James's POV
James watched Katherine settle into the chair across from him and realized he was about to lose her all over again.
She'd set up her laptop. She'd pulled out a notebook. She'd arranged everything between them like a barrier made of professionalism and distance. She wasn't here to reconnect with him. She was here to fix his company and pretend that three years hadn't happened. Pretend that she didn't know exactly what his hands felt like. Pretend that their marriage was just another failed business deal.
He took a deep breath and started talking.
"The company needs restructuring," he said, keeping his voice steady. Keeping it professional even though every word felt like a lie because none of this was really about the company. "The board is losing confidence. We're bleeding money in places we shouldn't be. Our infrastructure isn't competitive anymore."
Katherine nodded like he was telling her something she didn't already know. Like she hadn't spent the entire weekend dissecting every financial detail. Like she hadn't already figured out exactly what was wrong with his company and how to fix it.
"I need someone who can see what I'm missing," James continued. "Someone brilliant. Someone ruthless. Someone who won't be intimidated by my name or my money."
Katherine looked up from her laptop.
"Then it's good you're not hiring me to be impressed," she said. "I'm here to fix problems. That's it."
James wanted to tell her that wasn't what he'd meant. Wanted to explain that the person he needed wasn't a financial advisor. That he needed her to look at him and see something worth saving. That he needed her to believe that the man sitting across from her wasn't the same man who'd chosen money over her five years ago.
He couldn't say any of that.
"I understand," he said instead. "I just wanted you to know that I'm not going to interfere with your recommendations. The board has authorized me to implement whatever you suggest. You have complete control."
Katherine nodded. She was writing something in her notebook. She wasn't looking at him.
"That's what the contract says," she said.
James couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't sit here and pretend that this was just another business meeting. He couldn't watch her pretend that being in the same room as him didn't cost her something.
"Katherine, I need to say something."
She stopped writing.
"I'm sorry," James said, and the words felt too small for what he was trying to convey. "For everything. For how I treated you. For the prenup. For not fighting for you when you left. For being the kind of man who made you sign away your future."
Katherine didn't move. She didn't look at him. She just sat there with her pen in her hand and her walls built up so high he couldn't see anything behind them.
"I'm sorry," James continued because she wasn't going to let him off easy and he didn't deserve to be let off easy. "I was arrogant. I was selfish. I was terrified that if you had something to lose, you'd have a reason to leave me. So I made sure you didn't have anything. And I lost you anyway. Which is exactly what I deserved."
Katherine set down her pen.
She stood up slowly and walked toward the door.
"James, I didn't come here to fix your guilt," she said, her voice steady in a way that suggested it had taken her all weekend to build that steadiness. "I came here because your company can be saved and I can save it. That's the only conversation we need to have."
She reached for the door handle.
James watched her hand shake.
Just for a second. Just barely noticeable. Her fingers trembled as they touched the cold metal like her body was betraying what her words were trying to hide.
She wasn't as unaffected as she was pretending to be.
"If that's not something you can accept," Katherine said, opening the door, "then I'll get on the first flight back to Los Angeles tonight."
James stood up.
"I can accept it," he said. "I do accept it. I'll keep things professional."
Katherine didn't turn around. She was holding the door open like she was counting down the seconds until she could leave this room and him behind.
"Good," she said. "Then I'll start pulling together my recommendations tomorrow. I'll need access to all personnel files. All vendor contracts. All infrastructure documentation. Complete access to everything."
"You have it," James said immediately. "Whatever you need."
Katherine stepped out into the hallway and James realized something that made his chest tighten with a pain he'd never experienced before.
She didn't need him to feel sorry.
She didn't need his apologies or his regret or his understanding of how badly he'd failed. None of that meant anything to her because she'd spent three years proving she didn't need him at all. She'd taken the fifty thousand dollars he'd left her with and turned it into fifty million. She'd built an empire. She'd made herself into someone untouchable.
What she needed from him was for him to not exist. What she needed was to do her job and go home and pretend that seeing him hadn't cost her anything.
But she had to share an office building with him every single day for the next six months.
James watched her walk away down the hallway and felt like drowning.
He sat back down at the conference table and realized his hands were shaking worse than hers had been. He picked up his phone to do some work, to distract himself, to do anything except think about the fact that Katherine Hayes was in his building right now and she couldn't stand to look at him.
That was when his phone buzzed with an email from the board.
The subject line said: "Urgent. Personnel Review. Conference Room B. Thirty Minutes."
James opened the email and started reading and with every word, his stomach dropped deeper.
Because the email was about restructuring his executive team. About identifying which people needed to go. About making cuts to the company that would save money but destroy morale. And the email specifically mentioned that Katherine had already been analyzing the team structure and had flagged several executives as problems.
Which meant Katherine already knew who was sabotaging him.
Which meant his board had given her the same files that James hadn't even looked at yet.
Which meant Katherine had access to information about his executive team that he didn't have access to, and she was going to walk into that personnel meeting knowing exactly who the problems were while James was still in the dark.
James pulled up his employee files as fast as he could.
He started scrolling through the records. Personnel histories. Financial compensation. Project assignments. Everything you would need to identify who was stealing from the company and how they were doing it.
And that's when he found it.
A series of transactions that made his blood go cold.
Wire transfers from the company accounts to a private account that wasn't connected to anyone on the executive team. Transfers that had been happening for three years. Transfers that added up to millions of dollars.
James pulled up the account information and realized something that changed everything.
The account was registered under the name of someone he trusted completely. Someone who had access to his personal finances. Someone who had been by his side since the beginning.
Someone he'd been talking to this morning about Katherine.
James grabbed his phone and called security.
"I need you to freeze all accounts under my name immediately," he said. "All of them. Personal and business. And I need you to pull surveillance footage from my office for the last six months."
Then he hung up and realized he was about to have to tell Katherine that the situation was worse than either of them had thought. And that meant he was going to have to look at her again.
And that's when his office door opened and Katherine was back.
She was holding a stack of documents and her face was completely white.
"James, we have a bigger problem," she said, closing the door behind her. "Someone is actively stealing from your company. And I think I know who it is. But you're not going to believe me when I tell you."