Chương 3
She had replied with three laughing faces.
Now her signature sat on a document she had planned to ask him to sign.
He wondered what version of himself had existed at 7:53.
He almost envied him.
Martin folded the document.
“Ethan, do not sign anything tonight.”
Claire laughed sharply.
“Thank you, Martin.”
“I mean anything. Wedding license, property document, vendor amendments, nothing.”
The officiant had the marriage license.
Ethan had forgotten that.
He looked at Claire.
“Did you sign the license?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“No.”
“So we’re not legally married.”
“Not yet.”
The words hung there.
Not yet.
As if the ceremony were merely paused outside.
Claire stepped closer.
Her voice lowered.
“Ethan, please. Send everyone out.”
He looked at Rose’s face again.
“No.”
Claire’s mouth hardened.
“Of course.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she gets what she wanted.”
Rose stood.
Ethan immediately reached for her.
She waved him away.
“What I wanted,” Rose said, “was to be wrong.”
“You hated me before you had a reason.”
“I didn’t hate you.”
“You made me prove myself every time I walked into a room.”
“That may be true.”
The admission stopped Claire.
Rose adjusted the cuff of her charcoal-gray dress.
“I’m old enough to admit when I’ve been unkind. I watched you because I was afraid Ethan trusted too easily. That was my fear. It wasn’t your crime.”
Claire blinked.
Rose continued.
“But you made your own choice.”
Claire looked away.
For the first time, Ethan saw the outline of the trap they had built around one another. Rose suspicious because she loved him. Claire defensive because she felt judged. Ethan smoothing over every unpleasant moment because he wanted peace. Each of them using him, in different ways, to avoid talking directly to the others.
He felt suddenly furious with himself.
“How long?” he asked.
Claire didn’t answer.
“How long have you been working on the transfer?”
“Three months.”
Three months.
In three months they had tasted cakes, chosen flowers, argued about guest lists, spent a weekend in Santa Fe because Claire insisted they needed one trip where nobody said the word wedding.
Three months ago, she had begun preparing the document.
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Because you would’ve said no.”
There it was.
Not fear.
Not misunderstanding.
Knowledge.
She had known his answer and had built a path around it.
Ethan nodded once.
Claire’s face changed.
She knew him well enough to understand the nod.
“Don’t.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t what?”
“Make a permanent decision while you’re angry.”
“You made one while I was happy.”
She stared at him.
He regretted the sentence the moment he said it because it sounded too clean, too much like something designed to hurt.
But it was true.
He opened the library door.
Noise rushed in from the hall.
People went quiet when they saw him.
Caleb stood nearest, bow tie already undone, his face asking a dozen questions he had enough sense not to speak.
Ethan handed him his phone.
“Find Laura Kim.”
Caleb frowned.
“Your CFO?”
“Yes. Ask if she’s here.”
“She is. Table nine.”
“Bring her.”
Claire stepped into the doorway.
“Why?”
Ethan turned.
“Because if you were trying to move control of the company, I need to know whether anything else moved.”
“You think I’ve been stealing?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“I have never taken a dollar from you.”
“Good.”
His calm seemed to frighten her more than anger would have.
“Then Laura will confirm that.”
Caleb disappeared.
The first guests began leaving within ten minutes.
Nobody knew whether they had been dismissed, but departure became contagious. Coats emerged. Valets received frantic messages. The conservatory filled with the soft scrape of chairs and the awkward murmur of people pretending not to look toward the library.
The storm had closed the lower mountain road temporarily, which meant half the guests could not actually leave. The venue manager opened the east ballroom and instructed everyone to wait until the plows cleared the pass.
It created a peculiar social purgatory.
The wedding had failed, but the reception buffet remained hot.
Ethan stood at the end of the hall while waiters quietly moved trays of food into the ballroom.
A server approached him holding a plate.
“Mr. Morgan?”
Ethan looked at the tiny lamb chop.
The server’s face was so miserable that Ethan almost smiled.
“You can call me Ethan.”
“Do you want this?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
The server walked away with obvious relief.
Rose sat in the library with an ice pack wrapped in a linen napkin against her cheek.
Diane kept trying to examine her.
“I’m fine,” Rose said for the fourth time.
“You’re seventy-nine.”
“I was also seventy-nine this morning.”
“That doesn’t make being hit safer.”
“It wasn’t a truck, Diane.”
Laura Kim arrived wearing a dark green evening dress and snow boots she had apparently retrieved from her car before the road closed.
She was forty-six, precise, unsentimental, and still holding a champagne glass.
“I assume,” she said, looking around, “this isn’t about the floral budget.”
Caleb snorted.
Nobody else did.
Laura set the glass down.
Martin showed her the transfer agreement.
She read it standing.
Unlike Martin, she showed almost nothing.
When she finished, she looked at Ethan.
“This document alone wouldn’t transfer liquid assets.”
“What could it transfer?”
“Governance rights, depending on what else was executed.”
Claire leaned against the desk.
“Nothing else was executed.”
Laura looked at her.
“Have you had access to Ethan’s DocuSign?”
Claire’s eyes narrowed.
“No.”
“Email?”
“We live together. Of course I’ve seen his email.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No.”
“Bank authentication?”
“No.”
“Company portal?”
“No.”
Laura nodded.
“Then I’ll check.”
Claire laughed.
“You’re searching my life now?”
Laura zipped her coat halfway because the old library was cold.
“I’m searching his company.”
The distinction landed hard.
Ethan sat down.
His legs felt unreliable.
Laura pulled out her phone and called the controller.
It took four minutes.
May you like
During those four minutes, nobody spoke.
Ethan watched Rose hold the ice to her cheek.
