Chapter 12: The Final Conversation
Ethan asked for one last meeting without attorneys, without Olivia, without any audience. I agreed, but only in a public place with security nearby and the conversation recorded. We met at a small café far from the Sterling properties.
He arrived alone. The polished confidence I had once found attractive had been replaced by exhaustion and something that looked almost like regret.
“I never thought you were capable of this,” he said after we sat down.
“I never thought you would stand there and let your mother shove my parents into a pool,” I replied. “We were both wrong about each other.”
He looked down at his coffee.
“I should have defended you. I should have defended them. I was weak. I wanted the path of least resistance with her.”
“You chose the path that let her humiliate the woman you were about to marry,” I said. “That choice has consequences.”
He was quiet for a long time.
“Is there any way back from this?”
“No,” I answered. “Not for us. You can rebuild whatever you want with your mother. But my family and I are no longer part of that world.”
He nodded slowly, as if he had already known the answer.
“I loved you, Clara.”
May you like
“You loved the version of me that stayed quiet,” I said. “That version is gone.”
I stood up, left the café, and did not look back.
