He Prioritized Her Over Our Divorce

My divorce battle with Lawson had been dragging on for six months.

We'd gone from the couple everyone envied to the couple everyone pitied.

Thirty minutes before the third hearing, Lawson asked to meet me.

He pressed his fingers against his temples, exhaustion written all over his face.

It's time to end this circus. Mia can't wait any longer.

"Name your price. I'll pay it."

Before I could say a word, his phone screamed to life.

He picked up, and a soft smile spread across his face the kind he didn't even notice he was making.

"Don't worry about it. I'll just give her a little more money."

"I'll be done soon. Be a good girl and wait for me at home."

I stared at that face familiar and foreign all at once and felt something inside me finally let go.

"Forget it."

"Lawson, you don't have to keep fighting this. I'll agree to the divorce."

The divorce war that had dragged on for six months ended with me walking away.

For a moment, everyone was stunned.

After all, Lawson and I had been married for seven years. A divorce case that had been crawling along for half a year most people just assumed we were two people too stubborn to admit they still cared.

The media ran wild. Lawson's official response was perfectly polished:

"I apologize for taking up public attention. Eve and I have finalized our divorce, but we remain friends. I wish her nothing but happiness."

My eyes lingered on the word "friends" for a long time.

I let out a quiet laugh.

Lawson and I had torn each other apart more than once over Mia. We were long past friendship we couldn't even hold onto the last scraps of dignity.

But today, Lawson was being nicer to me than he'd been in all six months of this.

After I gave him my answer, he sat on the couch for a while, slowly packing away the negotiation materials he'd prepared.

"If that's the case, I'll get the divorce agreement to you as soon as possible."

"As for the company I'll leave you twenty percent of the shares as compensation."

"There's also a property downtown. That's yours too."

He finished, thought for a moment to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

Then he stood up.

Maybe even he thought this had wrapped up suspiciously fast.

At the door, he turned his head back.

"Take care of yourself. Going forward."

I closed my eyes and said nothing.

My attorney sent over the divorce agreement and all the documents.

After the files came through, he added a note:

"The reason cited for the divorce is irreconcilable differences a mutual, amicable separation. Under the relevant statutes, aside from what he's voluntarily gifting you, the remaining assets will be split equally."

Irreconcilable differences.

Such a clean way to dress up the word "cheating."

I'd still underestimated just how good Lawson was at keeping up appearances.

My phone buzzed. Lawson had sent a photo and a voice message.

The photo showed my desk at the office. Everything on it had been swept to the floor.

But the voice in the message belonged to a woman.

"Eve, I heard you're leaving. Let me help you clean up all this junk."

Mia.

Her voice had that soft, lilting quality the kind that curled up at the end of every sentence.

No wonder people liked her.

I held down the voice message, then replied calmly:

"I may be leaving, but I'm still the largest shareholder of this company."

"If I wanted to, I could have you and all this junk packed up and thrown out together."

She didn't respond for a long time.

When the next message came through, it was Lawson's voice with Mia's quiet sobbing faintly in the background.

"Eve, Mia didn't mean anything by it. Don't be like this."

I didn't bother replying. I gathered my things, stood up, and walked out of the courthouse.

On my way to the car, Lawson sent two more messages.

He'd put a picture frame back on the desk.

"The rest of it can go it's all old anyway. But keep this one."

That frame held a landscape photo of the Arctic.

Back in the year we started the company, he'd printed it out and made me a promise:

"Once we make it through this, I'll take you to the Arctic. We'll take a photo just like this one."

Seven years later, Lawson had gone from a nobody to the CEO of one of New York's most talked-about publicly traded companies.

Money, power all of it within reach.

But that little trip to the Arctic? He never brought it up again.

Lawson was right.

Old things should be thrown away.

I didn't reply. Instead, I tapped on his profile and pressed delete.

I went to the office to complete my resignation paperwork with HR, then got ready to leave.

My hand was on the door handle when I heard voices just outside colleagues passing by.

"Seven years of marriage and she just walks away like that. What's Eve trying to prove?"

"Didn't someone say the divorce was because of cheating? You don't think it was her, do you?"

"Had to be. She must've done something behind Lawson's back. That's why she caved so fast today."

"I heard Lawson even gave her shares as compensation. He's honestly too decent for this..."

I stood there with my eyes down, not moving.

The HR rep shot me an uncomfortable look.

"Ms. Eve, they're just talking please don't take it to heart..."

Whether it was "just talking," I knew exactly what it was.

I could even guess whose mouth it had come out of.

To give Mia's arrival a reasonable explanation.

To protect his girl from the backlash.

He chose to push me out front, to let me take the hit for her.

Seeing that I hadn't responded, the HR rep forced a smile.

"Everyone knows how much you gave to stand by Lawson's side. You came from nothing together, built everything from the ground up people genuinely admired what you two had."

"They don't know anything. They're just running their mouths."

"I'll report it to their manager right now and make sure they're spoken to."

That made me go quiet again.

I was willing to go through the hard times with Lawson because, back then, he really was good to me.

He'd buy me the newest clothes without thinking twice, while refusing to replace his own jacket that he'd worn for two years straight.

He remembered my birthday, our anniversary but could never keep track of his own.

Our wedding was held in the countryside.

It wasn't extravagant, but it was proper. The best that little town had to offer.

He always gave me the best of what he had.

So on our anniversary, with the dim, intimate lighting glowing around us he'd sat staring at the two little figurines kissing on top of our cake and said:

"Eve, do you ever think... is this really the life we want?"

That was why it hit me so hard.

I wasn't ready to give up. I still believed he loved me.

I kept holding onto that belief until I'd ground us both down into something bitter and broken two people who could barely stand the sight of each other.

I held on until he started trying to pay me off.

Only then did I let myself give up.

I came back to the present and shook my head at the HR rep, then shoved the door open.

The colleagues who'd been whispering outside immediately went silent, heads dropping carefully to avoid my eyes.

But their reaction wasn't because of me.

It was because of Lawson and Mia, walking toward us from the far end of the hallway.

Mia followed a step behind Lawson, a brand-new badge hanging from her neck.

Design Director.

The position I had just vacated.

She held a stack of documents in her arms, flipping through them uncertainly.

Lawson would turn to her every now and then, walking her through the details.

His secretary, Lisa, trailed just behind and to the left of them.

She was smiling in Mia's direction, but the irritation and contempt underneath it were impossible to hide anymore.

When she spotted me, Lisa stopped short.

"Ms. Eve."

At that, Lawson looked over too, whatever he'd been about to say to Mia left unfinished.

Mia stood there, and her eyes went red on cue.

"Lisa, I know you don't like me but Eve has already resigned. Isn't it a little inappropriate to keep addressing her that way?"

"Besides, Eve's resignation was a personal matter, wasn't it? Taking out whatever frustration you have over her leaving on me I really don't appreciate that..."

She put deliberate emphasis on the words "personal matter."

The colleagues who'd been whispering exchanged glances, their expressions settling into something more certain than before.

Lisa stood there, at a loss for words.

I folded my resignation form and spoke up, completely unbothered.

"Lisa was just being polite. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?"

"And for the record I never said anything about why I resigned. Spreading assumptions like that, Mia? That's the part that I find inappropriate."

Mia's face went pale. She started to say something, but Lawson put a hand out not hard, just enough to stop her.

His gaze settled on me.

"This is on me. Let me take you out sometime a proper send-off."

"You've put in so many years. What you've contributed here matters."

I smiled.

"Don't bother. If I'd known anyone could fill this seat, I wouldn't have worked myself half to death for it."

Lawson's expression shifted. I had no interest in watching it. I turned and walked away.

Outside, a light rain had started.

I raised a hand to shield myself, and it hit me the day everything between me and Lawson finally broke apart had been exactly like this. Gray and drizzling.

I'd been pulling an all-nighter at the office and my blood sugar had crashed past midnight.

I called Lawson and asked him to bring something to eat.

Instead, a woman's voice answered.

That was the first time I let go of all the composure I'd been carefully holding together. I heard myself demand an answer.

Why is she answering your phone? How dare you let some woman come this close? Lawson, what exactly do you want?

A long silence on the other end. Then a quiet exhale.

That one sound was enough to drain the warmth from half my heart.

"I'll have Lisa bring you something to eat."

"Get some rest tonight. Tomorrow we need to talk about a divorce."

I sat alone in the empty office, shaking with cold.

"On what grounds, Lawson? Don't forget I helped build this company from nothing. You have no right to"

He cut me off, his voice light as air.

"Without me, no one would have hired a designer with your history."

Every word left me instantly.

Years ago, I'd been caught up in a plagiarism scandal someone in the industry had accused me of stealing their concept. My company fired me on the spot, and the label stuck. I was blacklisted across the entire field.

I had nowhere to go. Lawson who'd been pursuing me at the time reached out and pulled me back up.

He said he believed me. He said someone that talented didn't deserve to be buried.

In that moment, I genuinely fell for him.

Naive and foolish enough to trust him completely.

During the six months of our divorce proceedings, my authority at the company had been quietly hollowed out piece by piece. The team I'd built and mentored was reassigned to other departments.

The Director position wasn't something just anyone could walk into.

Lawson had to clear a lot of road for Mia to get there.

More than half of my leaving was anything but voluntary.

I came back to myself. Lisa had followed me outside at some point without my noticing.

She held out an umbrella, speaking quietly.

"Eve this is from Mr. Lawson. The rain makes the roads slippery. Please be safe."

I smiled at her, but didn't take it. I walked out into the rain.

I'd gotten through worse storms than this.

A little drizzle was nothing.

What I didn't expect was that what happened outside the HR office that day made it onto the internet.

Within hours, the topic of my conflict with Mia was trending at the top of the charts.

At first, people speculated that Mia had broken up my marriage that she was the reason things fell apart between Lawson and me.

Then a video hit the trending page. An "expos," analyzing me.

It laid out my schedule, my movements, and everyone I'd been in contact with over the past six months in meticulous detail.

Some of the specifics were disturbingly accurate. The comment section turned against me almost immediately.

An avalanche of insults and mockery came crashing down.

I watched that video from beginning to end.

Most of the personal details were real. But every interpretation was fabricated.

There was only one person who could know my private life that precisely.

I called Lawson's number. Mia picked up.

"You're divorced and you're still calling your ex? God, Eve, have some self-respect."

"Aren't you getting enough hate online? You want more, so you came to me?"

Her voice was nothing like the version she performed in front of Lawson.

I kept my face blank.

"I recorded everything you just said. Slander without evidence get ready for a letter from my attorney."

"You"

I hung up before she could finish.

I pulled up the page again. The hate had intensified.

I clicked on the profile of the account that had posted the video. Sure enough within the thirty minutes since I'd hung up, they'd posted an update.

This time, the post made it explicit: I was the one who had betrayed the marriage.

They compiled a file. Everything from the old plagiarism scandal the accusations, the blacklisting, the full story laid out for public consumption.

The comment section erupted.

Once a thief, always a thief stole someone's work back then, now stealing someone's man.

Everything she has came from Lawson. And she still cheated? Unbelievable.

You can just tell by looking at her. If she'd plagiarize someone's work, of course she'd cheat.

Reading those words, I felt like I'd been dragged back ten years back to the most helpless stretch of my life.

I opened Lawson's friend request, the one he'd sent two days ago. My hand trembled as I hit accept.

I sent him a message.

Lawson. The video online that was you, wasn't it?

He replied fast.

Eve, you're the largest shareholder of the Carter Group now. You have more money than you could ever spend. But Mia just started she can't afford any negative press right now.

I took a slow breath.

You know I never plagiarized anything.

The "typing" indicator sat there for a long time. Then his message appeared.

No one cares about that anymore. Let it run its course and it'll die down on its own. Stop being so precious about it.

Ten years ago, Lawson held me and swore that even if the whole world turned against me, he never would.

Ten years later, Lawson was telling me the truth didn't matter. That no one cared.

I read that message, and whatever last shred of hope I'd been holding onto quietly disappeared.

Then the doorbell rang.

Through the peephole, I saw a cluster of dark camera lenses pointed directly at my front door.

Reporters' voices overlapped outside.

"Ms. Eve Lawson just denied that Mia had anything to do with your divorce. What's your response?"

"Is the video circulating online accurate? Are you the one who was unfaithful?"

"Can you comment on the plagiarism incident from ten years ago?"

My phone lit up with a large transfer notification from Lawson. The memo said: compensation.

I let out a breath and closed the app.

I opened the front door.

The cameras went off like a lightning storm.

I stepped into the flashbulbs, looked directly into the nearest lens, and smiled.

"Good afternoon. I'm Eve."