***Chapter 3***
***The next morning***
Jonathan went to the beach house. Jennifer didn't go after him.
She thanked Jason, apologized for her husband's rudeness and shut the door after him.
She enjoyed a quiet evening at home, and even though she was upset that they had fought, she was thankful for a night of peace and quiet.
She was a little sad when she went to bed without him, but it was what it was. She briefly wondered if she should go to the beach house and try to work things out.
He was the one who left her, he was the one who ran off. He knew where to find her, if he wanted to talk to her.
She turned out the light and fell asleep.
***The next morning***
Jennifer was woken up by the phone ringing. She sleepily answered it.
"Hello?"
"Good Morning, Mrs. Hart. Mr. Hart is requesting that you attend the board meeting today, at Hart Industries at 11:30. He says you may have to be the deciding vote".
"Tell him I will be there. Is that all he wanted?"
"Yes, that's it".
"Thank you, Kelly".
They hung up. She went downstairs and made herself some coffee and breakfast and then went to shower and get ready.
She was in the shower when the idea hit her. He may have fallen out of love with her, but she could still show him what he was missing.
She got out of the shower and dried off, and went to her closet. She searched in her closet till she found the dress. This was dress was the one dress she had that drove him wild every single time.
It was a ¾ length sleeve scoop neck dark red sweater dress that hugged her in all the right places. She paired it with her knee length stiletto boots, and gold jewelry.
She packed him a bag of clothes and things, and put it in the car.
She headed to the office around 10:45.
***Hart Industries***
She parked next to him in the parking lot, and put his bag in his front seat.
She went up to his office, and walked in.
"Hi".
"That's all you have to say?"
"Do you really want to do this here?"
"Better here than not at all".
"You are the one who called me to come to the meeting Jonathan. I can easily turn around and head back home".
"I did ask you to come to the meeting. I also asked you to be honest with me".
"When haven't I been?"
"Like I said, I don't want to do this here".
"Jonathan, I can't figure you out. You aren't the man I married. I don't know what is going on with you, but you better fix it, before I walk away from you for good. I won't live like this. One minute you are sweet and loving, the next you are accusing me of cheating. Then you send me flowers, but stalk off in a huff and don't come home. You ask me to come here but then you pick a fight the second I walk in. Maybe we should make things legal and separate and figure out what it is we both want before this goes too far".
She turned around and headed to the conference room.
She sat down at the table and started to go over the documents. At every board meeting, each member of the board received a packet with the documents for them to review so that they would know what they were voting on. On the first page was always a list of those people who would be in attendance. She noticed that most of the Kayser family would be there.
She looked over the documents and was almost finished when Jonathan came in the room.
She got up out of his chair and went and sat in her usual spot, over in the corner.
"You don't have to do that".
"It's important to keep up appearances, is it not?"
Before he could answer, the room started filling up.
He called the meeting to order and laid out the agenda. He called in the members of the Kayser family and introduced him. Jennifer and Charlie locked eyes across the room.
Finally, Jonathan put it to a vote. There were 12 members on the board, and the vote was split 6-6. Just as Jonathan had predicted, they needed Jennifer to decide.
"Darling…we need you to be the tiebreaker."
It was board policy that those for the vote and those against it would get one final chance to sway the tiebreaker. Jennifer listened to their speeches and then looked at Jonathan.
"Ok, it's 6 for, 6 against. How do you vote?"
She thought for a moment and then looked back at Jonathan.
"I vote no".
His face fell.
"Well, that's it. Meeting adjourned". He apologized to the Kayser's and promised to have the board do more research so that they could revisit this issue again in the future.
Jennifer got up and headed to his office. Charlie followed her.
Jennifer shut the door behind her.
"Thank you, Jennifer. I called the SEC, and they are raiding the offices tonight, as soon as we get back".
"Good call, but I didn't vote no for you, I voted no for my husband. Only he isn't going to see it that way".
"What do you mean?"
"I did it because if you guys get raided, we could be affected. He has worked his entire life for this. I was trying to protect him. But he will see it as a me not having faith in him".
"I understand. Well, hopefully when the article comes out, he will realize."
"I hope so. And thanks for the documents you sent yesterday. They helped me out a lot. And your dad is just so cute".
"Yeah, he is, isn't he? Well, I better get back to my family. I had told them I was going to the ladie's room".
Just then, Jonathan stormed in.
"What the hell was that?"
"Jonathan-"
"You had one job, Jennifer. That was to back me up".
"Jonathan-"
"You couldn't do it, though, could you? You just had to go against me because you wanted to get back at me for yesterday".
"Jonathan- this is Charlie. Charlie, this is my husband, the eloquent Jonathan Hart".
"Nice to meet you. See you later, Jennifer".
Charlie left the office. Jennifer turned to Jonathan.
"I packed you a bag, and put it in the front seat of your car. Now that the meeting is adjourned, I am going home. And you, well you can go fly a kite".
She left and headed to the elevator.
He was suddenly overcome with memories of their second date, when she told him to go fly a kite, and he took her seriously.
He sighed, and then gathered his things and headed to the beach house.
***Willow Pond***
Jennifer came in and locked the door behind her. She went upstairs and changed. After she was done, she came back downstairs and made herself something to eat. She didn't feel like doing much of anything. She decided to go sit on the patio, and have a glass of wine.
She went outside and sat on the swing, and stared at the sky for a long time.
In her mind, she was deciding how things would go. She would give Jonathan Willow Pond, and she would take the beach house. She didn't care about the company or his money, she knew she could take care of herself. Truth be told, if she didn't have him, nothing else mattered.
She tried to figure out what had gone wrong. She remembered the days when they could barely keep their hands off each other. She couldn't remember ever feeling this way before. She hated it, and wanted to fix it, but he had hurt her this time, and he needed to make the first move.
She thought back to what her father used to say. "There are no less than seven steps in the pursuit of love". Well, he was going to be the one taking seven steps here.
***Beach house***
Jonathan had come in and poured himself a very stiff drink. After he drank that, he had poured another. He was sitting on the terrace.
He knew that if he just went to talk to her, they could maybe come to an understanding on why some of these things had happened. However, would they be able to save their marriage? If not, it was 1000% his fault, and not hers. He would take total responsibility. All she had done was love him, and she loved him so much she cracked him.
If she wanted a divorce, he would give it to her. He would give her everything they had…none of it mattered without her. He would sell the company, she could have the big house, he would take the beach house, they could sell the cabin and the ranch…all of it. He had built this life for them, he could build another one for himself if he wanted to. As long as she was taken care of, that's all that mattered.
He figured he would give her some space, and call her tomorrow, and hopefully, she would agree to come to dinner.
If she came to dinner, they could just talk about things. If they talked about things, maybe, she would forgive him.
His whole life hinged on a lot of maybes.
***The next day***
Jennifer was up early, and left the house by 9. She ran a few errands and then stopped by their lawyer's office. She had him draw up papers for legal separation, and she requested that she be allowed to put a note on top to Jonathan.
She wrote:
"I love you, you know that. Or at least, you used to. I really hope we can use this time to work things out instead of throwing everything away. -J".
They assured her that the courier would be there within the hour to pick the papers up and deliver them to Jonathan.
"Thank you".
She went to the grocery store, and stocked up on Jonathan's favorite things and took them to the beach house before she took the rest of the groceries home to Willow Pond.
She left him a note that she had stocked the fridge for him.
She was sitting on the couch at Willow Pond when the phone rang.
She picked it up.
"Hello?"
"I love you".
She smiled a little.
"I love you too".
"Can we have dinner tonight?"
"I don't want to argue, Jonathan".
"I don't either. And I don't want to be legally separated from you".
"Well.."
"Dinner. I will bring it, you won't have to do anything".
"Fine. But Jonathan-no tricks. We need to really talk".
"I agree". There was an awkward silence, and then he spoke again.
"Willow Pond, 6 p.m.?"
"Sure. I will be here".
"See you then. I love you".
She blew him a kiss and then hung up the phone.
She wasn't sure how she felt about this, but she owed it to him to try. If it went bad, she could just ask him to leave, or she could leave. Nobody was going to force her to fight with him.
She turned on the TV and went to make herself a drink.
"Breaking news, the SEC has raided the offices of Kayser Incorporated. Officials were seen taking boxes of documents from the offices. However, it is unknown at this time what caused them to raid the offices."
She was more confident than ever in her decision to vote no. She just hoped she could convince him that it was a smart move. She hoped that he would see that she did it for him, not against him.
She thought back to when they met, in London. It had been a whirlwind 24 hours, with them trying to figure out who was shooting at them and her trying to convince him she wasn't a murderer.
She was so mad at him when he had her arrested, and then again when he had her brought to him from the airport. She was so used to guys running away from her, that she hadn't bothered to see this one running towards her. Once she figured it out, she was all in. He was the only man in her life from that day on. That hadn't changed, even if he thought it had.
She looked at the clock. 4 p.m.
Her life would either be the turning of the page, or the end of a book and the beginning of a new one. She would find out at 6.