Chapter 6 - The Return to RealityThey didn't go to the Maldives.
Instead, Ethan spent his honeymoon week sitting on a sticky vinyl chair in his lawyer’s conference room, signing away his rights to joint property, dividing bank accounts, and watching his pristine corporate reputation take a severe hit as whispers of his domestic implosion rippled through the financial district.
Vanessa didn't wait around for the dust to settle. By Wednesday afternoon, her apartment door was locked, her phone number was changed, and Ethan received a blistering text message stating that she never wanted to see or speak to him again.
The man who had tried to have it all—a prestigious career, a successful, independent wife, and his high school best friend playing surrogate spouse—found himself completely alone in a sterile, overpriced furnished studio apartment on the Upper East Side.
Meanwhile, three miles away, Clare Bennett sat in her newly organized office at Bellweather Journeys, reviewing a high-end itinerary for a private yacht charter in the Mediterranean.
May you like
Her phone rang. She glanced at the screen. It was an unknown number—likely Ethan trying one last desperate plea.
She swiped left to silence it, archived the notification, and went back to designing someone else’s dream vacation.
