Chapter 5

Ethan's proposed divorce settlement arrived right on schedule.

There was one small difficulty. When he was young and in love, he'd handed over his shares as if they were free samples. In the years since, he'd devoted considerable energy to other women.

Now he wanted out of the marriage without leaving the fortune he'd built behind him.

With so much already in my name, that wasn't going to be simple.

Ethan's first draft treated our marriage like an administrative error. It gave him the company, the homes, and most of the liquid assets, while granting me a sum described as generous by someone who had apparently never seen my monthly statements.

I turned each page slowly. Across the table, Ethan watched my face, waiting for fear. I gave him moisture around the eyes and one careful tremor in my hand. Good acting is mostly restraint. Bad acting gets you daytime television.

The terms themselves did scare me. Not because they were fair, but because the attorney behind them had identified where to press. Whoever Ethan had hired understood that ownership on paper and control in practice were different things. He had mapped the joints before trying to break the skeleton.

He paid a great deal of money to bring in a star attorney from out of town. Harvard Law. Still young, already one of the best in his field.

In the conference room, Ethan slid the papers toward me with the ease of a man who believed the difficult part was over.

"Sign."

I glanced at the terms and let my eyes fill.

"You're really going to do this to me?"

"Now you're sorry?"

I nodded through my tears. "We're married. I can't just let go of everything we've had."

He rubbed his forehead.

"Spare me. You can discuss the terms with my attorney. He's a financial expert as well."

The door opened.

His assistant stepped aside, smiling with almost painful deference, and a man walked in behind him.

A luxury watch showed beneath his cuff. His face was still beautiful, though the cool, reserved expression suited his expensive clothes better than it had ever suited that basement.

For one absurd second, I noticed the watch before the man. Then Adrian lifted his eyes, and every number left my head.

He had been lean when I knew him, all sharp wrists and stubborn silence. Now the suit fit broad shoulders, and the cheap pen he used to carry had become a fountain pen laid precisely beside Ethan's file. None of that changed his eyes. I had spent years paying attractive strangers because one of them might look at me that way again. None ever had.

Adrian did not offer his hand.

Professional caution, perhaps. Or a reasonable reluctance to touch the stove that had burned him.

I sat motionless as Adrian Shaw took the chair opposite mine.

"It's been a long time," he said. "Mrs. Cole."

I'd kept my own name, Claire Bennett. Plenty of people called me Mrs. Cole anyway.

None of them had ever made it sound quite like that.

I attempted a laugh. Nothing much came out. My throat had gone dry.

Ethan set down his pen and looked between us.

"You two know each other?"