exhausted. She had cried, stopped crying, cried again, tried to sleep and failed at that too.

"How are you doing?"

"As fine as I can be under the circumstances."

"Yeah..."

There wasn’t much else Naomi could say to that. Sometimes I’m sorry became useless when the thing itself was too big.

Tessa twisted her fingers together. Then she looked up. "I’m leaving him, Naomi."

Naomi’s heart sank even though she had known that was where this would end. She knew Tessa. Cheating had always been a deal breaker. "I’m so sorry, Tessa."

Tessa’s lips trembled. "My God, I can’t believe you’ve been right all this time."

"About what?"

"About all of this... love." Tessa pressed one hand against her chest. "It’s..." She swallowed. "I feel like I can’t feel my chest. I feel numb. I’m tired of crying and then I start crying all over again." Her eyes filled almost immediately, as if her body had decided to prove the point.

"You’re allowed to cry."

"I shouldn’t cry over a man who cheated."

"That’s not why you’re crying. You’re crying because you loved him. Because you trusted him."

Tessa covered her mouth and inhaled shakily. Naomi moved closer. "I don’t know what to do," Tessa whispered.

"You don’t have to know today."

"I have a baby coming. How am I supposed to parent a child by myself?"

"Baby, I’m going to be right there with you." Naomi squeezed Tessa’s hands between hers. "This will all be over soon, and I’ll be back at the apartment. I can take care of the baby with you. I promise, Tessa. You will not do this alone."

Some of the panic seemed to leave her face, although the exhaustion remained.

"I have to get to work." Tessa wiped beneath her eyes. "I’ll talk to you later?"

"Of course." Naomi hugged her again before walking her to the door.

What she wisely kept to herself was that, before Tessa had arrived, Naomi had been on her way to see Jordan.

There was absolutely no need to add that to the hundred things currently occupying Tessa’s mind.

Naomi watched Tessa leave, grabbed her bag and headed out herself. She had business to handle.

And she was weirdly looking forward to it.

Some time later, Naomi was standing inside Jordan’s office. She had been allowed in without any trouble, and the first thing she noticed was that Jordan looked miserable.

Good.

Naomi wasn’t normally petty enough to enjoy another person’s suffering. Today, she was making an exception.

Jordan leaned back in his chair and stared at her. "What else do you want, Naomi? Haven’t you done enough?"

She had done enough?

Interesting.

"I came to address your threat, Jordan. I should probably clarify that I don’t think you’re such an ass of a man that you would actually threaten me with something like that simply because I had to tell on you. I’m Tessa’s friend, not yours. My loyalty was always going to be to her. But I’m going to make something very clear."

"If word about my marriage gets out, I am prepared to drag your sorry self through the mud. Again, I should clarify that, I am not that kind of woman."