Part 6

She continued: "I do not regret loving you." "I regret how long I forgot to love myself." "Please don't mistake my leaving for an invitation to make another promise." "I have heard enough promises." "I needed seven days of your presence." "You gave those days to someone else." "Now I am giving the rest of my life back to myself." "Isabelle." I read the letter until the words blurred together. Then I carefully placed it beside our wedding photograph. My phone began ringing. Camille. I watched her name appear on the screen. For the first time, I did not feel flattered. I answered. "Gabriel?" she said. "I've been trying to reach you." "I know." "What's wrong?" I looked at the empty closet. "Isabelle left." There was a long silence. Then Camille asked quietly, "What does that mean for us?" I closed my eyes. For nine months, I had avoided answering that question honestly. I would not avoid it again. "It means I've hurt two people because I wanted everything without being responsible for anything." "Gabriel..." "I lied to her. And I wasn't honest with you about what I was willing to do." Another silence. Then she asked, "Are you coming back to Rome?" "No." "Do you want me to come to you?" "No, Camille." Her breathing changed. "You're ending this." "Yes." "Because your wife left?" "Because I should never have begun it." She said nothing for several seconds. Then her voice turned cold. "You told me your marriage was already over." "I know." "Was that another lie?" I looked toward Isabelle's letter. "Yes." The admission seemed to empty the room of its last excuse. Camille ended the call. I did not call her back. For the first time, I allowed a consequence to remain exactly where my choices had placed it. Then I picked up my phone and wrote one message to Isabelle. "I watched everything. I won't send anyone after you. I won't ask you to forgive me. I understand that I have no right to demand another chance." I stared at the words. Then I added: "You were never invisible. I chose not to look. And I am sorry." I sent it. There was no reply. That night, I slept on the floor beside the seven boxes. Not because I believed suffering would repair what I had broken. But because I could not bear to lie in the bed where I had spent fifteen years taking Isabelle's presence for granted. When morning arrived, sunlight fell across the old dressmaking scissors. For the first time in years, I did not think about my company. I thought about a woman who had once stayed awake beside me, cutting fabric because she believed our future was worth building. And I understood that if I wanted to become someone better, I had to stop treating remorse as though it were the same thing as change. PART 5: THE ONE THING MY BILLIONS COULD NEVER PURCHASE The morning after I watched Isabelle's video, I canceled my appointments. For years, I had told my wife that my schedule was impossible to change. That meetings could not be postponed. That important people expected me to be available. That the company needed me. Yet when I told my office I would not be coming in, no catastrophe followed. No empire collapsed. No international market disappeared. My staff simply rearranged the schedule. I stood in the kitchen after that call, staring at my phone. The realization was almost unbearable. I had always possessed the ability to give Isabelle time. I had simply chosen not to. I made my own coffee. The machine was expensive and unfamiliar. I did not know where Isabelle kept the mugs she preferred. I did not even know which cupboard held the tea she drank every evening. For years, those small details had been part of the invisible work she performed to make our life feel effortless. I walked around the house slowly. There were framed photographs from fashion shows. Awards. Magazine covers. Portraits of me standing beside celebrities and influential designers. There were remarkably few photographs of Isabelle. I searched through the rooms. I found one photograph from an anniversary dinner years earlier. We were smiling politely. I remembered that evening. I had spent half of dinner answering business messages. At the time, I believed the evening had been successful because the restaurant was expensive and the food was exceptional. I could not remember what Isabelle had ordered. I sat down. For once, I did not try to justify myself. I simply allowed the memories to come. The birthdays I had missed. The conversations I had interrupted. The evenings when she asked whether I was coming home and I gave her a time I knew I would not keep. Every time she said she missed me. Every time I answered by reminding her how fortunate our life was. I remembered once telling her that millions of women would be grateful to live in our house. She had looked at me for a long moment. Then said, "I never asked for millions of women to want my life, Gabriel." I had laughed dismissively. Now I finally understood. She had never wanted the life strangers envied. She had wanted the life we had promised each other. Later that morning, I went to my office. My senior team was surprised to see me without an appointment. They began discussing upcoming collections and scheduled appearances. I listened for several minutes. Then I asked them to stop. There were things I needed to correct. Not because I believed a public announcement would bring Isabelle home. Not because I wanted the world to admire my regret. But because I could no longer continue benefiting from a story about my own success that erased the person who had helped create it. For years, the Laurent brand had described me as a self-made designer who built his company through individual determination. That description had been convenient. It had also been incomplete. I asked my team to prepare a corrected account of the company's early history. I wanted the original beginnings acknowledged honestly. The tiny apartment. The first collections. The long nights when Isabelle cut and assembled garments beside me. The fact that she had been a true partner in building the foundation of the company. One of my senior employees looked surprised. "Gabriel, are you certain you want to change the official narrative?" I looked at him. "It shouldn't have been the narrative in the first place." He hesitated. "People know you as the founder." "I am the founder." I paused. "But I didn't build it alone." The words were simple. They should not have taken fifteen years to say. Over the following days, I began reviewing the things Isabelle and I had built together. I contacted my legal advisers and asked for a fair accounting of our shared life and her contributions. I did not ask them how to minimize what she might receive. I did not ask them how to protect my public image. I asked them to make sure she would have the freedom to move forward without having to argue for the value of fifteen years. When one adviser began discussing what I might be required to provide, I interrupted. "This isn't about finding the smallest number." I stared at the documents in front of me. "It's about recognizing what belongs to her." I understood that money would not undo the damage. But refusing to use my wealth as another instrument of control was one practical decision I could make. I also stopped trying to purchase my way out of uncomfortable feelings. No jewelry. No flowers. No surprise vacations. No expensive gifts delivered to an address I had been specifically asked not to find. I wanted to send her everything. I wanted to buy her the perfect house, fill it with the flowers she loved, and design a hundred ivory gowns. But every time I imagined those gestures, I remembered her letter.