Katherine's POV
Two weeks passed in a blur of spreadsheets and late nights.
Katherine barely left the office. She came in at six in the morning and stayed until midnight. She identified problems. She built solutions. She created restructuring plans that would save James's company millions of dollars. She did exactly what she was hired to do.
She didn't think about James at all.
Except she did. Every single moment of every single day.
She saw him in the hallway on Tuesday morning. They nodded at each other like professionals. Professional. Clinical. The kind of interaction that didn't require them to acknowledge that they used to sleep in the same bed. That they used to know each other's bodies the way they knew their own heartbeats.
She saw him again on Thursday afternoon. He was coming out of a meeting when she was heading to the server room. They moved around each other like they were dancing a choreography they'd learned a long time ago. One step forward. One step back. Always maintaining distance.
"How's the analysis going?" he asked as they passed.
"On track," she said. "Should have recommendations by Friday."
"Good," he said. "That's good."
It wasn't good. It was awful. It was the worst thing that could have happened because working with James meant being near him and being near him meant remembering things she'd spent three years trying to forget.
Saturday night came and Katherine realized she'd been at the office for fourteen hours straight. Her eyes were burning. Her back hurt. Her brain felt like it was moving through mud. She was analyzing vendor contracts for the fourth time when she heard footsteps in the hallway.
It was 11 PM.
The building was empty except for the cleaning crew and whatever ghosts lived inside Katherine's head.
James appeared in her doorway holding a container of food.
"You haven't eaten," he said. It wasn't a question. He knew her well enough to know that when she was focused on work, she forgot basic things like food and sleep and the fact that she was supposed to be keeping her distance from him.
"I'm fine," Katherine said without looking up from her laptop.
"You're not fine. You look like you're about to fall out of that chair." James set the food on her desk. "It's from that Thai place you used to love. The one on Market Street."
Katherine's chest went tight.
"James, you shouldn't do this."
"Do what? Bring you dinner?"
"Be nice to me," Katherine said, finally looking at him. "You shouldn't remind me of who you were before your empire got too big for your heart."
James leaned against the doorframe and something in his expression shifted. It became harder. Sharper. Like he was putting on armor made of businessspeak.
"Who says I'm being nice?" he asked. "Maybe I'm being strategic. Maybe I need you functional so you can fix my company. Can't have my financial advisor passing out from exhaustion."
Katherine knew he was lying. Knew it in the way her body recognized his. Knew it in the way her heart was betraying every wall she'd built.
She opened the container of food anyway.
It was her favorite. Red curry. Extra coconut milk. The way she liked it. The way she used to order it when they were married. The way James used to surprise her with it when she was stressed about work.
Katherine ate because she was starving and because saying no would require more strength than she had left.
James stayed in her doorway while she ate. He didn't talk. He didn't pretend to review documents. He just stood there like he was making sure she actually consumed the food instead of pushing it around the container.
When Katherine finished, she looked up at him.
"Thank you," she said quietly. Because she could at least give him that. Could at least acknowledge that he'd remembered something small about her that she'd hoped he'd forgotten.
"You're welcome," James said. And his voice sounded sad in a way that made Katherine want to break all over again.
He turned to leave.
"James, wait."
He stopped.
Katherine realized she didn't know what she wanted to say. Wanted to tell him that this couldn't keep happening. Wanted to ask him why he was being kind when he knew it was making everything harder. Wanted to understand how they'd gone from a marriage to this strange dance where they kept finding reasons to be near each other while pretending it didn't matter.
"The restructuring plan will be ready Monday," she said instead. "You should be able to implement it immediately after that."
James nodded. He looked like he was about to say something. Instead, he just left.
Katherine sat alone with the empty food container and realized something terrifying. She was starting to think that maybe James had changed. Maybe the man who'd chosen money over her five years ago had learned something. Maybe the man who'd signed a prenup that left her with nothing had spent three years understanding what that actually meant.
And if that was true, then all of her carefully built walls weren't going to matter anymore.
Her phone buzzed.
It was an email from her lawyer. Katherine opened it and her blood went cold.
The subject line said: "URGENT: Regarding your divorce proceedings and potential liability."
Katherine's hands started shaking as she read.
"Katherine, I've received notification from the court that there's been a motion filed regarding your divorce settlement. Someone is claiming that you accepted money under false pretenses. Someone is saying you knew about James's company problems before you divorced him and you deliberately separated to avoid financial liability. If this motion is successful, the court could demand you return the fifty thousand dollars. More importantly, you could face charges for financial fraud."
The motion had been filed by Victoria Chen.
Even from prison, Victoria was trying to destroy her.
But what made Katherine's stomach drop wasn't the motion itself. It was the additional note from her lawyer at the bottom of the email.
"The court has requested that you testify about your knowledge of Devereaux Technologies' financial status at the time of your divorce. They're specifically asking if you knew the company was struggling before you signed the divorce papers. They want to know if you deliberately hid assets or knowledge to protect yourself. And Katherine, there's something else. Someone has provided documentation to the court suggesting you may have known about the company's problems. Someone who claims to have emails proving it. I'm still trying to identify who provided this evidence. But it doesn't look good."
Katherine's breath was coming fast now.
Because if the court found out that she'd known about James's company problems before the divorce, her entire financial empire could collapse. Everything she'd built could be taken away. Not because she'd done anything wrong, but because someone was trying to destroy her.
And the only person who could have known about her knowledge of the company's problems was someone close to her.
Katherine picked up her phone and called Sophie.
Sophie answered on the first ring like she'd been waiting.
"Sophie, I need to ask you something and I need you to tell me the truth," Katherine said. "Has anyone contacted you about my knowledge of Devereaux Technologies' financial status before the divorce? Has anyone asked you about conversations we had about James's company?"
There was a long silence.
"Katherine, I can explain," Sophie said finally.
Katherine's heart stopped.
"Explain what?"
"Victoria found me about six months ago," Sophie said. "She said she was working on something that would help expose James. She said she needed information about your divorce. She asked if I knew anything about whether you'd known about company problems."
"And what did you tell her?" Katherine's voice was barely above a whisper.
"I told her I didn't know anything," Sophie said quickly. "But Katherine, she recorded our conversation. She said she had proof that you'd told me about James's financial concerns before the divorce. She said she had emails that showed you discussing the company with me. And I didn't understand what she was doing with it, but now I realize she was setting you up."
Katherine felt the ground disappear beneath her.
Because there were emails. Katherine and Sophie had discussed James's company struggles during the divorce. Katherine had confided in Sophie about her fears that James was self-destructing. And now Victoria had those emails and she was using them to prove that Katherine had known about financial problems and deliberately hidden them.
Which could destroy everything Katherine had built.
Katherine hung up on Sophie without saying goodbye.
She opened her laptop and pulled up the divorce documents. She read through them frantically looking for proof that she hadn't known. But as she read, she realized the truth was more complicated than that.
She had suspected James's company was struggling. She had worried about his mental state. But she hadn't known the specific details of the financial sabotage because James had hidden it so well that even his own board hadn't known.
So technically she wasn't guilty of fraud.
But Victoria had made it look like she was.
And Katherine realized that Victoria's threat from Chapter 7 wasn't just about revenge.
It was about destroying everything Katherine had built by making it look like that empire was constructed on lies.
Katherine heard footsteps in the hallway.
James appeared in her doorway again.
"I forgot to tell you something," he said. "My father called me an hour ago. He said Victoria contacted him. She said she had information that could be damaging to both of us. She wants to meet with me tomorrow. She wants to make a deal."
Katherine's blood went cold.
"What kind of deal?"
"She wants me to give her the company," James said. "And in exchange, she'll destroy the evidence she has against you."
James closed his eyes.
"Which means she's been planning this the whole time. This wasn't about stealing money. It was about getting the company and using you as leverage."
Katherine stood up.
"We need to go to the authorities."
"We already did," James said. "The police are investigating. But Katherine, Victoria is smart. She's hidden the evidence somewhere. The police can't find it. And she's saying that if I don't meet with her tomorrow, she's going to release everything. Everything she has. Everything that proves you knew about company problems before the divorce."
Katherine felt her entire world crumbling.
"Why would she do that? What does she gain?"
"Revenge," James said simply. "Against you for discovering her sabotage. Against me for not seeing it coming. Against both of us for existing."
He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
"We need to meet with her," James said. "And we need to do it together. Because whatever she's planning, we need to be ready for it."