The office is tense, the air thick with frustration and barely restrained anger. The large windows overlook the city skyline, but neither of them is looking at the view—the father sits behind his desk, hands clasped tightly, jaw clenched, while his son paces in front of him, his movements restless, sharp.
"I did everything I could!" Allen burst out in anger. His eyes are wild with frustration, his voice edged with disbelief. "I apologized, I begged, I told her I'd change—but she wouldn't listen!"
His father inhales sharply through his nose, fingers pressing against his temple as though trying to suppress the rising fury bubbling beneath his calm demeanor. "You shouldn't have had to beg in the first place," he snaps. "You shouldn't have betrayed her in the first place."
The younger man's face twists. "That's not the point! The point is she won't forgive me. And now—now, she's pulling out of everything! The investors are following her, the board is in chaos. She has an empire, her father has one two, they have two completely different fields in business and she can control it! ".
His father slams his palm against the desk, finally letting the frustration spill out. "No! If you wanted to ruin yourself, you couldn't have done it better!"
The younger man flinches at the outburst but quickly hardens again, defiant. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen!"
"But it did!" His father stands abruptly, eyes burning with disappointment, anger."You are fully aware that she's our last hope!".
His son clenches his fists, breath uneven. "So that's it? Everything collapses because of one mistake?"
His father's expression is cold. "No. Everything collapses because you made mistake after mistake and assumed there wouldn't be consequences."
Silence stretches between them, heavy, suffocating.
The younger man stares at his father, frustration twisting into desperation. "She was supposed to forgive me," he murmurs. "She always did before".
His father exhales, shaking his head. "That's the problem, isn't it? You thought she always would."
"I will fix this, she will forgive me...she will do like she always did before". Allen slams the door leaving his father alone.
On the other side of the town there is Lauren, clacking of keyboards, the low murmur of conversations, the distant ringing of phones. She sits at her desk, posture straight, eyes locked onto the screen, willing herself to drown in reports, emails, anything that can tether her to the present and away from the echoes of him.
The coffee beside her grows cold, untouched. She glances at the clock, realizing she's been staring at the same document for ten minutes without absorbing a single word. With a frustrated sigh, she rubs her temples, forcing herself to refocus.
Colleagues pass by, chatting, laughing, wrapped up in their own lives—lives untouched by the betrayal she is trying to shake off. She envies that ease, that normalcy. It used to be hers, too.
A message pops up on her phone. Her heart clenches reflexively before she even checks it. But it's not him—it's Erika.
"Lunch?".
She exhales, her fingers hovering over the keyboard before she types back.
"Yeah...I need a break".
Because moving on isn't just forgetting—it's choosing to shift forward, one decision at a time.