Eleanor's POV
Eleanor didn't go to meet Harrison's mother's old friend.
She'd sat in her car outside the address Marcus gave her for twenty minutes, hands gripping the steering wheel, trying to decide if knowing the truth was worth the pain that might come with it. Then she'd driven back to her apartment instead. She couldn't do both. Couldn't face that woman and then face working at Blake Dynamics. Couldn't carry someone else's secrets about Harrison while trying to dismantle his company.
So she'd chosen the job.
She'd chosen the work.
And now, on Monday morning, she was walking through the doors of Blake Dynamics like she owned the place. Which technically she did. The company reported to her now. Everything Harrison had built answered to her.
The building was exactly how she remembered it. Sleek. Modern. Cold.
White walls stretched down endless hallways. The furniture was chrome and glass. The lighting was harsh. Every single person she passed wore the same expression. Blank. Professional. Slightly afraid. They moved like they were being watched constantly, because they were. Because Harrison had built a company where perfection was the only acceptable standard and anything less than perfect meant you were failing.
Eleanor understood the culture immediately because she'd lived inside it for five years.
She took the elevator to the third floor where her temporary office had been set up. Not the executive level where Harrison worked. But not so far away that she couldn't observe him. Not so distant that she was disconnected from the daily operations. Just far enough to be separate. To be independent. To be completely alone.
The office was basic. Desk. Computer. A window that looked out over the city. Eleanor set her bag down and took a breath.
Then she started walking.
She didn't have meetings scheduled for the first three days. She'd told the board she wanted to observe. To understand the culture from the ground up before implementing changes. Really what she wanted was to see how Harrison had destroyed everything they'd built together by trying to build something perfect instead.
She watched teams work.
In the marketing department, three people were developing campaign strategies. No one spoke directly to anyone else. They sent emails to the same inbox. No conversation. No collaboration. No laughter. When someone suggested an idea that deviated from the standard approach, she watched the team leader shut it down immediately. Not rudely. Just firmly. No room for deviation. No space for anything that didn't fit the plan.
In the innovation lab, the situation was worse. Young people with brilliant ideas sat at expensive desks doing exactly what they were told. Nothing more. Nothing less. Eleanor watched a junior developer present a solution to a coding problem that was actually more efficient than the official approach. Harrison's head of innovation listened politely and then dismissed it. Too unconventional. Too risky. Better to stick with what we know works.
The developer's face fell. Eleanor saw it. Saw the moment that person decided they didn't belong here anymore.
By Wednesday, Eleanor had the answer to what was wrong with Blake Dynamics.
It wasn't innovation. It wasn't strategy. It wasn't even money. It was fear. Pure, crushing fear that anything different from the plan was failure. That anything unexpected was weakness. That anything human was a liability.
Because that's what Harrison had learned. That emotions were weaknesses. That softness was failure. That love was something that would destroy you if you let it matter too much.
He'd built his company on the same philosophy he'd used to destroy their marriage. Control everything. Trust no one. Keep people at a distance. Treat relationships like business transactions with clear expectations and no room for messiness.
And it was killing his company from the inside.
Eleanor sat in her office on Thursday afternoon reviewing the exit interview data. Forty percent of departing employees used the same word. Afraid. They were afraid of making mistakes. Afraid of being authentic. Afraid of being themselves.
She was so focused on the data that she didn't hear him come in.
"You're not supposed to be on this floor."
Eleanor looked up to find Harrison standing in her doorway. He looked worse than he had at the board meeting. Like he hadn't slept. Like he'd been trying to hold himself together with nothing but willpower and it was starting to fail.
"I'm the CEO," Eleanor said coolly. "I can be anywhere I want."
"I know. But you're here to observe Blake Dynamics. Not to spy on me."
Eleanor closed her laptop and leaned back in her chair. "I'm not spying on you. I'm understanding your company. And what I understand is that you've built a prison where people come to work every day terrified of being themselves."
Harrison's face hardened. "My company is successful."
"Your company is suffocating," Eleanor said. "Your people are brilliant but they're terrified to take risks. Your innovation is stagnant because you've created a culture where anything outside the plan is treated like betrayal. You did to your company exactly what you did to our marriage. You tried to control everything instead of letting people grow."
She stood up and walked past him to close the door. When she turned back around, his expression had shifted. The hardness had cracked. Underneath it was pain. Raw and bleeding.
"I didn't come here to be analyzed," he said quietly.
"Then why did you come here?" Eleanor asked.
Harrison stepped closer. "Because I needed to see if you were actually okay. If this was just revenge or if you were genuinely trying to fix something that's broken."
Eleanor felt her armor slip a little. She reinforced it. "This is business."
"We both know that's a lie."
Before Eleanor could respond, her phone buzzed. An email from an unknown sender. Eleanor's blood went cold. Another message from the mysterious woman. Or the mysterious caller. Or whoever had been trying to guide her since the day she arrived in London.
She opened it without thinking.
The email contained one line and an attachment.
The line read: "Before you restructure Blake Dynamics, you need to see this. This is what Harrison has been hiding. This is why he really pushed you away."
Eleanor clicked the attachment.
It was a hospital record. Dated five years ago. The day Harrison's father died.
But the name on the record wasn't his father's.
It was Eleanor's.
Eleanor's heart stopped. She looked at the document again, reading the information carefully. Patient name: Eleanor Wells. Date of admission: three days before she left Harrison. Reason for admission: severe panic attack. Miscarriage.
Miscarriage.
Eleanor looked up at Harrison.
He was staring at her with his entire body shaking, understanding in his eyes that she now knew. She now knew that she'd been pregnant. That she'd lost the baby. That she'd lost it without telling him because she'd been so convinced he was pulling away that she'd convinced herself he wouldn't want to know.
And he was looking at her like this revelation was about to destroy both of them all over again.
"Eleanor, I can explain," Harrison started, stepping toward her.
But before he could speak, Eleanor's office door opened and a woman walked in. Older. Elegant. With eyes that held secrets.
It was Harrison's mother.
And she was smiling like she'd been waiting a very long time for Eleanor to find out what her son had been hiding.