Two Little Secrets From My Boss

Chapter 51

[POV Xander]

The message arrived at seven in the morning.

We need to talk, privately. The rooftop bar at the Meridian, 8 PM tonight. Come alone, or everyone learns what you've been hiding.

I stared at Bianca's text for a long time, my coffee growing cold in my hand. Every instinct screamed to ignore it, to let security handle her, to refuse engagement on her terms. But refusing would escalate things faster than compliance, and I couldn't afford more escalation.

Not with the board review hanging over my head. Not with Daphne already suspicious. So I went.

The Meridian's rooftop bar was nearly empty on a Tuesday evening—just a few couples scattered across the terrace, their conversations lost to the wind and the city noise below. Bianca sat at a corner table, backlit by the skyline, looking exactly as composed as she had twenty years ago when she'd first walked into my life.

"You came," she gestured to the chair across from her. "I wasn't sure you would."

"You didn't leave me much choice," I sat, keeping my posture rigid, my expression controlled. "What do you want, Bianca? Money? A settlement? Name your price and let's be done with this."

She laughed—a soft, almost pitying sound that made my skin crawl. "Oh, Xander. You still think this is about money. It never was."

"Then what?"

"Justice, perhaps. Equilibrium," she lifted her wine glass, studying the liquid in the low light. "You took everything from me: my dignity, my marriage, my standing in society. The gala humiliation was just the final blow in a long campaign of destruction."

"I didn't destroy your marriage. You did that yourself when you chose Victor's money over—" I stopped myself. Old arguments wouldn't help here.

"Over you?" Her smile sharpened. "Is that what you were going to say? How touching that you still think of it that way," she set down her glass. "But we're not here to relitigate ancient history but to discuss your future. Or rather, whether you'll have one."

"Get to the point."

"I know your little secret, Xander."

The words landed like ice water, cold and paralyzing. I kept my expression neutral, but something must have shown because her smile widened.

"I see that got your attention."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I did my best to sound calm.

"Don't insult us both with denials," she leaned forward, her voice dropping to something almost intimate. "I've spent months digging, following threads, talking to people who remember things they shouldn't. And do you know what I found at the end of all that digging?"

I said nothing. My heart was pounding so hard I was certain she could hear it.

"I found a body, Xander, metaphorically speaking." She paused, letting the weight of the words settle. "Tell me, Xander—does Daphne know she's married to a murderer?"

The word landed like a detonation. Murderer. I felt it reverberate through my chest, awakening memories I'd spent fifteen years trying to bury.

"I didn't kill anyone."

"The evidence suggests otherwise. Or at least, it suggests enough to destroy you if it becomes public." Bianca's voice remained calm, almost kind—the tone of someone delivering difficult news with practiced compassion. "Brake lines that failed under suspicious circumstances. A witness who saw your car near the accident site hours before it happened. Financial records showing just how much you stood to gain from his death."

"Circumstantial. All of it."

"Perhaps. But in the court of public opinion, circumstantial is enough," she leaned back, victory settling across her features. "Imagine the headlines: 'Billionaire CEO's Dark Past Exposed.' 'Founding Death Reopened as Murder Investigation.' 'Wife of Accused Killer Speaks Out.'"

"What do you want?"

"I told you—not money," she folded her hands on the table, businesslike now. "I want you to step away. From the company, from the board fight, from all of it. Let Victor and the investors have what they're asking for. Retire gracefully, citing personal reasons, and disappear into comfortable obscurity."

"You want me to surrender."

"Accept reality." Her eyes hardened. "You've lost, Xander. The board review, the accusations, the coordinated pressure—it's all designed to push you out. I'm simply offering you a choice in how that happens. You can step away with your reputation intact, your family protected, your secrets buried. Or you can fight, and I will expose everything."

"To whom?"

"Everyone. Investors, board members, media outlets that have been salivating for a story like this." She paused. "Daphne, your daughters. The whole world will know what kind of man you really are."

My hands clenched beneath the table. The rage was building—that familiar fire that had driven me to build an empire from nothing, that had sustained me through every obstacle and betrayal. But beneath the rage was something colder: fear. The knowledge that she was right.

If this came out, everything I'd built would crumble. Not just the company, not just my reputation, but my family. Daphne would look at me differently. My daughters would grow up knowing their father was accused of murder. The life we'd built together would be poisoned at its foundation.

"How long do I have to decide?"

"The board meets again in two weeks. I'll need your answer before then." She stood, gathering her purse. "Think carefully, Xander. You've spent your whole life fighting. Maybe it's time to consider what you're fighting for."

She walked away without looking back, her heels clicking against the terrace tiles, leaving me alone with the city lights and the weight of my past.

I sat there for a long time after she left, staring at nothing, my mind cycling through options that all led to the same dead end. Fight and risk losing everything. Surrender and definitely lose everything. There was no path forward that didn't involve destruction.

Lora. I hadn't thought about her in years—had trained myself not to think about her. The accident had been ruled exactly that: an accident.

But I knew things the investigators didn't. Knew about the argument we'd had the week before, about the threats Lora had made, about the evidence she'd claimed to have of my early financial irregularities and intended to show to Gerald. Evidence that would have destroyed me if it had come to light.

I hadn't killed her. I had to believe that. The timing had been a coincidence—horrible, convenient coincidence that had haunted me ever since. But I'd never touched her, never done more than wish her gone in the privacy of my own thoughts.

Wishing wasn't murder. Benefiting from someone's death wasn't the same as causing it.

But try explaining that to a world hungry for scandal. Try explaining it to a wife who was already suspicious, already sensing the secrets piling up between you.

I ordered a whiskey and drank it slowly, letting the burn settle into my chest. Silence was protection. That's what I told myself as I watched the city lights blur below. Keeping this buried was the only way to keep my family safe.

The lie tasted like ash, but I swallowed it anyway.