Chapter 10 - The Fake Apology: Rowan Begs on His Knees at the Sterling Estate
By Thursday evening, Rowan had hit absolute rock bottom.
He had spent the last forty-eight hours sleeping on a stained mattress in a cheap twenty-nine-dollar-a-night motel near the industrial docks of Queens. His credit cards had all been declined. His bank accounts were frozen. His mother was screaming at him over a borrowed burner phone, blaming him for ruining her social life and threatening to testify against him to save her own skin.
His entire world had evaporated in less than a week.
Desperate, disheveled, and completely broken, Rowan spent his last fifty dollars on a cab ride out to Long Island.
At 6:30 p.m., as the sun was setting in brilliant shades of amber and violet over the Long Island Sound, Rowan stood outside the towering wrought-iron security gates of the Sterling Estate in Oyster Bay.
He pressed the call button on the stone pillar, weeping into the speaker. "Phoebe! Phoebe, please! It's Rowan! I know you're in there! Just give me five minutes! Five minutes to see my son and talk to my wife! Please, for God's sake, open the gates!"
Two minutes later, the heavy iron gates slowly swung open.
Rowan let out a gasp of relief, running up the long, winding cobblestone driveway lined with century-old oak trees. He reached the grand stone courtyard in front of the main mansion, panting heavily, his clothes rumpled and his hair a greasy mess.
Sitting on the marble terrace overlooking the rose gardens was me.
I wore a soft lavender cashmere sweater and white linen pants. Beside me on the glass table sat a stack of certified legal documents and a baby monitor transmitting the soft, rhythmic breathing of baby Leo sleeping soundly inside the nursery.
Standing ten feet behind me, leaning against the limestone archway with his arms crossed, was Marcus.
Rowan sprinted across the courtyard and threw himself directly onto his knees at the base of the terrace steps. He clasped his hands together in a posture of complete, groveling surrender.
"Phoebe! My beautiful, wonderful wife!" Rowan sobbed, tears and snot running down his face. "Look at me! Look what I’ve become! I am so sorry! I am so, so sorry!"
I didn't move. I didn't flinch. I looked down at him with the cold, clinical detachment of a scientist observing an insect beneath a microscope.
"What are you sorry for, Rowan?" I asked quietly.
"Everything!" Rowan wept, crawling up two steps on his knees. "I was an idiot! I was blind! I was under so much stress from the business that I lost my mind! When I snapped at you at the hospital, I wasn't in my right senses! My mother pressured me, she manipulated me! You know how toxic she is, Phoebe! She forced me to go to that dinner! I wanted to be with you, I swear to God I did!"
"You stayed on the yacht for forty-eight hours after the dinner, Rowan," I noted flatly.
"Because I was terrified!" Rowan cried out, reaching toward my feet. "I knew I had failed you, and I was ashamed! But I love you, Phoebe! I have always loved you! Not because of your father's money—I loved you when we were eating cheap takeout in that tiny studio apartment! Remember how happy we were? Remember the dreams we had for our baby boy?"
Rowan wiped his face with his sleeve, looking up at me with wide, pleading eyes.
"We can fix this, Phoebe. We can be a real family. I’ll sign whatever postnuptial agreement your father wants. I’ll step down from marketing and become a stay-at-home dad. I will dedicate every single second of my life to serving you and raising Leo. Just please... please call off the District Attorney. Tell them it was an internal accounting misunderstanding. Save our family!"
I slowly reached down to the glass table and picked up the thick manila folder. I opened it and pulled out the top document.
"This is the formal petition for Dissolution of Marriage on the grounds of extreme emotional cruelty, financial fraud, and marital abandonment," I said, tossing the papers onto the marble step in front of his knees.
Rowan looked at the papers as if they were venomous vipers. "Phoebe... no..."
"And this," I continued, pulling out a second document, "is an official copy of the criminal indictment returned forty-five minutes ago by the Grand Jury. You have been indicted on four counts of Grand Larceny in the First Degree, three counts of Scheme to Defraud, and two counts of Criminal Tax Perjury."
Rowan’s breath hitched in his throat. His face drained of whatever little hope remained. "You... you actually went through with it..."
"You never loved me, Rowan," I said, leaning forward, my voice cutting through the evening air like a razor. "You loved having a quiet, obedient wife who made your life easy while you used stolen money to buy your mother’s validation. You saw me as an accessory to your fake, narcissistic life. And the moment I needed you most—the moment our child was entering this world—you tossed me aside like garbage."
"Phoebe, please..." Rowan whispered, his voice trembling.
"Sign the divorce settlement, Rowan," I said. "Surrender full legal and physical custody of Leo. Waive all claims to any marital property, alimony, and trust assets. And maybe, when Leo is eighteen years old, I will tell him that his biological father had the decency to walk away without making his mother suffer any longer."
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Rowan stared at the papers. His hands shook violently as Marcus stepped forward, dropping a black rollerball pen onto the steps beside him.
With tears streaming silently down his cheeks, knowing he had no cards left to play, Rowan picked up the pen and signed his name on the dotted line.
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