She had wanted the man his title made him look like, and when the title was gone there was nothing underneath it that she had ever actually loved — which was, I reflected, exactly the discovery I had made about my own marriage, only mine had cost me ten years and hers had cost her a job.

Chapter 12 — Terminated

Gavin was terminated from Summit Crest for conflict of interest, misuse of corporate resources, and a total lack of transparency about his department’s spending.

I want to be precise about that, because it matters to me: he was not fired for breaking my heart.

Hearts are not the company’s business.

He was fired because he had spent two years abusing his executive authority to enrich a subordinate he was sleeping with, and that is a thing companies do, correctly, fire people for.

We met at a small café in Midtown a while after, and he looked like a man who had been hollowed out.