Chapter 9: The Cost Of Losing Her
The Collins mansion had never sounded so loud.
Margaret’s voice carried from the drawing room into the hall.
Nathan stood near the fireplace while she paced in front of him.
“You let one ordinary woman endanger a two-hundred-million-pound transaction.”
Nathan stared at the marble floor.
The word ordinary did not work anymore.
Ava had become the one person the deal could not ignore.
Julian had paused the acquisition.
Investors had requested supplemental disclosures.
The board wanted written explanations.
The family office wanted distance.
Everyone suddenly cared about the woman Margaret had called unsuitable.
Nathan’s father’s portrait stared down from above the mantel.
For the first time, Nathan wished the dead could interrupt.
Margaret turned on him.
“You should have controlled this earlier.”
Nathan looked up.
“She was my wife, not a staff problem.”
Margaret laughed sharply.
“Then perhaps you should have treated her like your wife.”
That was the first honest thing she had said in days.
It hurt because it came too late.
Nathan opened the legal packet from Elena again.
The numbers were brutal because they were clean.
Transfers to the family office.
Rent paid under false financial assumptions.
Household costs Ava covered.
Income lost from shifts taken to support fabricated hardship.
Pawn value and recovery cost of her mother’s necklace.
Legal fees.
Disclosure demands.
Ava had not asked for revenge in messy words.
She had itemised the damage.
That made it harder to dismiss.
Nathan said, “I can pay this.”
Margaret stopped pacing.
“Do not reward her.”
Nathan looked at the list.
Reward.
That was what his mother called returning stolen dignity.
He picked up his phone and texted Ava.
Please. Let me see you.
No answer.
He tried again.
I will pay everything. Just talk to me.
Still nothing.
By evening, he drove himself to her new building.
No driver.
No flowers.
No story.
He found her name on the buzzer but did not press it at first.
The building was modest, but clean.
No basement windows.
No leaking ceiling visible from outside.
He pressed the buzzer.
Silence.
Then Elena Ward’s voice came through the intercom.
“Mr Collins, all communication should go through counsel.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
“I need to speak to my wife.”
“Your wife has asked not to be contacted directly.”
The word wife sounded temporary now.
He looked up at the lit windows.
He did not know which one was hers.
That felt deserved.
“Ava,” he said toward the intercom.
No answer.
Only Elena’s voice.
“Good evening, Mr Collins.”
The line clicked dead.
Nathan stood outside with nothing to control.
For five years, he had tested whether Ava could live without his money.
Now he was learning whether he could live without her silence.