Chapter 14 - SLOANE’S SECOND APOLOGY
Sloane contacted me once more.
Four years after the divorce.
Apex had survived.
Smaller.
She had stepped away from ownership after selling controlling interest to a partner.
She wanted permission to quote part of our legal settlement in a business-ethics seminar.
Her lawyer asked mine.
I could have ignored it.
Instead, I requested the actual materials.
Sloane was speaking about conflict-of-interest failures and informal authorization.
Not about my marriage.
Not about the assault.
I approved limited use of anonymized facts already permitted under settlement terms.
Then she wrote one personal sentence.
Thank you for not making my worst choices the only thing I was allowed to become.
I stared at it.
There was something uncomfortable there.
Because I had no responsibility to save Sloane from her choices.
But I understood what she meant.
The legal process had required repayment and accountability.
It had not required annihilation.
I replied:
Accountability was the point. What you became afterward was yours.
That was all.
May you like
I realized the same applied to Derek.
And to me.
