“Send them in,” I said.
The words were quiet, but they changed the temperature of the kitchen.
Colton looked from me to the intercom as if he could still bully the morning back into the shape he wanted.
His father remained standing beside the breakfast table, phone clenched in one hand.
Cynthia’s coffee had gone untouched.
Reagan had stepped away from the puddle she’d made, suddenly careful about where she put her feet.
Less than a minute later, footsteps crossed the marble foyer.
Lilah entered first, dressed in a charcoal suit and carrying a thick black folder.
A bank representative followed her with a slim case tucked under one arm.
Neither of them looked surprised to see four members of the Tate family standing around a kitchen that smelled of coffee and tension.
Colton moved immediately.
“Whatever she told you is a lie.”
Lilah kept walking.
“Good morning, Mrs.
Tate.”
She placed the folder on the island beside my wedding ring and the coffee Reagan had poured onto the marble.
Colton’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m her husband.
You can speak to me.”
Lilah finally looked at him.
“I am speaking to my client.”
Then she opened the folder.
The first page was enough to drain the color from Colton’s face.
It wasn’t a divorce filing.
Not yet.
It was a control chart.
At the top sat Keystone Horizon.
Below it were the entities connected to Tate Hospitality, the lakefront property, several restaurant leases, and the credit facilities that had quietly kept the family’s business running.
At the bottom of the page was the name Colton had never expected to see connected to any of them.
Mine.
His father pushed away from the table.
“Where did you get that?”
Lilah turned the page toward him.
“From the corporate records you signed.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
He snatched the page and scanned it.
I watched his eyes jump from line to line.
His mouth opened once, then closed.
Cynthia stood.
“What exactly is Keystone Horizon?”
I answered her.
“My company.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Reagan laughed first, but it came out thin and nervous.
“No.
She works as a consultant.”
“I do consulting work,” I said.
“That was never the same thing as saying I worked for someone else.”
Colton stared at me as though this were the betrayal that mattered.
“You lied to me.”
I touched the cut on my lip.
“I told you I had investments.
You never asked what they were.
You were more interested in telling me what kind of wife I should become.”
His eyes dropped for half a second.
