At my birthday party my mother-in-law whispered something in my husband’s ear and I saw the shift in his eyes. Before I could react, the next moment his slap sent me crashing to the floor. Stunned, I lay there as he turned to walk away, until a slow chuckle escaped my lips.
He froze. His face drained of color. The email glowed on my screen like a confession:
“The Harrington Trust disbursement requires continuous marital status of no less than five years, with no separation filings.”
My hand trembled as I forwarded it to my encrypted server, the final piece slotting into place.
Behind me, the gray Boston dawn filtered through designer curtains James had insisted on—curtains that cost more than my first car. I slammed my laptop shut as the bathroom door opened. Steam billowed out as James emerged, towel wrapped around his waist, his body still magnificent at thirty-seven.
His eyes, however, held that increasingly vacant look I’d been documenting for months. “Happy birthday, Elise,” he said, the words rehearsed, hollow. He bent to kiss my cheek, his lips cool despite the hot shower.
“Mother’s excited about tonight.”
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Let’s dive in. “I’m sure she is,” I thought, but replied with practiced warmth. “It was so generous of Victoria to arrange everything.”
My voice—the one I’d perfected in courtrooms to sway juries—didn’t betray the ice forming inside my chest.
“What are you working on?” he asked, glancing at my closed laptop. “Just reviewing the Westbrook merger documents,” I lied smoothly. “Even birthday girls don’t get days off at Caldwell and Pierce.”
He nodded, accepting this without question.
When we’d first met six years ago, he would have teased me about my workaholic tendencies, maybe tried to coax me back to bed. That James was gone now, replaced by this polished automaton who responded to his family’s signals like a trained animal. As he dressed for his morning at the family office, I retreated to my walk-in closet, the one place in our Beacon Hill brownstone without cameras.
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