Chapter 2: The Name of the Firm
Rachel set her pen down slowly.
She didn't answer right away.
That told me everything.
"How long have you known?" I asked.
She looked at the door, then back at me.
"She called me twice.
Before the engagement was even announced.
She wanted to know whether a spouse automatically inherited shares if there was no prenuptial agreement."
I sat down.
"She asked about the trust structure.
She asked what Diane's signature authority covered.
She asked whether a company this size would typically add a spouse to the board after marriage." Rachel's voice stayed quiet.
"I told her those weren't questions I could answer for her.
She thanked me and hung up."
"And you didn't tell me."
"You were happy," Rachel said.
"I thought I might be wrong about what I was hearing."
I stared at the wall.
Two years.
Every complaint Ashley had ever made about my mother suddenly lined up differently.
Every argument reframed itself.
Diane hadn't been difficult.
She had been careful.
I pulled out my phone and opened the shared banking app Ashley and I had set up three months before the wedding.
There was a transfer I hadn't noticed before.
Forty-two hundred dollars.
Sent the morning after our engagement party.
The recipient name stopped my breath.
It was a law firm I didn't recognize.
I showed Rachel the screen.
May you like
She leaned forward — and her face went pale.
"That firm," she said quietly, "specializes in matrimonial asset litigation."
