He Told Me to Sit in Row Five

Jasmine was feeding my husband an orange slice when I stepped onto the plane.

Not handing it to him.

Feeding it to him.

She held the slice between two manicured fingers while Aaron leaned toward her from the window seat in the first row of the chartered Boeing 737.

“Open.”

Aaron laughed quietly and took the orange from her fingers.

Then he looked up and saw me.

The smile disappeared.

So did every conversation around them.

There were maybe twenty-five people on that flight—Vanguard Dynamics executives, department heads, two outside consultants, Aaron’s parents, and a few spouses. Most of them had known me for years.

They also knew that the aisle seat beside Aaron was always mine.

My small cream leather pillow was still sitting against the headrest.

Jasmine Miller was sitting on it.

I stopped beside the seat.

“Jasmine, you’re in my place.”

She looked up with wide eyes.

“Oh.”

She put one hand against her chest.

“I’m sorry. Aaron said I should sit here.”

I looked at my husband.

Aaron adjusted his cuff.

“She gets motion sickness.”

“So do several people on this plane.”

His mouth tightened.

“Alyssa.”

That tone had become familiar during the previous year. It meant: Don’t embarrass me.

I glanced toward Jasmine.

She was twenty-eight, polished, ambitious, and very good at making inappropriate things look accidental.

Her hand was resting on Aaron’s arm.

She removed it when she noticed me looking.

“I really can move,” she said.

She stood.

Or tried to.

Jasmine swayed dramatically, reached for the seat, missed it, and fell sideways.

Aaron caught her around the waist.

A few people looked down at their phones.

His mother, Diane, sighed from row five.

“For heaven’s sake, Alyssa. The girl was working until three in the morning preparing Aaron’s presentation.”

Jasmine was still holding my husband’s shoulder.

“Mrs. Prescott, please. I don’t want to cause trouble.”

Diane smiled at her.

“You haven’t caused anything.”

Then she looked at me.

“Some of us understand how demanding Aaron’s work is.”

That was almost funny.

Almost.

Aaron released Jasmine but kept one hand near her elbow.

Then he turned to me.

“Alyssa Vance, do you really have to turn this into a scene in front of my entire leadership team?”

Nobody moved.

“Think about the bigger picture for once.”

I looked at the cream pillow behind Jasmine.

Four years earlier, Aaron had bought it for me because I complained that airplane headrests gave me headaches.

Now Jasmine’s perfume was on it.

I reached past her and picked it up.

“Keep the seat.”

Aaron blinked.

“Good. Thank you.”

I put the pillow under my arm and reached for my bag.

He apparently thought I was heading toward row five.

“And Alyssa?”

I turned.

His voice dropped.

“You need to remember your place.”

For several seconds, I just looked at him.

Then I said:

“I know exactly where my place is, Mr. Prescott.”

I walked toward the cabin door.

Aaron laughed once.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“We’re leaving in six minutes.”

“Then you shouldn’t wait for me.”

His mother called my name.

I kept walking.

A flight attendant looked uncertain when I reached the door.

“Mrs. Prescott?”

“I’d like to deplane.”

She glanced toward the cockpit.

Then she looked at me again.

“Of course, Ms. Vance.”

Aaron heard that.

I know because when I looked back, his expression had changed slightly.

The flight attendant hadn’t called me Mrs. Prescott.

She had called me Ms. Vance.

I stepped off the plane carrying my bag and that ridiculous cream pillow.

I didn’t look back again.

The Things Aaron Thought Belonged to Him

The car was waiting when I reached the private terminal.

Not Aaron’s car.

Mine.

“Vance Enterprises?” the driver asked.

“Yes.”

I put the pillow beside me.

My phone started ringing before we reached the highway.

AARON.

I declined it.

He called again.

Then his mother.

Then Aaron.

Finally, a text appeared.

You embarrassed me in front of everyone. We’ll discuss this when I get back.

I read it twice.

Then I took a screenshot and locked my phone.

Aaron and I had been married for four years.

When I met him, Vanguard Dynamics was not Vanguard Dynamics.

It was six engineers in rented office space, two prototypes that barely worked, and Aaron sleeping four hours a night because he was convinced he could build a better energy-management system than the companies dominating the market.

I loved that about him.

My family had money.

Aaron hated talking about that.

He wanted everyone to believe he was self-made.

For a while, I admired his pride.

So when Vanguard needed capital, I arranged for Vance Enterprises to lend the company $1.5 billion through our family investment fund.

No interest.

Aaron insisted it was temporary.

Later, when Vanguard needed access to technology developed by Vance Research Institute, I approved licenses to thirteen patents without charging Vanguard the normal commercial fees.

I never joined his board.

Never demanded a title.

Never corrected reporters who called me a socialite.

At one awards dinner, a journalist asked Aaron what role I’d played in his success.

Aaron smiled.

“Alyssa keeps me grounded.”

Everyone laughed.

So did I.

That had been two years earlier.

It was also the night I first called a divorce attorney.

I hadn’t filed.

I kept hoping I wouldn’t need to.

At Vance Enterprises, our general counsel, Margaret Ellis, was waiting in the conference room.

She looked at the pillow under my arm.

“Do I want to ask?”

“No.”

I dropped it into a chair.

Margaret slid a folder toward me.

“Are you sure?”

“About the divorce?”

“About all of it.”

I opened the folder.

The first document concerned the loan.

The second concerned the patent licenses.

The mechanism was simpler than Aaron probably remembered.

The $1.5 billion had always been a loan, not a gift or an equity contribution. Under the agreement Vanguard had signed, Vance Enterprises could demand repayment if certain financial and contractual protections were breached.

The patent licenses were separate.