Page 44 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)

NINETEEN

THE SILENCE brEAKS

CHANEL

I've arrived early to claim space, to ground myself before Jakob appears. To breathe without his presence altering the chemistry of the air.

I stop before a glass case displaying funeral jewelry—delicate gold pieces created to accompany the dead into whatever comes after. Symbols of permanence. Of bonds that transcend endings. The irony doesn't escape me.

Ten years ago, I stood in this same spot with Jakob on our second date. He'd researched every exhibit, memorized facts about each dynasty, each artifact. Not to impress me with knowledge—to show me he was willing to work for my attention. That effort mattered more than the information itself.

Now we return to neutral ground, both different versions of who we were. Both carrying burial jewelry of our own—memories, wounds, hopes embalmed but never truly laid to rest.

My reflection in the glass stares back at me—a woman composed on the surface, while beneath runs an undercurrent of emotion I've spent years damming. Today, I've come to decide if I'm brave enough to let the walls come down. If what floods through might nourish rather than drown.

I hear him before I see him. The particular cadence of his stride—unhurried yet precise—as familiar to me as Jaden's laugh or my own heartbeat. My body registers his approach before my mind can armor against it—pulse quickening, breath catching, skin warming in rebellion against reason.

I don't turn immediately. Allow myself three heartbeats to prepare. To remember why I came. Not for reconciliation. Not for absolution. For truth, uncomplicated by performance or strategy.

"Chanel."

Just my name. But in his mouth, it carries history. Two syllables that contain everything we were, everything we lost.

I turn.

Jakob stands ten feet away, no closer than necessary, respecting the boundary of space between us.

Not in his usual tailored armor—he's wearing dark jeans, a simple gray sweater.

Clothes that don't assert power or position.

His eyes hold mine without artifice, without the careful calculation I've grown accustomed to seeing there.

"Thank you for coming," I say.

"Thank you for asking."

We study each other across marble and history. Both searching for signs of what comes next. Both waiting for the other to break first.

I'm the one who moves, closing half the distance between us. Not retreat, not advance—adjustment. Finding the precise point where conversation feels possible without proximity becoming overwhelming.

"I need to understand," I say. The words emerge without preamble, without cushioning. "Everything. Not just what you think I want to hear."

"I know." He doesn't approach further. Doesn't reach for me. Just stands, hands at his sides, shoulders carrying a tension I recognize from board meetings where millions hang on his decisions. "That's why I'm here."

We find a stone bench near a wall of hieroglyphics—ancient stories we can't decipher becoming backdrop to our own. We sit with precise space between us, close enough for truth, far enough for clarity.

"Start at the beginning," I say. "The real one."

He exhales, a sound like surrender. Like relief. Like a man setting down weight carried too long.

"Megan threatened you." His voice drops, pitched for privacy in the quiet gallery. "Four years ago, when Novare was still growing. When we were... separated."

"After you pulled away," I clarify. The memory still cuts—the slow erosion of connection, the silent meals, the coldness that grew between us during that final year of marriage.

"Yes." A single nod. "She had evidence of early funding practices. Connections that wouldn't withstand scrutiny. Things I did before I understood the consequences. Before us."

"She threatened to expose you?"

"No." His eyes find mine, unflinching. "She threatened to destroy you. Your reputation. Your career. She said she'd fabricate evidence of your involvement. Make it look like you'd helped structure the questionable deals."

A cold current runs through me, realization crystallizing. "She wanted me gone."

"She wanted what I had." The muscle in his jaw tightens, the only tell in his otherwise controlled face. "Not just the company. Everything."

"So you filed for divorce." The words taste bitter. "Without warning. Without explanation."

"I thought I was protecting you." No defense in his tone. Just acknowledgment. "I believed distance was safety. That I could contain the damage if I contained it to myself."

I absorb this, fitting it against memories that never quite made sense. The growing silence during our separation. The divorce papers arriving without warning. The years of careful, distant co-parenting that followed. Jaden just three years old, too young to remember us ever being whole.

"You could have told me. Let me decide for myself."

"Yes." The single syllable carries the weight of four lost years. "That was my mistake. I made a choice for both of us because I thought it was cleaner. Safer. Because I was afraid of what might happen if I asked you to face it with me."

His honesty disarms me. No excuses. No reframing. Just the stark reality of what he did and what it cost.

"And now?" I ask. "With Megan? The RSV board sending me home?"

Something shifts in his expression—a steeling, a hardness that wasn't there before. His eyes hold mine, letting me see what I suspect has always been there, beneath careful control.

"I dismantled her." The words emerge without heat, without pride. Just cold certainty. "Completely. I froze her accounts. Contacted her family. Sent evidence to investors. I made sure she understood the consequences of targeting you again."

My breath catches. Not at the ruthlessness—I've always known what Jakob is capable of. But at the lack of apology in his voice. The absence of performance. This isn't a confession designed to shock or impress. It's simply truth.

"You threatened her family?"

"Everyone she relied on. I made sure she had nowhere to go but out." He doesn't flinch from my gaze. "I told her to leave the country within twenty-four hours, or I'd ensure the system swallowed her whole."

Four years ago, this would have terrified me—the calculated destruction, the cold precision. Today, I recognize it as the dark mirror of protection. The same instinct that made him walk away now turned outward rather than in.

"And RSV?"

"The same. I made it clear that your career remains intact. That any attempt to damage your reputation would have consequences."

I absorb this, weighing the implications. The Jakob I married kept his power hidden from me, compartmentalized between boardroom and bedroom. This Jakob is showing me everything—the violence and the tenderness, the protection and the possession, the capacity for both creation and destruction.

"This is who I am, Chanel." His voice softens, but the steel beneath remains. "I don't want to pretend anymore. I've spent four years trying to be worthy of you by hiding the parts of myself I thought you couldn't accept. I was wrong."

I study his face—the same face I've traced in sleep, in passion, in anger. The face I see echoed in our son. Behind his eyes burns something I recognize because I've felt it too: the exhaustion of performance. The desperate desire for someone who sees all of you and stays anyway.

"I don't know what to do with this," I admit. Truth for truth. "With you. With us."

"You don't have to know yet." His hand rests on the bench between us, not reaching for mine, just existing in the same space. "I'm not asking for forgiveness. Or for another chance. I'm just offering truth. Whatever happens next is your choice."

Something breaks open inside my chest—not pain, but the absence of it. The relief of finally understanding. Four years of questions answered without evasion. Four years of doubt clarified into certainty, even if that certainty is complicated.

"I told Latanya I never stopped loving you." The confession emerges before I can reconsider. "Yesterday. I didn't plan to say it. It just... came out."

His eyes widen fractionally—the only sign that my words have landed. His breathing shifts, but he doesn't move toward me. Doesn't press the advantage of vulnerability.

"And do you?" he asks. "Still?"

The question hangs between us, weighted with everything that might follow.

Ten years since we first collided in that seminar room.

Six years of marriage that began in fire and ended in ice.

With four years of rebuilding myself from the wreckage he left.

With the knowledge that love was never our problem—trust was.

"I don't know how to stop," I admit. The words tear from somewhere honest and unguarded. "Even when I convinced myself I had."

He exhales, the sound carrying years of tension. His fingers flex on the bench between us, an aborted movement toward mine, disciplined into stillness.

"I've never tried to stop," he says. "I just got better at living with it."

Silence settles—not the loaded, dangerous kind of avoidance, but something gentler. A pause. A breath. A moment of recognizing that some conversations require space between words.

My phone vibrates in my purse. Once, twice. A third time—the pattern I've set for priority calls. I reach for it automatically, years of motherhood conditioning me to respond immediately to potential emergencies.

Unknown number.

"I should take this," I say. "It could be Jaden's school."

Jakob nods, leaning back to give me privacy while remaining present.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Warren?" A man's voice, professional but concerned. "This is David Kim, head instructor at Elite Karate Academy. I'm calling because Jaden didn't check in for his class today. I wanted to make sure everything's alright."

Ice slides down my spine. "I'm sorry—what?"

"Jaden. He's not here. The class started thirty minutes ago. We always call when a student doesn't show up."