Chapter 7 - The Downfall of Nostalgia
The fallout from the Plaza gala was swift, brutal, and total.
By Monday morning, *Page Six* had run a blind item that fooled no one: *“Corporate Prince Humiliated as College Muse Turns Out to Be Convicted Embezzler’s Ex.”*
The Sterling Group board held an emergency meeting at seven o’clock that same morning. By eight-thirty, they had officially terminated their contract with Cole Strategy Group, citing reputational liability and a catastrophic failure of basic background vetting. The branding contract with Apex, however, was doubled, with Marcus Vance naming me the executive vice president of the entire division.
Ethan’s firm was bleeding.
Two of his senior partners resigned by Wednesday, taking three major hedge-fund accounts with them. The narrative of Ethan Cole as the infallible, razor-sharp corporate strategist had been shattered; in its place was a laughingstock who had jeopardized a forty-million-dollar merger to play white knight to a convicted fraudster’s mistress.
I spent those days in an exhilarating whirlwind.
My new loft in Tribeca was finally furnished—minimalist, flooded with sunlight, with wide industrial windows overlooking the cobblestone streets below. There were no heavy velvet drapes, no antique cedar chests holding old ghosts, no cold high-rises where my voice was swallowed by another man’s silence.
On Thursday night, a torrential autumn rain battered Manhattan, turning the city into a blur of neon reflections and slick asphalt.
I had just stepped out of my office building, opening a large black umbrella, when a figure stepped out from the shadow of the stone pillars.
“Emma.”
I stopped.
Ethan stood in the pouring rain, without an umbrella, without an overcoat. His expensive suit was drenched, clinging to his frame like a shroud. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and his face was gaunt, hollowed out by a week of sleeplessness and public ruin.
In his right hand, wrapped tightly in plastic to protect it from the downpour, was an object I recognized immediately.
The dark blue hand-knit scarf.
He had retrieved it. God knows how—perhaps he had bribed the building superintendent to search the incinerator basement, or perhaps he had spent hours digging through the refuse bins himself. The edges were charred, blackened by heat, smelling faintly of smoke even through the plastic.
“Ethan,” I said, keeping my distance, my voice steady. “You shouldn't be here. The restraining order is pending.”
“I don't care about the order,” he choked out, his voice hoarse, raw, stripped of every ounce of aristocratic arrogance. He took a staggering step toward me, his knees trembling. “Emma, look at me. Please. Just look at me.”
I looked at him. I saw a stranger holding a bag of ashes.
“I burned it,” he wept, the tears mixing with the rain streaming down his cheeks. “The gray scarf. I took it to the incinerator myself, Emma. I burned it until there was nothing left. I threw Clare out of the city. I canceled the lease on her apartment. I threatened to hand the rest of the Boston documents to the federal marshals if she ever set foot in New York again. She’s gone. It’s over.”
“Good for you, Ethan,” I said quietly. “You should have done that three years ago.”
“I found your scarf,” he sobbed, holding up the plastic-wrapped package like a child offering a broken toy to an angry parent. “The superintendent found it in the maintenance chute. It was caught on the grate. The edges are burned, but… but the stitches are still there, Emma. You made this for me. You spent six weeks making this with your own hands.”
He fell to his knees on the wet sidewalk, right there on Madison Avenue, the puddles soaking through his trousers, uncaring of the pedestrians hurrying past.
“I was blind,” he cried, his voice echoing against the stone walls. “I was a fool, an arrogant, stupid fool who thought that because you were patient, you would never leave. I took your strength and I treated it like stone. I thought you didn't feel pain. I thought… god, Emma, I looked at our apartment, and it’s a graveyard. Without you, it’s just concrete and glass. Please. Come home. I’ll give you the firm. I’ll sign whatever you want. I’ll spend the rest of my life on my knees earning back one percent of your trust. Just don't leave me in this dark.”
I stood beneath my umbrella, the cold rain drumming against the taut fabric above my head.
I looked at the man on his knees.
For three years, I had thought that if Ethan ever broke, if he ever realized how much he had hurt me, if he ever begged for my forgiveness with tears in his eyes, my heart would heal. I had imagined this moment during those long, lonely nights in our high-rise, wishing he would see my worth.
Now, looking down at him, I felt no triumph. I felt no vindication.
I felt only a vast, infinite emptiness.
The love hadn't just died; it had decomposed. There was nothing left to salvage, nothing left to punish, nothing left to hate.
“Get up, Ethan,” I said softly.
He looked up, hope flaring in his bloodshot hazel eyes like a dying candle. “Emma?”
“Get up off the sidewalk,” I said, my voice gentle with a finality that hit harder than any curse. “You’re making a scene. And this time, there is no one here to save you.”
His breath caught. “The… the scarf. Take it. Please. Keep it.”
“I don't want it,” I said, looking at the charred blue wool. “I don't knit anymore, Ethan. And I don't wear things that have been dragged through the trash.”
I turned and stepped toward the waiting town car Julian had sent for me.
May you like
Ethan didn't chase me. He couldn't. He remained on his knees in the pouring rain, clutching a blackened, ruined scarf to his chest, weeping into the storm as the taillights of my car vanished into the New York night.
***
