PART 3

My phone displayed one final legal update.

I read it once.

Then deleted it.

I didn’t feel triumphant.

I didn’t feel disappointed.

I simply felt finished.

A few minutes later, my assistant stepped inside.

“The press conference starts in fifteen minutes.”

“Is everyone ready?”

She smiled.

“All the major networks are downstairs. The investors for the smartwatch safety project are there too.”

I looked at the watch resting on my desk.

Months earlier, it had captured the conversation that changed everything.

Now we were funding technology designed to help other people call for assistance and preserve important information during emergencies.

I fastened the watch around my wrist.

Then I walked toward the elevator.

I was no longer the woman who had abandoned her own career to disappear into Julian Vance’s life.

I was no longer simply his wife.

And I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life defining myself by what he had done.

The elevator doors opened.

Camera flashes filled the lobby.

A reporter called out,

“Mrs. Vance, what do you want people to remember after everything you’ve been through?”

I looked down briefly at the watch on my wrist.

Then I smiled.

“Never underestimate the importance of keeping the truth.”

And for the first time in years, I walked forward without looking behind me.