“I know.”
“You believe me?”
“The video answered that before you got here.”
His shoulders dropped, but only for a second.
Then the anger came.
“Why would Megan do this?”
“I don’t know everything yet.”
“And Mom?”
That question hurt more.
“I don’t know how long she’s been thinking this way.”
Terrence paced to the window.
“We got married forty-eight hours ago.”
“I know.”
He pressed both hands against the back of his neck.
“She kept asking questions about the business.
I thought she was trying to understand the family.
She asked how the trust worked.
I told her I didn’t know because I didn’t care.
I told her you would explain anything important when it mattered.”
Marcus asked, “Did you ever give her documents?”
“No.”
“Passwords?”
“No.”
“Access to your father’s files?”
“Never.”
Terrence looked at me again.
“She got everything from Mom.”
None of us answered.
That evening, I went home.
Beatrice was in the kitchen.
The white lilies were still in the vase.
For one strange second, I saw the same woman I had seen every morning for decades.
Then she noticed my face.
“Where have you been?”
“At the restaurant.”
Her hand stopped beside the vase.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But I saw it.
“The restaurant?”
“The Gilded Oak.”
She forced a small laugh.
“What did they want?”
I set the external drive on the counter.
Color left her face.
I had my answer before she spoke.
“Elijah—”
“Don’t.”
She stared at the drive.
“You don’t understand the context.”
“I watched forty-three minutes of context.”
Her lips parted.
Then she did something extraordinary.
She tried to become my wife again.
Her shoulders softened.
Her voice lowered.
She stepped toward me with the expression she used whenever she wanted a difficult conversation to become gentle.
