“Claire understood.
She agreed to wait.”
“You made that decision for me.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe—” My voice caught.
“For an entire year, Nathan.
You let me believe things were fine.”
“Things were fine.
Between us, everything was fine.”
“Except you were keeping a secret.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“That’s not your call to make.”
He didn’t argue.
He pressed his lips together and looked at me steadily.
“You’re right,” he said.
“It wasn’t.”
I wanted to stay angry.
I had been angry for months.
I had built something solid out of that anger — a lawyer, a plan, a version of the story where I knew exactly who had wronged me and how.
“What else?” I said.
“Your lawyer said she brought something else.
Something about our marriage.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“That part isn’t about me.”
“Then who is it about?”
He looked past me, down the hallway.
I turned.
My mother-in-law, Diane, was standing thirty feet away.
She had just come through the courthouse doors.
She hadn’t seen me yet.
But Claire was beside her.
And Claire was not smiling.
Diane spotted me a second later.
Her expression didn’t change.
That was the thing about Diane — it never did.
