The Architect of Our Love

Brooke

The manila folder makes no sound as it lands on the polished obsidian surface of his desk. It’s a whisper of paper against stone, but in the crushing silence of this office, it feels like a gunshot.

Blake doesn’t look up. He holds one finger in the air, a silent command for me to wait, his other hand holding a sleek black phone to his ear. His voice is a low, impatient rumble that vibrates through the thick glass walls overlooking the city.

“No, not a billion. Nine hundred and fifty million, and that’s my final offer. Make it work.” He ends the call without a goodbye, tossing the phone onto its wireless charger. Only then do his eyes, the color of a winter storm, flick up to me. They sweep over my simple gray dress, my bare arms, the flat shoes on my feet, and find me wanting. They always do.

“What is it, Brooke?” he asks. His tone is the one he uses for household staff and incompetent assistants. A flat, bored inquiry that expects a problem he’ll have to solve with money.

“I have something for you,” I say. My voice is steady. I practiced it in the mirror this morning until it was a stranger’s voice, devoid of the tremor that lived in my throat for nine years.

He glances at the folder, a flicker of annoyance crossing his perfect, sculpted features. “If this is for another one of your charities, the foundation handles that. You know the protocol.”

“It’s not for a charity.” I slide the folder another inch toward him. It feels like pushing a continent.

He sighs, a sound of pure exasperation, and finally pulls it closer. He flips open the cover. For a moment, he just stares. The carefully constructed mask of indifference doesn’t shatter. It just freezes, becomes brittle. I watch the muscle in his jaw twitch. Once. Twice.

“What is this?” he says, his voice dangerously quiet.

“They’re divorce papers,” I reply, keeping my hands clasped behind my back so he can’t see my knuckles turning white. “I’ve already signed them.”

A harsh, dry laugh escapes his lips. It’s a terrible sound, completely without humor. “A joke. Is this a joke?”

“Does it look like one?”

He flips through the pages, his movements sharp, angry. He’s scanning for the numbers, for the part where I demand my pound of flesh. It’s the only language he truly understands. He stops on the settlement page, his eyes narrowing as they race across the text. The silence stretches, thick and suffocating.

“There’s nothing here,” he finally says, his voice laced with disbelief. “The asset division. It’s blank.”

“It’s not blank,” I correct him gently. “It says I waive all claims. I don’t want your money, Blake.”

He looks up at me then, truly looks at me, and for the first time in a very long time, I see confusion in his eyes. He is a man who has never been confused a day in his life. He buys answers. He commands solutions. He does not encounter… this.

“What do you want, then?” he demands. “A bigger number? Is this some kind of negotiation tactic? Because it’s pathetic.”

“I want my freedom,” I say. “I want my name back. That’s all.”

He stands up, slamming his hands flat on the desk. The sound echoes in the sterile room. “Nine years. We had an arrangement for nine years, Brooke. An agreement. You don’t just walk in here and tear it up.”

“The agreement is fulfilled,” I say, my calm infuriating him further. I can see it in the tightening of his shoulders, the darkening of his eyes. “You needed a suitable, quiet wife to secure the Harland empire from your grandfather. You have it. Your grandfather is gone. The board is stable. I held up my end of the bargain.”

“And you were compensated for it,” he bites back. “Handsomely. You lived a life most people can only dream of.”

“I lived in a gilded cage,” I whisper, the words slipping out before I can stop them. “And the door was always locked.”

“The door was never locked!” he roars, his voice bouncing off the panoramic windows. “You could have done anything you wanted. Traveled, shopped, redecorated. I never stopped you.”

“I didn’t want to shop, Blake.”

He stares at me, his jaw working. He’s searching for an angle, a weakness he can exploit. He’s looking for the woman he thinks he knows. The quiet, pliable, unremarkable girl he married as a business transaction.

“Is it someone else?” he asks, his voice dropping to a low, accusatory growl. “Did you find some tennis coach or a pathetic artist to screw? Is that what this is?”

The accusation is so predictable, so perfectly Blake, that a real smile, my first in his presence in years, touches my lips. “No, Blake. There is no one else. There hasn’t been for nine years. This is about me.”

The smile seems to unnerve him more than anything else. He sinks back into his chair, running a hand through his dark hair. The formidable Blake Harland, the man who devours companies for breakfast, looks utterly lost.

“I don’t understand,” he says, and the words sound torn from his throat.

“I know,” I say. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You never did.”

I turn to leave. My heels make small, decisive clicks on the marble floor. Each step is a lifetime away from him.

“Brooke, wait.”

I pause at the door, my hand on the cool metal handle, but I don’t turn around. I can’t. If I see his face again, the resolve I’ve spent months building might crack.

“Don’t do this,” he says. It’s not a command anymore. It’s something else. Something I can’t quite name.

“It’s already done.”

I pull the door open and step into the hallway, leaving him there with the silence and a single manila folder that holds the end of our world. I don’t look back. I walk past his executive assistant, who gawks at me with wide, curious eyes. I walk to the elevator, my posture perfect, my head held high. The doors slide shut, encasing me in brushed steel, and only then do I allow my body to tremble. My knees feel weak, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I press a shaking hand to my mouth to stifle a sob that is nine years overdue.

The freedom is terrifying. It’s a vast, empty sky, and I’ve only just realized I might have wings.

An hour later, I stand in the middle of my new apartment. It’s not really an apartment. It’s a room. A small, third-floor walk-up with floors that creak and a window that looks out onto a brick wall. It smells of dust and old paint and a faint hint of lemon polish from the landlord’s hopeful cleaning.

And it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

It’s mine. All of it.

There is no staff. There is no security detail parked out front. There are no priceless, sterile sculptures that I’m afraid to touch. There is just me and one single cardboard box on the floor.

That’s all I took. One box.

I sink to the floor, my legs crossed, and pull the box toward me. The tape shrieks as I peel it back. Inside, nestled in bubble wrap, are the few things that were truly mine. A faded photograph of my parents, smiling on a beach. My mother’s silver locket, tarnished with age. A small, hand-painted ceramic bird my grandmother made me when I was a child.

I set them out one by one on the dusty floorboards. A tiny collection of a life I’d put on hold.

At the very bottom of the box, there is one more thing. A heavy, hardcover book. Its blue cover is frayed, the corners softened from use. I lift it out, its weight familiar and comforting in my hands. The title is embossed in faded gold lettering: *The Modern Architect’s Handbook: Form, Space, and Order*.

I open it to the first page. There, in my own youthful, looping script, is my name. Brooke Sanderson. Not Harland. Sanderson.

My thumb traces the edge of the page, feeling the crispness of the paper. I remember buying this book with the last of my savings after my first year of college. I remember staying up all night, devouring the chapters on structural integrity and spatial theory, my mind lit up with ideas, with plans, with a future I was so certain of. A future I traded for a loveless contract and a name that never felt like my own.

I hug the book to my chest. The sharp corners dig into my skin. This book isn't just paper and ink. It’s a promise I made to myself a lifetime ago. A promise that got buried under nine years of silent dinners, empty pleasantries, and the chilling indifference of a man who slept beside me but never saw me.

He still doesn’t see me. He thinks the woman who left his office today is weak, pathetic, and impulsive. He thinks I have nothing.

I look around my small, empty room. He’s wrong.

I have everything.