Chapter 10: The Separation Begins
The formal separation documents were filed the following week.
I did not negotiate through emotion. I negotiated through the same structures Julian had spent years dismissing as irrelevant to “real” business. The marital assets were inventoried with forensic precision. The house, the accounts, the secondary properties acquired during the marriage—all of it entered the process under the clear light of the gala’s public record. Julian’s counsel attempted to frame the incident as an isolated marital dispute that should not influence financial outcomes. My counsel responded with the photographs of the bruise, the broken heel logged as evidence, the board’s preliminary finding, and the five hundred witnesses who had watched him put me on the floor.
The argument did not survive contact with the file.
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Sienna Sterling resigned before the internal investigation completed its second phase. Her departure was quiet, documented, and accompanied by a standard non-disclosure agreement that prevented her from reshaping the narrative in the press. I noted the resignation without satisfaction or further comment. She had been a symptom, not the architecture. The architecture had been Julian’s belief that the woman who held quiet approval rights could be publicly reduced to an obstacle in a silver gown’s path.
I moved into a furnished residence closer to the Vance Technologies offices. The space was temporary and sufficient. I required proximity to the continuing review, not comfort designed to soothe an ending.
