The argument that followed was swift and devastating. I didn't care about his pain or his history; I cared about the breach of trust. "You lied! You went to meet the woman who shattered your confidence a decade ago! You…lied!" I screamed, forcing Marshall and Angela to witness the absolute destruction.
The climax was the breaking point. Grabbing the bottle of Dom Pérignon, I threw it at the galley wall—a visceral act of destruction symbolising the beautiful, expensive life he had just annihilated. I didn't just walk away; I terminated the engagement right there, in front of witnesses.
"This is over! Stay away from me!" I screamed, locking myself into the rear cabin. The love was still there, a devastating, raw wound, but the trust—the structural pillar of our life—was gone forever.
Kyle's POV
The wheels hit the tarmac with a violent jar that felt like a physical manifestation of my life splintering. I looked at the closed door of the rear cabin—the door Viola had locked with a finality that made my blood run cold.
"Viola?" I called out, my voice cracking. I stood in the middle of the aisle, surrounded by the smell of spilled vintage champagne and the jagged glass of the bottle she'd shattered. "Vi, please. Just let me talk to you for five minutes."
No answer. Only the hum of the cooling engines.
Marshall stood up from his seat, his face a mask of exhaustion and disbelief. He didn't look like a high-powered executive; he looked like a man who had just watched his brother set their house on fire. Angela was beside him, her eyes red from crying, her sketchpad gripped so tightly her knuckles were white.
"Don't, Kyle," Marshall said, his voice low and dangerous. "Just... don't. You've done enough."
"I was trying to handle it, Marshall! I was trying to keep the past away from her!" I turned on him, the desperation leaking out of me like an open wound.
"By lying?" Angela snapped, stepping forward. She was usually the soft one, the artist, but right now she looked like she wanted to claw my eyes out. "You think Viola Vane—the woman who reads people for a living—wanted you to 'handle' her? You treated her like a liability instead of a partner. Again."
The jet stairs lowered. The ground crew was waiting. I watched, paralyzed, as the rear cabin door finally opened. Viola stepped out. She didn't look at me. She didn't even look at the glass on the floor. She had changed into a sharp, charcoal-gray power suit, her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses despite the rain.
"Viola—" I started, reaching for her arm.
She didn't flinch, but the air around her turned to absolute zero. "If you touch me, Kyle, I will have the ground security remove you from this airfield in handcuffs. Do not test me."
She walked past me as if I were a ghost. I followed her down the stairs, the rain soaking my shirt instantly. Her car was already waiting at the edge of the runway—her personal driver, not the company car I had arranged.
"Vi, where are you going? The penthouse is ready. We can—"
She paused at the car door, finally turning to look at me. The look in her blue eyes wasn't rage. It was worse. It was nothing. "I'm going to a hotel. My things will be moved out of the penthouse by tomorrow morning. Do not follow me. Do not call me. If you show up at the office, I will have you barred from the floor."
"You can't do that, it's my company!" I yelled over the rain.
"It's our merger, Kyle," she said coldly. "And I've already sent the memo to the board. I'm triggering the 'Personal Conduct' clause. We're in a blackout period now. Goodbye."
The door slammed. The car sped away, leaving me standing in the rain, drenched and utterly defeated.
Chapter 2: The Collateral Damage
Marshall and Angela's POV
The drive back to the city was silent. Marshall sat in the back of the SUV, staring out at the New Jersey industrial skyline, while Angela sat as far away from him as possible. The tension from the jet had bled into their own car.
"You knew," Angela said suddenly, her voice trembling.
Marshall sighed, rubbing his temples. "I didn't know, Ang. I suspected he was distracted. I saw him at the vineyard, I saw the look on his face. But I didn't think he'd be stupid enough to actually go meet her."
"He's your brother! You should have stopped him!" Angela turned on him, her fury boiling over. "Viola finally felt safe. She finally felt like she wasn't just a project or a 'variable' to be managed. And he threw it away for some... some ghost?"
"It's complicated, Angela. Belinda... she did a number on him. She's the reason he is the way he is."
"I don't care!" Angela shouted. "There is no 'complicated' when it comes to lying to your fiancée. Viola is my best friend, Marshall. If she walks away from this merger—if she walks away from us—I don't blame her."
Marshall reached for her hand, but she pulled away. "He's my brother, Angela. I have to try and fix this. If the merger fails, the Lodge empire collapses. We lose everything."
"Then let it burn," Angela whispered. "Maybe if you Lodges lost everything, you'd finally learn how to be human."
Marshall's phone buzzed. It was a text from Kyle.
I'm at the penthouse. She's not here. Where is she? Marshall, please. I need to talk to her.
Marshall deleted the message without replying. He looked at Angela, seeing the heartbreak in her eyes, and realized that Kyle hadn't just destroyed his own relationship—he had put a crack in theirs, too.
Chapter 3: The Ghost in the Dark
Kyle's POV
The penthouse was too big. The silence was a physical weight, pressing against my eardrums until they throbbed. I had walked through every room, looking for some sign of her, but it was like she had already been erased. Her scent—that signature mix of sandalwood and expensive ink—was fading.
I poured myself a glass of scotch, my hands shaking so badly the crystal decanter rattled against the glass. I sat on the sofa, staring at the empty space on the wall where we were supposed to hang the painting she'd bought in Cape Town.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table. My heart leaped—was it her? Had she calmed down?
I grabbed it. It was a restricted number.
"Viola?" I gasped into the phone.
"No, Kyle. It's me."
The voice was soft, hesitant, and it made my stomach churn. Belinda.
"What do you want?" I hissed, the scotch sloshing over the side of my glass. "You've destroyed everything. She left. She's gone."
"I heard the news about the breakup... it's all over the business blogs already, Kyle. They're saying the merger is on ice." There was a pause, a shaky breath on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry. I never wanted this."
"Then why did you text me? Why did you follow me to Cape Town?"
"Because I'm scared, Kyle!" she cried out, her voice breaking into a sob. "I'm alone and I'm... I'm in trouble. I didn't know who else to call. You were always the strong one. You were always the one who fixed things."
"I can't fix this, Belinda. I'm the one who's broken now."
"Please," she whispered. "Just meet me. Once. I have something I have to tell you. Something I can't say over the phone."
I looked at the empty bedroom, the door standing open like a mouth. I thought about Viola, alone in some hotel room, building her walls higher than they'd ever been. I thought about the secret Belinda was clearly holding—the secret she had been hiding under those loose silk shirts in South Africa.
Belinda was pregnant. She was alone, she was desperate, and she was about to use the one thing Kyle couldn't ignore to tie him to her forever.
"Where are you?" I asked, my voice dead.
I knew it was a mistake. I knew it was another structural flaw in the foundation of my life. But as the rain lashed against the windows of the penthouse, I realised I had already lost the woman I loved.
What did I have left to lose?
Kyle is about to make a choice that might finish what the Cape Town trip started.