Chapter 8 - Preston’s Apology
Preston found Naomi outside the boardroom forty minutes later.
She was standing near the tall windows overlooking the Oakridge gardens, one hand pressed lightly to her cheek.
It still hurt.
Not as much as the look in his eyes.
Because Preston looked sorry now.
But Naomi could not tell if he was sorry he hit her, or sorry everyone had seen it.
“Naomi,” he said.
She did not turn.
“You shouldn’t be near me right now.”
He stopped.
Good.
At least he had learned one boundary.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She looked at his reflection in the glass.
“For what?”
He blinked.
“For hurting you.”
“How?”
His face twisted.
“Naomi—”
“How did you hurt me, Preston?”
He swallowed.
“I slapped you.”
“And before that?”
He looked away.
She turned fully now.
“Before that, you let your father erase my name. You let him erase my mother. You let me walk into a ballroom full of people holding a lie. Then when I asked for the truth, you hit me.”
His eyes filled.
“I panicked.”
“No. You obeyed.”
That landed.
Preston’s mouth trembled.
“He makes everything feel like if you don’t act fast, you’ll lose the family.”
Naomi laughed softly.
“The family? Or his approval?”
Preston had no answer.
She continued.
“You were not protecting this family. You were protecting a story where your father gets to own whatever a woman builds.”
He looked shattered.
“I don’t know how to fix this.”
“You don’t start by asking me.”
He stepped closer by instinct.
She stepped back.
He froze.
The movement said more than words.
A man who loved her should not have made her body prepare for danger.
Preston saw it.
His face crumpled.
“I scared you.”
“Yes.”
“I never wanted that.”
“But you accepted it when it happened.”
He wiped his face.
“I’ll tell everyone the truth. I’ll resign from the gala board. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Naomi looked at him for a long moment.
There had been a time when those words would have sounded like hope.
Now they sounded like panic dressed as accountability.
“What I want,” she said, “is space.”
He nodded quickly.
“Okay. Tonight?”
“No. Legally.”
His face went pale.
“Naomi.”
“I’m going home with my father.”
“This is our marriage.”
“No,” she said. “This is the first night I’m admitting what our marriage became.”
Preston reached for words and found none.
Inside the boardroom, voices continued.
Attorneys.
Trustees.
Damage control.
Outside, Naomi felt strangely calm.
Not healed.
Not safe yet.
But clear.
Preston whispered, “Are you filing charges?”
She looked at him.
“I’m deciding with my attorney.”
His eyes closed.
That answer terrified him because it was not emotional.
It was procedural.
It meant Naomi was no longer asking him to understand her pain.
She was documenting it.
Arthur appeared at the end of the hallway.
He did not interrupt.
He simply waited.
Naomi picked up the program from the table and held it under her arm.
Preston looked at it.
“Why are you keeping that?”
She looked down at the missing page.
“Because people like your father count on women throwing away the evidence once they’re ashamed.”
Then she walked toward her father.
May you like
This time, Preston did not follow.
👉 Preston finally apologized, but Naomi knew the real test was whether he would tell the truth when it cost him his father’s approval.
