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Zane does not belong to you anymore. Remember that.
I nodded weakly.
'Audrey, it was you who started, destroying our marriage, and running away from me. Did you really think you could do what you did without suffering terrible consequences?” He hissed threateningly, his jaw contracted, and his eyes slit.
"Did you not get enough revenge already?"
“Revenge? No, baby, I just took what was mine. "
“Yours or ours? I'd like to remind you that, we founded the Thunder Company together and then you kicked me out. "
"You left!"
“I know and that's why I agreed to leave you everything and not ask for half of the agency. I only took back the money that belonged to me before getting married, "I reminded him angrily.
Yes, I had left it because I could no longer feel suffocated in a marriage without love and commitment, since we had founded our advertising agency. What was supposed to be a dream come true had turned into an obsession with Zane’s success and a complete abrogation of the time devoted to love.
“You took what you deserved. Be thankful I did not take those too. You don't deserve anything. "
I did not know what happened to me. I only saw my hand move on its own and slap him in the face.
I had never been a violent person, but my nerves were shattered.
Within a year I had lost my father, the family home, I had finally left Gatesville for Chicago, could not find a job in the workplace and I was full of debts.
And now, Zane and my layoff.
“Please, excuse me ... I didn't want to ...,” I whispered feeling guilty. I had never gone that far, not even during the terrible quarrels of the last year of marriage or divorce proceedings. “Wow ... This is the result of the hatred you have harbored over the past four years," Zane murmured angrily, rubbing his red cheek. “Wasn’t it enough for me to lose an important customer with whom I had to sign a contract? No, now you are even raising your hands in front of everyone, in the middle of the road. " lI looked around and noticed some passersby staring at us in horror. I apologize, "I murmured, my cheeks burning with shame. What had I done? How could I have hit the man I had loved for seven years and with whom I had ended all relationships for four long years now? “I don't know what to make of your apologies," Zane replied dryly, turning to the street, and stopping the first available taxi. I could not even say good-bye to him or say anything else for that matter. Zane was gone.a…
2
Audrey
"Are you crazy?" Gwen exploded when I told her what had happened to me the day before.
After the divorce, I had lost all of Zane’s friends.
No one had wanted to keep in touch with me and I, on my way to Gatesville, had blown up any attempt at reconciliation.
The only person I managed to find on my return to Chicago was Gwen, the owner of the cafeteria where Zane and I always had coffee in the morning before going to work.
That place was one of the best memories of my love affair with my ex.
At the time we were just so much in love and full of dreams and ambitions. We had nothing else, not even the money for a vacation or a special dinner.
“I know ... I was wrong. Do you think he might report me? "
"I don't think it would go that far, but if I think back to the last few months of your marriage and you leaving him with Rick ... Well, it might cross my mind if I were in his place."
"I never cheated on Zane! Rick was just a friend who was always available, ready to listen to me and console me when I was shaken up from fighting with Zane. "
"Rick was a scumbag ready to take his boss's wife to bed through deception and fake flattery," she corrected me sternly.
"Now I know," I uttered softly. Unfortunately, I had discovered it too late and had not listened to my friends and Gwen when they told me to beware of Rick, whose goal was to get a hold of Zane's agency and who understood that I was his weak spot as far as making him lose his head and lose his job.
“But not your husband, Audrey, I don't think Zane ever believed your innocence. "
“I don’t doubt it. As much as I tried to explain the truth to him, Zane never wanted to listen to me ... but it no longer matters. It's water under the bridge, right? "
"It depends. Are we talking about a wounded and vengeful man, or a man who has moved on? "
"I don’t know. Four years have passed, and I know nothing more about him. "
"Did you tell me you got the impression that he got you fired on purpose or am I wrong?"
"I'm sure! I swear I was being careful, and he suddenly stood in front of me ... It can't be a stupid coincidence, believe me. "
'I believe you, Audrey. This is enough for me to deduce that you are not the only one who has not gotten over this. "
"I have gotten over it, Gwen!"
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely yes."
"Then why did you slap him?"
"I ... I ... I do not know ... I was falling apart... My life has been a circle of hell since ..."
"Since you left Zane," she finished the sentence because I would never have done it.
"I don’t know what to do. Zane is vindictive, I know. He could really do something terrible ... Maybe a restraining order against me. "
"You just have to go to him and find out."
"What do you suggest?"
"Asking him, apologizing, and paying him for his suit’s dry cleaner, my friend suggested.
"I barely have the money to pay for this coffee and muffin," I confessed, eating the last bite of Gwen's cake.
"This is on the house," she exclaimed sympathetically, preparing a tray full of blueberry muffins. "And these are for your husband. They were his favorites when you came here.
"Ex-husband," I corrected her. "Anyway, thank you," I whispered, moved by her gesture and by the memory of Zane's smile every time he ate those muffins.
I felt another twinge in my heart overwhelm me.
How will I ever be able to meet Zane again, without being carried away by memories?
3
Audrey
I had left Zane and the Thunder and Larson Company four years earlier. At the time, our business, which we had set up on our own, was little more than a dump north of Chicago, even though Zane's abilities and maddening ambition had succeeded in creating a small space in the advertising environment in just two years.
Two years in which each success of the company could be associated with a new brick that would soon create an impassable wall between us.
Although it did not start out on the right foot, Zane had made it and now seeing his studio on the thirtieth floor of one of the most beautiful skyscrapers in southern Chicago made my heart pound.
Of course, now my last name no longer appeared on the sign, but I felt that a part of me had remained there, wedged between the words Thunder and Company.
I too had made many sacrifices to make that dream come true.
I had always believed it and I knew that Zane, at the time my husband, was one of the most brilliant advertisers in Chicago.
I was the one who instilled in Zane the desire to start from scratch and start a company, not knowing the price to pay would be our love.
If I went back, would I make that choice again?
Would I still push Zane towards independence and ambition?
Yes, because he deserved it. He was worth more than what he did at the Kreinberg Company, where we had met and formed a team with other members who were always too lazy or distracted to allow us to make that qualitative leap and establish ourselves in that shark environment.
But what about our marriage?
Maybe that should not have happened?
I did not know, and I didn't want to answer that question either, because every time I thought about, it I felt my wound bleed and my heart breaking again with the same violence of four years prior.
Erasing those thoughts from my mind, I headed for the skyscraper where the Thunder Company resided, as I had read on the internet.
I got to the right floor without difficulty, but when I tried to speak directly to Zane Thunder, an annoyed and exhausted secretary kicked me out decisively.
"Mr. Thunder doesn't see anyone without an appointment," she said shortly.
"Please, it's important. I'm Audrey Larson. "
"So? For me, you could be the President of the United States himself, but I won't let you into his office without an appointment. "
"Has Zane ever told you about me?" I found myself wondering.
Suddenly I looked around.
There were many employees walking back and forth.
I immediately realized that I did not know anyone.
Apparently, there were none of the first employees hired when I was still part of the company.
Nobody knew about me.
Zane did not tell anyone he was married to me.
I felt like an annoying insect, chased away and immediately forgotten.
Gwen was wrong. Zane had really turned the page.
Against all my wishes, I felt tears sting my eyes.
I felt mortified.
I was nothing now.
It was as if there was nothing left of me.
I had walked to that skyscraper, with my muffin-filled box and with the hope that something of me or mine was left in that company or ... in Zane.
Something I could hold on to in order to start over after leaving Zane and Chicago.
Instead I found out there was nothing there for me anymore.
No link. No foothold. No glance or opportunity to start from.
Suddenly, the door of the office guarded by the grumpy secretary opened and I saw Zane come out, accompanied by a very elegant and beautiful woman.
"Zane, you know how to make a woman happy," she exclaimed happily.
"Trisha, I know how to make you happy," he replied with a seductive smile and that hoarse voice that in the past always managed to make my legs give out.
"What a flatterer," she laughed cheerfully, but he was no longer smiling.
He was looking at me.
When I returned his gaze, every trace of his smile and charm was gone.
"Sarah, take the lady to the elevator," Zane immediately ordered his secretary irritably. “Trisha, sorry, but I have an emergency. I'll talk to you later. "
The emergency would be me ... Thanks for the umpteenth blow to my self-esteem.
"Get out! You're not welcome here,” Zane hissed as soon as we were alone. "Have you come to create trouble here too and to ruin what I've built in these years?"
"Absolutely not. How can you think that of me? "
'First you accuse me of getting you fired, then you slap me and now you're here. Sorry if I cannot be optimistic. Maybe you preferred a welcome with open arms? Well, forget it! Your name no longer appears on the plaque at the entrance and you can no longer come here. Have I made myself clear?"
I had hardly heard a word of what he had just said to me. The hatred and anger I saw in his icy eyes had paralyzed me.
I did not understand how he could hate me so much.
