Part 5
“There was.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I saw it.”
Maren’s pulse began to pound in her throat.
“What was in it?”
Julian looked at Gideon before answering.
That was enough.
Maren backed away.
“Maren,” Gideon said.
She kept moving.
“The first document was never going to be used,” Julian said. “I told him that. I tore up the copy I had.”
“What was in the other one?” she asked.
Celia’s face had gone white.
Julian swallowed.
“It put the house in your father’s name permanently.”
“It is his house,” Gideon said.
“No,” Maren said.
Her voice sounded far away.
“No, it isn’t.”
Gideon’s eyes sharpened. “What did you just say?”
She had not meant to say it. The words had slipped loose before she could decide whether she was ready to let them exist.
The house had been left to her years ago. Not by a dead relative, not by some stranger who could be blamed for the complication. Gideon himself had transferred it into her name after one of their worst fights, when she was twenty-four and had told him she wanted nothing from him that came with a leash.
He had handed her the papers in silence.
She had signed them because she thought it meant something.
“I own this house,” she said.
Gideon stared at her.
Celia whispered, “Oh God.”
Julian looked sick.
Maren held the black folder against her chest.
“You were going to take it back.”
“No,” Gideon said.
“You were going to put it back in your name.”
“No.”
“You wrote it down.”
“It was a contingency.”
“A contingency for what? For me having an opinion?”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither is this.”
Gideon took a step toward her.
Julian stepped between them.
It was not dramatic. It was not brave in the way people liked to imagine bravery. He simply moved because his body had decided before his mind could make a better plan.
Gideon stopped.
The room narrowed.
Maren looked at Julian’s back. The white collar of his shirt was open at the throat. A faint crease ran down the spine between his shoulder blades. He had worn that shirt because she said it made him look less like he was trying too hard.
He had listened to her say that.
Then he had written about her behind her back.
“I need to leave,” she said.
Celia spoke first. “You shouldn’t drive right now.”
“I’m not driving.”
“You’re upset.”
“Yes.”
“Stay here until you can breathe.”
Maren laughed once more, though there was nothing left in it.
“Here?”
Celia’s eyes filled, but she did not cry.
That restraint hurt Maren more than tears would have.
Gideon said, “No one is stopping you from leaving.”
The words were too calm.
Too careful.
Maren stared at him.
Julian turned around slowly.
“Don’t say that,” he said.
Gideon’s expression did not change. “It is the truth.”
“It isn’t.”
Maren felt something cold and clear settle inside her. Not peace. Not strength. Just the brutal relief of no longer needing to pretend she believed the people around her.
She took the folder from against her chest and set it on the table.
Then she walked toward the double doors.
Gideon moved after her.
“Maren.”
She reached the handles.
His hand closed over one of them first.
Not gripping her. Not touching her. Just preventing the door from opening for one second too long.
The gesture had been small.
It had been enough.
Maren looked at his hand.
Then at his face.
“Move.”
Gideon did not.
Celia said, “Gideon.”
Julian said, “Let her go.”
The air seemed to leave the room.
Gideon’s eyes held Maren’s. The hard authority in him was still there, but now it had something beneath it. Fear, maybe. Or grief. Or the knowledge that he had spent years doing the wrong thing for reasons he could make sound reasonable.
“I need you to understand,” he said.
“No,” Maren replied. “You need me to stay where you can see me.”
His hand dropped from the handle.
She pulled the door open.
Warm light poured over her.
For one second she stood there, half in the dark foyer and half in the brighter hall, feeling the house divide itself around her.
Then Gideon’s phone began to ring.
Not loudly. A vibration from the inside pocket of his jacket. A small, insistent sound.
He looked down.
Celia looked at him.
Julian looked at Maren.
Maren saw Gideon hesitate.
That hesitation was the first time she understood he did not know what to do.
He turned away from the room and walked through the doors into the hallway, taking the call without answering it aloud.
The doors remained open behind him.
Celia moved toward Maren.
“Maren, please.”
Maren backed away.
May you like
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t know about the second draft.”
