Inside was no jewelry.
No cash.
No key to Richard’s mansion.
Just a folded letter, an old photograph of the two of us, and a small brass key.
Rebecca smiled.
“I told you.”
I ignored her and opened
the letter.
The first line made my throat tighten.
“Anna, I knew why you married me.”
I stopped reading.
Richard had known.
The letter continued.
He wrote that from the beginning, he understood that security had been part of the reason I said yes. He had been seventy-three, not foolish.
But then he wrote:
“What mattered to me was why you stayed after you no longer had to.”
My eyes filled with tears.
During his final weeks, Richard had offered to transfer money into my name.
I refused.
I told him his children would think I had been waiting for him to die.
I had even asked him to leave the family home to them.
I never knew he had told his lawyer about that conversation.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
“My children will inherit my companies, investments, and the house they grew up in. You never tried to
take those things from them.”
Rebecca’s smile disappeared.
