The white dress.
The careful stillness.
She had stopped smiling.
“Nathan.” Eleanor’s voice had gone very quiet.
“This is dated eight months ago.”
“I was going to explain everything—”
“Eight months ago I gave you money for your board exam preparation.” She looked up at him.
“You told me you needed it for study materials.”
Nathan said nothing.
“How much of what I gave you went into this?” she asked.
The question hung there.
Nathan’s father, a quiet man named Gerald who had said almost nothing since arriving, took one slow step back.
Not dramatic.
Just a step.
Like a man recalibrating where he stood.
Nathan looked at me.
His expression had changed.
The practiced smoothness was gone.
“We can work this out,” he said.
“Between us.
Privately.”
“There’s nothing left to work out between us,” I said.
“You made that decision before the ceremony started.”
I took the property document back from Eleanor, placed it in the envelope, and closed it.
“I’ll be speaking with a lawyer on Monday,” I said.
“I’d suggest you do the same.”
I turned to go.
Nathan’s voice came from behind me, lower now, with something harder underneath it.
“You’ll get nothing,” he said.
“You left school.
You have no degree.
You have nothing to prove any agreement between us was anything more than a marriage.”
I stopped walking.
I didn’t turn around.
“Daniel,” I said.
Daniel, who had followed me back to the courtyard and was standing six feet away, reached into his jacket pocket and held up his phone
