Chapter 2 - A Signature Before Coffee
Twenty minutes earlier, I'd still been trying to believe the man I married was real.
The breakfast room looked like a magazine spread. Tall windows framed the garden. White roses from our reception crowded the sideboard. Evelyn sat at the head of the table as though the house and everyone in it were extensions of her will.
Grant kissed my forehead when I walked in. “Sleep okay, babe?”
“Not much.” I smiled, hoping the tension in my shoulders would ease. “It was a long day.”
He passed me coffee. Beneath the saucer lay three pages of legal print.
“Just a small housekeeping thing,” he said. “Our attorney needs it signed before the honeymoon.”
I read the heading: SPOUSAL CONSENT AND ASSET ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
One sentence stopped me. It said I voluntarily waived any claim arising from my interest in Harborlight Community Housing, including my controlling voting shares.
“Grant,” I said slowly, “why is my company in a marriage document?”
Evelyn set down her fork. “Don't be dramatic. Family assets are better managed together.”
“Harborlight isn't a family asset. It's a nonprofit development business I built with Mara before I met any of you.”
Grant kept smiling, but the muscles in his jaw hardened. “It's just to simplify financing.”
“Then our lawyers can discuss it Monday.”
He reached across me for the pen. “We are married now, Claire. You don't have to fight every little thing.”
“I don't fight little things. I read them.”
The smile vanished. “Sign it.”
“No.”
He slapped me so suddenly my hearing narrowed to a high whine. My shoulder hit the sideboard and a plate spun off the edge. I tasted blood where my teeth caught my lip.
Walter whispered, “Grant.”
Evelyn said, “She provoked him.”
I stared at the man who had promised to protect me less than sixteen hours ago. His expression held no surprise, only impatience.
At the rehearsal dinner, a server had accidentally bumped my chair. Grant had snapped at him so sharply the room went still. Later he told me he was under stress and that I should appreciate a man who noticed details. I had defended him. Now I understood the difference between attention and control. Attention asks what you need. Control tells you what you're allowed to do.
Then I noticed something far worse than his anger: he glanced at Miles, and Miles glanced at the folder by the window.
May you like
They'd expected this conversation. They'd rehearsed it.
The folder was stamped with a title I'd seen only once before, on a document that disappeared from my office three weeks earlier.
