Shayla will face the consequences as Anthony deliberates and makes a decision regarding her
Shayla stood in the mirror that morning, adjusting the neckline of her navy-blue blouse. She always dressed a little more carefully on the days she knew she might see Anthony. Their paths still crossed. They had to. When you co-own a company with someone—when you’ve built something together from nothing—you don’t get the luxury of disappearing after betrayal.
Only this time, she had been the one to betray.
It had been a stupid mistake. One night. A moment of weakness and fire and unresolved longing that led her to cross a line she had sworn never to approach. A business dinner turned into a hotel room. The man hadn’t meant anything. He was a vendor—charming, older, and smooth in all the ways that made you forget your scars. She’d felt lonely, vulnerable, isolated from Anthony, who had grown colder, more distant in recent months.
Maybe it was karma. Maybe it was cowardice. But Shayla hadn’t told Anthony.
He found out anyway.
Not from her lips—but from an email left open on her computer. One she hadn’t meant to send. One that confirmed everything: the night, the guilt, and the fact that she had kept it a secret.
Now, it had been six days.
Six days of silence.
No screaming. No confrontation. Just cold, vacant space between them in the boardroom. He wouldn’t even look at her. But today, she got the call:
“I need to speak with you. Just us. After hours.”
She knew what it meant.
At 7:04 p.m., she entered the glass-walled office they once renovated together. It was dark outside. The city lights bled in through the blinds. Anthony sat at the head of the long conference table, alone, a bottle of bourbon and two glasses sitting beside a folder marked simply: “Resolution.”
She hesitated. “You wanted to talk.”
He gestured to the chair across from him. “Sit.”
She sat, folding her hands to hide the way they trembled.
Anthony poured a drink. One for her. One for him.
“I didn’t think you were capable of this,” he said. His voice was calm—too calm.
Shayla swallowed hard. “I didn’t plan it. It was a mistake.”
He looked at her then. Really looked. “Do you think that makes it easier to accept?”
“No,” she said, barely a whisper. “It just makes it harder to explain.”
He sat back, staring at her like a judge would an accused.
“For two years,” he said slowly, “you’ve watched me rebuild trust after what I did. You saw me claw my way back from it. You said you forgave me.”
“I did,” she said. “I meant it. I still—”
“Don’t,” he said sharply. “Don’t say you still love me. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have handed your body to someone else while I was fighting to become better for you.”
Shayla’s eyes burned. “I was alone, Anthony. You pulled away. You acted like we were just business partners. I didn’t even know if we had a ‘we’ anymore.”
“I pulled away because I was afraid,” he snapped. “Afraid that even after all the work, you’d never truly trust me again. And now I see why—because you were already halfway out the door yourself.”
A long silence followed.
Then he slid the folder across the table.
She hesitated. “What is this?”
“A buyout. Of your shares. I’m offering you a clean exit. Financially fair. Emotionally final.”
Her heart dropped. “You’re kicking me out?”
“I’m not ‘kicking’ you out,” he said, his tone suddenly weary. “I’m giving you the freedom to be done with this. With me. With this company. I can’t do it anymore, Shayla. We can’t heal from this. Not twice.”
Tears slipped down her cheek. “You don’t believe I can be sorry?”
“I believe you’re sorry,” he said. “But I also believe sorry isn’t always enough.”
She opened the folder. Numbers. Terms. Conditions.
All legal. All cold.
“I built this company too,” she whispered.
“And I’ll never forget that,” he said. “But the woman who helped build this with me—she’s not the one who stood in that hotel room.”
Shayla stood, spine straight despite the shaking.
“Is this your final decision?” she asked.
Anthony stared at his drink. Then up at her. “It is.”
She nodded once. “Then I’ll sign it in the morning.”
She walked out without looking back. Her heels echoed down the hallway—each step louder than the last.
Months later, articles would say Shayla Monroe’s exit from Monroe & Reyes Group was unexpected but poised. The press praised her poise, her dignity. No one knew the truth of those final hours. No one knew how close she came to begging.
But she didn’t.
Because Shayla knew something else now: Consequences aren’t just punishments—they’re mirrors. And in Anthony’s decision, she saw the reflection of the betrayal she tried to rationalize.
This was her reckoning.
And she would carry it forward, one step at a time, rebuilding her life again—only this time, without the man she once loved... and lost.
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