It wasn’t until noon the next day that Nolan realized I was gone.
Brielle’s “I’m going to jump” stunt ended with her spending half an hour in the cold on the bridge before throwing herself into his arms and turning on the charm.
He stayed with Brielle at a waterfront hotel until they both woke up on their own. Only then did he remember the woman he’d abandoned in the rain.
Elias’s assistant was the one who told me.
“Mr. Whitaker went to your old apartment. It was completely empty, and the locks had been changed.”
The assistant stood beside my hospital bed and delivered the update in a respectful tone.
I took a sip of warm water, looking perfectly calm.
“Did he look for me at the hospitals?”
“He checked the major hospitals downtown. You’re at a private research hospital under a confidential admission, so he hasn’t found you.”
The assistant adjusted his glasses.
“Mr. Whitaker seems to think you’re just angry with him. He also blew up in the company chat and ordered everyone not to contact you privately.”
I let out a quiet laugh despite myself.
Nolan had always been that arrogant.
He thought that if he ignored me long enough, I’d come crawling back to him the way I had for the past five years.
“How’s the factory?”
I set down my glass and got to the point.
“Just as you instructed, we’ve stopped all shipments of the Tideweave concentrate.”
The assistant pulled up the production data on his tablet.
“Whitaker Group’s lines are running on the last of their existing stock. They should be out by this afternoon.”
“They haven’t realized something’s wrong?”
“Ms. Sutton claims she’s mastered the purification process and pushed ahead with the backup production line.”
There was a trace of mockery in his voice.
“But without your core concentrate, the fabric they’re producing doesn’t meet the fireproof or waterproof standards.”
I nodded, satisfied.
The secret of Tideweave had never been hidden in complicated chemical formulas.
It was an enzyme unique to merfolk.
Brielle could steal my patent application, but she couldn’t steal what was built into my biology.
At three that afternoon, my phone lit up with a call from an unfamiliar number.
I answered, and Nolan’s voice came through, his anger barely restrained.
“You’ve gotten bold, Mara. Blocking me now?”
He was obviously calling from someone else’s phone.
“What do you want?”
My voice was flat.
There was a two-second silence.
Apparently, Nolan hadn’t expected me to speak to him that way.
“Are you done with this tantrum? Brielle is appearing at the launch tomorrow. Get the rest of the concentrate over to the company.”
It wasn’t a request.
“Why would I?”
“Because you work for Whitaker Group, and because you had a hand in that patent.”
His voice rose.
“Mara, I’m warning you. Don’t cause trouble at a time like this. Bring the concentrate over now, and I’ll let what happened last night go.”
The sheer entitlement in his threat was almost unbelievable.
He didn’t even have the patience to ask whether I was okay after last night or whether my stomach still hurt.
“Nolan, we’re divorced.”
I stated it as simply as that.
“You’re not getting the concentrate, and that patent won’t do you any good without it. You’re on your own.”
I hung up and blocked that number too.
“Get everything ready. We’re going to Whitaker Group’s product launch tomorrow.”