Divorced by the CEO, He Regrets it

Six.

Tiffany's POV

I stared at David's name lighting up the screen, feeling the phone practically vibrate its way off my palm. My thumb hovered over the green circle, an old habit dragging it there like muscle memory I couldn't shake.

"Should I answer?" I whispered again, more to myself than to Austin.

His hand covered mine before I could press anything. "You don't owe him a single second of your night, Tiff."

I looked at the screen one more time. Five years of picking up on the first ring, of dropping whatever I was doing because David's voice on the other end always meant something urgent, something that needed me. Tonight, for the first time, I let it ring itself out.

The screen went dark. I turned the phone face-down on the coffee table like I was closing a door.

Austin exhaled slowly, and when I glanced up, there was something soft in his expression, not pity, just quiet pride.

"You know that's not about ignoring a call, right? That's you choosing yourself."

"Feels weird," I admitted. "Like I'm supposed to feel guilty."

"You don't."

"I know but I do a little." I pulled my knees up onto the couch, wrapping my arms around them. "Five years of jumping every time he needed something, and now I just... don't. It doesn't switch off that easily."

"It will." Austin's voice was steady, certain in that way he'd always had, even back in college when everyone else was panicking over finals and he was the calm one holding the whole group together.

"Healing starts the second you stop carrying weight that was never yours to carry."

I let that settle in my chest for a moment. He was right, and I hated how much I needed to hear it out loud.

"I spent five years pretending to be ordinary," I said quietly, looking around the penthouse I hadn't lived in since before my wedding. The marble, the skyline, all of it felt like a stranger's house I was trespassing in. "I did that so he'd never feel like I was bigger than him and he still found a way to make me feel small."

Austin's jaw tightened. "That's not humility, Tiff. That's you loving someone who never deserved the softness you gave him."

"I don't want to hate him for it," I said, surprising myself with how true it felt. "I'm done wanting revenge just to watch him bleed. I just want the truth to catch up to him. On its own time."

Austin studied me for a long moment, like he was seeing something new.

"That's more dangerous than hate, you know. Hate burns out. The truth doesn't."

I almost smiled. "Come with me. There's something I want you to see."

I led him down the hallway, past rooms that still smelled faintly like the cleaning service that came monthly to maintain a home I never used, and stopped in front of a door with no handle, only a small glass panel set into the wall beside it. I pressed my finger against it and held my breath as the light blinked green.

The door slid open onto a study untouched by time. Dust sat thin over the shelves, but nothing had been moved, nothing had been packed away. It had simply waited.

Austin stepped in behind me, and I heard him go quiet.

Awards lined one wall, plaques with my real name engraved across them. Magazine covers were framed beside them, headlines calling me one of Asia's youngest and most private business leaders.

Photographs showed me shaking hands with men who ran countries, signing contracts that would have made David's biggest deal look like pocket change, standing beside my grandmother with a plaque behind us both, her hand resting on my shoulder like she was daring the world to underestimate me.

"Tiffany," Austin breathed, turning slowly to take it all in. "This is..."

"Callisto Holdings Group." I picked up one of the photographs, running my thumb along the edge of the frame.

My grandmother's sharp eyes stared back at me, even in a photo, still managing to look like she was assessing whether I'd earned the right to stand next to her. "People think I inherited all of this because we shared blood. That's not what happened."

"Then what happened?"

"She refused to just hand it to me." I set the photo down gently.

"Made me work anonymous jobs across different branches of the company for years. No one knew who I was. I had to earn every promotion the same way anyone else would, to prove I could do the work before she'd even consider trusting me with more."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It was. But she used to tell me money attracts people who love power more than they love people." I looked at him, something aching behind my ribs. "I thought David was different. I married him like nobody, Austin. No name, no company, nothing but me. Because I wanted to know, for certain, that he loved me."

Austin's voice was low. "And instead?"

"Instead I protected the wrong person," I said, the words finally settling into place after days of not understanding my own mistake. "I hid the strongest part of myself to keep him comfortable, and he still found a way to throw me away."

He didn't say anything right away. He just reached over and squeezed my hand, and for once, I let him.

I walked to the window, the city stretching out beneath us in a thousand scattered lights, and pulled out my phone to call Mr. Reynolds.

"Keep pulling Callisto's support from Harrington Legacy," I said the moment he picked up. "Quietly. He can't trace any of it back yet."

"Understood, Miss Callahan-Reyes."

"Let him wonder," I added. "Let him question every deal that falls apart and every investor who suddenly stops returning his calls. He doesn't know why, not yet."

"Consider it done."

I ended the call and slipped the phone back into my pocket, closing my eyes for just a breath, letting myself feel the weight lift off my chest for the first time in days.

Austin came to stand beside me, his shoulder almost touching mine, both of us facing the glittering skyline in silence that didn't feel heavy anymore. It felt like peace.

"So," he said finally, voice quiet but certain, "is Tiffany Harrington finally gone?"

I lifted my chin, feeling something settle inside me that had been missing since the night at Casanova.

"She disappeared the moment he asked for the divorce," I said. "From now on, the world meets Tiffany Callahan-Reyes."