Face-Slapping13 min read
I Sent the Papers — He Sent a Plane
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I am sitting on the edge of Lorenzo Blanc's bed, the divorce papers warm from the printer on the coffee table, and my hands are shaking.
"You're going to Germany?" I ask, holding my phone like a verdict.
"Come," Lorenzo says. "You come now."
"Why now? Why on your flight?" I snap.
"Because you sent me the papers," he replies. "Because you thought you could leave by text."
"Leave by text? I—" I close my mouth. "I sent a draft. I wasn't trying to—"
"You tried," he cuts in. His voice is quiet but every syllable is a blade. "You tried to make it official without me in the room. That is not how I do anything."
I stare at him. The man I married in name only—the man who sometimes cradled me like a warm animal, who sometimes pinched me like a test—looks tired in a way I've never seen before. He is still beautiful. He is still infuriating.
"Fine," I answer. "I'll come. But I'm doing this on my terms. I won't be manipulated into a goodbye."
He flicks his eyes at me as though I'm the joke and not him. "Book the next flight, Anna."
"I have work—"
"Book it."
I bite my lip. He is impossible. He is always impossible. But there is something else behind that order, something raw and urgent. I close my laptop, type the booking, pay with a black card that feels like a borrowed life, and then I breathe.
"Do you need anything?" Preston Tran, his assistant, meets me at the company entrance in a pressed suit and the practiced blank face of someone who answers a dozen urgent calls before breakfast.
"No," I say. "Thank you for... for being on time."
Preston nods. "Lorenzo asked me to make the arrangements. Flight in three hours. He will text you the details."
"I got them already," I tell him. My fingers are still numb.
Preston hesitates. "Mr. Blanc wants you to bring nothing but yourself."
"Is that a compliment or a threat?" I mutter.
"Both," he says. He is practiced at saying things like that. He is good at logistics and at being invisible. He opens the car door for me as though a queen might appear.
On the plane, sleep comes like a generous stranger. I have spent too many nights awake in this house trying to remember who I was before I woke up in this life. I close my eyes and let the hum steady me.
Lorenzo meets me at the Munich airport in a navy sweater and a tired face. He is not warm. He is not cold. He is a storm that hasn't decided how to fall.
"You flew across the ocean to sit in meetings?" I ask, trying to break the tension with humor.
He gives a half smile. "I flew to pick you up."
"You didn't have to," I say. "We could have talked by video like... like last night."
"You sent me divorce papers with a photo attached," he says. "You think that is just a proposal? It's not a polite RSVP. It is an accusation."
"I didn't—" My throat knots.
"You want to end this because of a picture," he says. "A picture of you with a lawyer. A picture of a man in a suit who was doing his job. A picture that I took and turned over to the tabloids."
"You what?" I blurt, horrified. "You gave it to the press?"
"I showed it to them," he admits. He doesn't look proud. He looks like a man who used a hammer to fix something and then wondered why there was blood.
"Why would you do that?" I whisper.
"Because you were preparing to walk away," he answers. "Because I wanted—" He stops, then breathes out. "Because I wanted you to see what you were doing. Because I wanted you to feel the weight of your choice."
We argue until the room goes quiet and our voices are hoarse.
"Why didn't you trust me?" I demand.
"Because you hid your plans," he fires back. "Because you lied by omission. Because when you said you wanted to leave, you already had an ally lined up."
"You don't understand," I say. "I don't remember—"
"That's not an excuse for cold calculation," he snaps. He leans forward and his fingers find my hand. "Come with me to the press conference," he says suddenly. "Sit next to me."
"I am not ready to sit on stage and watch you— whatever you plan— with strangers," I protest.
"Do you want to run? Then run," he says. "Or stand with me in public and let whatever is true stand in the light. Are you in or out?"
I stare at him until I am shaking.
"Fine," I say. "I will stand. But on my terms."
"Only on your terms," he repeats.
The next afternoon a gathering forms in a glass box of a room above the office: cameras, an orchestra of phone lenses, the hum of gossip. The issue is not just a picture now; the internet has found a poem he posted in December. The tabloids have found catalogue shots, late-night dinners, ambiguous smiles. The rumor swelling is monstrous: Lorenzo, the CEO with a tree avatar that everyone loves to mythologize, is in a relationship with Sigrid Ewing, the supermodel. The world prefers romance to nuance; it sells better.
"Are you sure you want to be here?" Aurelie Falk squeezes my hand in the back row. She is my friend, the one person who has been real in a life of lacquered surfaces. Her face is pale.
"I have to see this through," I whisper.
The room fills. Preston ushers us in. A staff member announces the start. Lorenzo mounts the small stage as if to tilt the sun. He has never liked being the center unless he controlled the sunshine.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he begins into the microphone, voice steady. "Thank you for coming."
The questions come fast and like jabs.
"Mr. Blanc, are you in a relationship with Sigrid Ewing?"
"Mr. Blanc, why were you with Ms. Ewing in Berlin?"
"Mr. Blanc, is the poem on your account a confession?"
The cameras click. My heart beats a staccato.
Lorenzo looks at me. "Before you assume," he says, "I will say this plainly. Ms. Ewing is a colleague. We did a magazine shoot. There was a professional collaboration. Nothing more."
He holds up his phone. "Here are timestamps, contracts, receipts for the studio rental, the agency confirmation, proof of payment."
There is noise—soft at first, then the crowd leans in—phones aimed like hungry mouths.
"Then why were you seen in public?" a reporter insists.
"Because PR logistics take them to the city where the crew needs them," Lorenzo answers dryly. "Because lighting and mood dictated Berlin. Because photos are just photos."
"But the poem—" someone probes.
"The poem is a poem," Lorenzo says. "I am a man who reads and likes verse. That does not mean I have done what you want me to have done."
I open my mouth to say something and find nothing. This is not resolution. This is a prelude.
That is when the air shifts: an editor from a rival magazine stands, throat clearing. "Mr. Blanc, we have reason to believe Ms. Alexander's fall at the cafe was not an accident."
The room tilts. I clamp my knees together.
"In fact," the editor continues, "we have uncovered communications that suggest someone profited from circulating a picture of Ms. Alexander hours after her fall." He turns, and for the first time the name is said out loud. "We have evidence connecting Daniel Dawson to that chain."
Daniel Dawson. He has been absent for weeks. His silence sounded like distance, not malice.
A laugh, short and disbelief-laced, bubbles from someone near the press table. "Daniel? The prodigal playboy? He couldn't possibly—"
"He could," the editor says. "We received files showing transfers, messages, and a chain of people who received a packet of images. Mr. Dawson profited by selling his exclusives on this."
The room erupts into murmurs that become a tide. I feel like an island. Everywhere I look are faces: hungry, bored, outraged.
Someone calls out, "Where is Mr. Dawson? Bring him here!"
A woman in a tailored blazer pushes through the crowd. "He is at the charity gala down the street," she announces. "We can get him."
They bring him. He is late, hair carefully ruffled, as if he is always just offstage but within the script. He looks surprised but not scared. It is a performer's face.
"Daniel," I say before I can stop myself. "Did you— did you sell photos of me?"
He smiles thinly. "I did what people with connections do. I sold access. People want stories. Stories pay. You care so much about truth now, Anna? You were the architect of your own life too, once."
"Shut up," Lorenzo says softly, and unlike before, a crowd parts for him like a curtain for a lead actor. "You sold images. You targeted her. You had motive."
Daniel's jaw tightens. "I gave a source a bundle. Business. Nothing personal."
"Nothing personal?" I repeat. My voice is small but it reaches.
"It was a rumor generator," Daniel says, defensive, then brazen. "Money moves. It pays to be first."
"Do it in front of me," I say. "Say it to all of us. Say that you arranged this to make money off my life because— because I was useful to you. Say you timed it with the legal meeting."
A hush falls. The flashbulbs strobe like a swarm of angry moths.
Daniel's expression hardens into scandal-calculated calm. For a moment I think he will deny it and walk away blithely. But then a young journalist pulls out a printout, places it on the podium where everyone can see: an email chain, timestamps, a payment confirmation with a name matched to a shell company Daniel uses.
"Where did you get that?" Daniel barks, suddenly uncomposed.
"A friend who values truth," the journalist answers. "One of your contacts leaked it."
People lean forward; the room feels small, like a jar filled with bees. The editor who started the accusation steps closer and speaks so the microphones catch him. "We have witnesses who saw Mr. Dawson meet a third party outside the cafe, then transfer the files."
Daniel's face flushes. He throws up his hands. "This is slander. You can't—"
"But we can," the editor says. "Do you deny making a profit off her image? Do you deny coordinating with a media broker?"
"No," Daniel finally says. The word is brittle.
A gasp like a wave rushes through the room. Cameras tilt, reporters whisper, phones spin into recording. For a few seconds Daniel is not a man; he is an exposed animal.
"You did this because I was convenient," I say. The words feel like daggers but they sit true in my throat. "Because I was the one who had something to lose, because my face could make money."
Daniel's lips move as if he is shaping protest, then stops. He looks at the crowd, and in that look I see something that once drew me to him—the audacity, the belief that charm covers consequences. It fails him.
People around the room start to chant, a tidal murmur that grows into a roar. "Shame! Shame!"
"Apologize," someone shouts.
"Publicly!" another cries.
Daniel swallows, eyes flitting from person to person. His bravado cracks. He looks suddenly much younger.
Lorenzo walks down from the stage and stands a few feet from him, no theatrics, just present. "You made a choice," he says. "Now you need to accept it."
Daniel laughs at first, and then the laugh becomes a short, strangled sound. "You're playing the hero."
"I'm playing the one who cleaned up your mess," Lorenzo answers. "You thought you could market pain."
Daniel's expression shifts through fury to panic. He takes a half step back, as if plotting escape, but every exit feels filmed. A dozen phones and cameras are on him. People who wanted spectacle are now on him like flies. He stumbles against a lectern and knocks a stack of press packets to the floor. Someone scoops them up, records, smiles.
"Please," Daniel says suddenly, his voice breaking. "You don't have to do this."
"Do what?" someone asks. "Make us forgive you because you ask sweetly?"
He laughs, shorter this time. "I didn't mean— I didn't know what else to do. It was money, I'm—"
People shout. "How much?" "Who paid you?" "Why?"
Daniel's shoulders slump. For the first time he's not preening. He is small and human and caught.
"You made a sale out of my life and then tried to look surprised when I reacted," I say. "You invented a market for my grief."
Daniel's eyes find me. It's not triumph there. It's shame, and something like regret. "Anna—"
"Don't," I whisper. "Don't say my name like you own a memory."
He looks at the floor, then at Lorenzo, and the big showmanship he was so proud of drains out of him.
"Get down," someone from the crowd says. It is not a command; it is a chorus of expectation.
Daniel's knees hit the carpet in a graceless, sudden motion. The cameras don't hesitate. Somebody draws a photo of it: Daniel on his knees in a room full of strangers, a man who once smiled into private nights now pleading.
"Please," he says. His voice is small. "Please, I... I can fix this. I'll return everything. I'll—"
"Apologize now," a woman demands.
Daniel looks up, eyes wet and unmade. "I'm sorry," he says to me. The word is thin. "I'm sorry, Anna."
The crowd murmurs further, eager for the collapse that completes the narrative. Phones click. People who were once curious are now witnesses to a moral horror show.
"Beg," a voice orders, half cruel and half hungry.
Daniel looks at the cameras, then down at his hands, then back at me. For a moment he seems to think about the weight of what he asks. Then, old instinct or new survival, he bows his head until his forehead touches the carpet.
"Please forgive me," he says, his voice muffled by the floor. "Please. I'll pay. I'll do anything."
Reporters shout, and someone presses a mic toward him. A woman claps slowly. Cameras click like the teeth of a machine. People start recording with their phones, whispering judgments and recording every sob. Someone stands and places an insistent hand on his shoulder. The photos go up immediately; a hundred feeds live-stream the moment.
Daniel's face dissolves in the stream. He looks up, desperate, and the room offers no easy absolution. He is not dragged away by security; he is contained by the spectacle of his own exposure. People push for more: names, accomplices, proof. The pressure is a public crucible.
"Do you accept that you exploited another human for profit?" a reporter asks.
"Yes," Daniel says, the single word like a bell.
"Do you understand the harm you caused?"
"Yes."
"Do you accept responsibility to make amends in public?"
"Yes."
For a few long minutes Daniel repeats sentences that the press feeds to him. He is hollowed out, turned inside out. When he finally stands, shoulders slumped and hollow-eyed, he is no longer the man who used charm as currency. He is a man who will now answer to more than gossip.
After the press dissolves into smaller clusters, some people applauding, some taking selfies with the stage, some still muttering, Lorenzo finds me in the crowd.
"Are you okay?" he asks, voice low.
"I am," I say. "Shocked, but okay."
He takes my hand as if the world has narrowed to that one contact. "You didn't have to watch that."
"I had to," I tell him.
He nods. "Then stay. Stay and let us do the other work."
There is work to be done—paperwork, reputations, apologies, legal knots. But in that room, surrounded by a crowd that had for hours sought to devour our private fissures, something quiet opened between us.
"Now," Lorenzo says later, when the crowd has thinned and the lights in the office glow like distant stars. "Talk."
We go up to his office. He makes tea with the solemnity of someone who can close a deal and also knows how to make a simple thing feel like kindness.
"Why did you keep the poem?" I ask as we sit on opposite sides of the same narrow coffee table we've used for so many conversations.
He looks at his hands. "I wrote it because I couldn't figure out how to speak without being monstrous," he says. "I liked it and I thought of you." He looks up, and for the first time I hear a vulnerability under the arrogance. "I thought maybe I could show you that words mattered."
"Why attack me with the press? Why hand that other picture to them?"
"I wanted you to see your plan," he says. "I thought if you felt the pain of leaving, you might stop. I was wrong. I did wrong."
"I sent the papers," I say, "because I was scared and wanted an exit strategy. I didn't want to be trapped in a life I didn't remember choosing."
He closes his eyes, and a long breath leaves him. "We both did things to hurt each other," he says. "Could we... could we agree to be honest now? To put some of our cards on the table?"
"I'm not promising to forget," I say. "But I will promise to try."
He smiles, a small, slow thing, and it lights his face like dawn.
The next weeks are a strange cobbling of domestic routine and public cleanup. Daniel's public apology evolves into private reparations, donations to the charities he mentioned, and the magazine that bought the photos faces a boycott that humbles its editors. Lorenzo's team works to rebuild PR, while I work to rebuild my own life—applying to jobs, learning to cook with things that are not instant noodles, and reacquainting myself with the rhythm of being Anna instead of "the wife of."
"Do you want oatmeal?" Lorenzo asks one morning, appearing at the kitchen doorway with a bowl.
"You make the rose-oat porridge?" I ask, the memory of the rose-oat porridge a small, ridiculous talisman between us now.
He nods. "Yes. My grandmother taught me. It's good for the stomach and the heart."
"Then make two," I say.
We sit at the table while rain threads the windows, and the porridge is warm and slightly floral, and everything seems less like weather to survive and more like weather to enjoy.
"Are you staying?" I ask after the bowl is empty.
"For now," he says. "Stay."
I look at him. "Not forever?"
He grins in a way that is not all swagger. "For now, Anna. For now."
We build a small trust with careful tools: meetings with a counselor, honest nights of laughter or silence, the slow work of learning each other's rude edges and how to smooth them. I read lines from books and he listens. He tries to remember to close cupboards and to ask questions before he acts. I try to remember that he has his wounds too and that I can let the past be past only if we both work for a future.
One afternoon, months later, we go back to the little cafe on the corner—the place where my fall began and where secrets seemed to knock a hole in things. I keep expecting the ground to be treacherous, but this time I walk with my own feet and the world stays under me.
"Do you remember when you threw that cake?" I ask him when a small child squeals with delight over a toy dinosaur at the next table.
He smiles. "Yes. It reminded me not to be so clinical with joy."
"Then take a spoonful of porridge and make a promise you can keep," I say.
He leans over and his fingers brush mine. "I promise to guard your mornings," he says softly. "To make porridge and to never make a rumor out of our nights."
I laugh, a bright sound that surprises me. "That's oddly specific."
"Love can be specific," he says. "And it can be clumsy and it can be brave."
I rest my head on his shoulder while the rain taps the windows and for the first time in a long time I don't feel like I'm holding my life together with thread.
A photo is taken—no scandal, no leak—just a snapshot of two tired people who decided, for the moment, to be messy and kind together. Later, it's not the tabloids that find it. It's Aurelie who texts it to me with three heart emojis and a message: "You look like yourself."
We have no fairytale ending and no guarantee. We have the messy, imperfect work of two stubborn people who are trying not to be cruel workmates to each other's hearts.
"Do you regret pushing me to the stage?" he asks once, at night when the house is quieter than a held breath.
"I would never have known the truth if not for that day," I say. "And the truth is messy but it is ours."
He kisses my forehead and then says, "Then let us set the world to rights a little more gently."
I look out past the window at the small blue eucalyptus tree he once chose as his avatar. Its silhouette is simple and lonely and also stubborn. I know now why he picked it.
"I will try," I answer.
"Good," he murmurs. "And when the world tries to sell our nights, we'll sell them nothing but memory."
I laugh into his shirt and then, because this story likes a small miracle, I say, "Promise me no more dramatic press conferences for a while."
"Deal," he says, and the word is soft, and this time the promise feels possible.
The End
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