“Her father is a nobody,” Grayson said. “She’ll be grateful for whatever we let her keep.”
I felt something inside me change.
Not break.
Breakage would have been easier to understand.
It was more like a door closing somewhere deep in my chest. Behind it were two years of memories: our first date, the flowers he sent after an argument, the night he held me while I cried about work, the promises whispered in the dark.
I could suddenly see all of them from the other side.
Every tender moment looked different.
Every reassuring word had a shadow.
I had been lying beneath my own wedding bed, wearing a dress I had chosen because Grayson said it made me look beautiful, listening to him discuss the end of our marriage before the marriage had even begun.
Lorna stood.
“Remember what we discussed,” she said. “No weakness from the start. She needs to understand who makes the decisions in that house.”
