Chapter 7 Thirty Million

"The homewrecker?"

Eleanor straightened her spine and looked at her. "Get your facts straight, Regina. Eight years ago you walked out of your own wedding for a man with a bigger bank account. You left him standing in front of three hundred guests. You are the one who ran."

Regina clearly hadn't expected that. The Eleanor she had been told about was quiet and accommodating, a woman who folded rather than answer back.

She stared for a second, icy disdain settling in her eyes. "You wanted Asher long before I left. Otherwise, how did you happen to appear the instant I walked out, put on my wedding dress, and marry him while I was still carrying his child? You knew he loved me and pushed in anyway. Don't pretend it was kindness. You saw what he could become, and you wanted his money."

"His money? He had nothing when I married him. I ate instant noodles beside him, helped him survive the company failures, and held our life together while he built everything he has. I did not profit from his worst day, Regina. I helped him through it."

"You married him." For the first time, the smile left Regina's face. "If you hadn't gotten in the way, he would have come back to me the year the company went public. We would have found our way back to each other. You are the reason that never happened."

"And you want me to apologize for that."

"Yes." Something cold and completely real came into her voice. "Because if it weren't for you, I would be the only woman in his life. The house, the name, all of it. It should have been mine."

When she finished her words, she swung her arm wide，and the heavy bag on her elbow caught the vase standing by the entryway.

It went off the stand and burst across the floor.

Everyone flinched at the crash.

"No! My brother bought that for Grandma the day her surgery succeeded. It was his gift to tell her she was coming home." Leo ran to the shattered porcelain and dropped to his knees, reaching for the pieces with bare hands.

Eleanor caught Leo's wrists before the shards could cut him and pulled him back against her. His whole small body was shaking.

Regina glanced down at the fragments, unbothered. "Oh, stop crying. It's a vase. They sell those at every street market in the city. Fine, how much? I'll buy her ten of them."

Leo looked up at her, his eyes bright and furious. "Thirty million dollars."

Regina went completely still for three full seconds. "I'm sorry. What?"

"Thirty million dollars," Leo said again, without blinking.

Regina looked at him, and then laughed softly. "Thirty million? For that?" She swept a hand at the floor. "In a house that hasn't been renovated since 1990. You're telling me people who can barely keep the lights on were keeping a thirty-million-dollar antique in the hallway?"

She turned to Eleanor, her eyes sharp with mockery. "Is this a routine? Did you two rehearse it?"

Eleanor crouched down, lifted one of the larger fragments with her handkerchief, turned it to the light and stood back up. Her voice was matter-of-fact. "It's genuine. With the provenance documents, thirty million is a fair market price."

She looked at Regina. "Not everyone can tell the difference between a market copy and something irreplaceable. It takes a certain kind of eye." She tilted her head slightly. "Though I suppose if you had that kind of eye, you might have recognized what you were walking away from eight years ago, too."

The silence afterward was total. The smile went out of Regina's face.

"You, with your house calls and your sad little sheet music, are lecturing me about judgment?" Regina took out her phone and dialed Asher. He answered almost at once.

"Asher." Her voice went tight and controlled again, barely. "Get over here. Your wife and some child are trying to extort thirty million dollars out of me over a broken vase. And she has been insulting me the entire time."

Regina ended the call and smiled at Eleanor with open challenge. "He's coming. Let's see whose side he takes when he hears what his precious wife has done."

Eleanor ignored her. She knelt beside Leo, checked his hands for cuts, and helped him gather every fragment into a folded cloth, one careful piece at a time.

Fifteen minutes later Asher walked through the door.

His eyes found Eleanor first and went over her once, quickly, checking. Then he turned to Regina. "Who told you to come here?"

Regina hesitated. "I came to talk to Eleanor. I knocked a vase over by accident. Now she's demanding thirty million dollars from me."

She smiled, and there was a hook in it. "I never would have guessed she was such a gold digger. Maybe that's the whole reason she married you. The minute she saw the opening, you became her cash machine."

"Thirty million." Asher cut her off, his tone unchanged. "Fine. I'll pay it."

He took the checkbook out of his jacket, wrote it standing up and held it out to Eleanor. "Don't be upset."

Thirty million dollars. Even.

Regina looked at the check, and her mouth tightened.

Eleanor didn't take it. "Asher, this isn't about me being upset. And nobody here is running a scam on anyone." Her voice was steady, with a thread of stubbornness underneath it. "That vase is genuinely worth it. Bring in an appraiser if you want. I don't want a dollar of it for myself. I want her to apologize, and I want this family paid what they're actually owed."

Regina stared at him, "Oh, she's good. Look at her, the picture of virtue. Asher, I cannot believe you let a piece of work like this blind you."

"That's enough." Asher rubbed his brow. "Regina, go home. We'll talk later."

"Sooner or later you'll see what this woman really is," Regina said. Then she turned and walked out without looking back.

Asher let out a quiet breath. He stepped closer, and his tone shifted into something gentle and coaxing.

"Eleanor. I know you're upset. Whatever the vase is worth, I'll cover it. That isn't the point."

He put the check into her hand and closed her fingers around it. "You don't need to put on a performance for her over this much money. Take the thirty million as a gift from me. Let it go."

The words landed hollow and heavy at the same time.

He thought she was performing. He thought this was about getting money out of him.

Or perhaps, and this was the part that took the air out of her, he simply didn't care whether it was or not. As long as he paid, and the noise stopped.

Eleanor stared at him. "You think all of this was a performance?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then say what you did mean."

"I don't like seeing you upset." He said it evenly, the way he might close out a meeting. "I wanted it over with."

It was like driving her fist into cotton. Nothing she said landed anywhere. A weariness came over her that had nothing to do with the hour.

Eight years, and his answer to everything had remained the same: a check, a gift, a problem priced and paid and closed.

He had never asked what she truly needed or tried to understand who she was.

She thought of the ten million on their anniversary night, the emerald after Emma hurt her, and the thirty million signed a moment ago without a second glance.

He didn't see a wife. He saw something he was responsible for maintaining. Something to be kept comfortable and kept quiet.

A pet. Warm. Well fed. Completely contained.

Eleanor looked down at the check in her hand for a long moment. Then she set it on the side table.