Sign it

Chapter Two

             

Michael laughed, a short, cracked sound.

"A divorce? You? You don't have a cent to your name, Sharon. Where would you even go?"

Sharon didn't answer. She walked to the wardrobe, pulled out a worn suitcase, and set it on the bed. Her hands were trembling, not from fear but from the weight of a death only she remembered. In her last life, she had died watching her husband's arm wrap around another woman's waist.

Not now. You can grieve later. You have fifty days.

"Answer me!"

"Sit down, Michael."

"Don't you tell me to..."

"Sit. Down."

Something in her voice made him obey. He dropped onto the edge of the bed, one hand pressed to his bruised shoulder, glaring at her like a cornered dog.

Sharon opened the bottom drawer, lifted the false panel beneath her old sweaters, and took out a thick brown folder. She had hidden it there three years ago, on the night he first put his hands on her. She had told herself it was only a precaution. Some part of her had always known.

She tossed it onto his lap.

"Read it."

He flipped it open, scoffing. "What is this nonsense?"

"A divorce settlement. Page one, my terms. Page two, yours. Sign at the bottom."

"I'm not signing anything."

"Then read the other pages first."

His eyes dropped to the paper. The sneer slid slowly off his face.

"The Ashford Family Trust," he read aloud. "What... what is this?"

"My parents' trust. The one you were told was spent on my mother's hospital bills." Sharon's voice was steady, but her fingers had curled into her palms. "They didn't spend it, Michael. They hid it. They never trusted you, and they were right. Everything they left me went into that account, and you never knew."

"This is a lie."

"Turn the page."

His hands were shaking now. "Company shares..."

"Fifty-one percent of Hargrove Logistics. The company you call yours. The one you strut into every morning as if you built it with your bare hands." She stepped closer. "My father built it. He gave the shares to me, and I let you play chairman because I loved you. Because I wanted you to feel like a man."

"You... you're lying."

"Page six. Life insurance payout from my parents' accident. Page seven, the properties. Page eight, the accounts." Her voice finally cracked, just slightly. "I lived like a servant in my own house so you could feel important. Eight years, Michael. Eight years I swallowed every insult and wiped away every bruise, and you never once asked where the money came from."

Michael's face had gone gray. He looked up at her as though he were seeing a stranger.

"Why... why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I wanted you to love *me*." The tears spilled over now, and she let them fall. "Not my father's money. Just me. I kept waiting for the day you'd look at me and see someone worth loving. That day never came."

For a moment, the silence between them was unbearable. His mouth worked soundlessly.

Then, because Michael was just so inconsiderate, his shock curdled into fury.

"So that's it!" He shot to his feet and slammed the folder against the bed. "You've been hiding it all this time, laughing at me! Making a fool of me!"

"I wasn't laughing."

"I'm your husband! Everything you own is mine!"

"Not according to the law." Sharon wiped her face with the heel of her hand, and when she lowered it, her eyes were dry and cold. "Page nine."

He hesitated, then turned the page with a shaking hand.

"Here is my offer. I'm generous, so listen carefully." She held up one finger. "You keep the house."

His head snapped up. "The house?"

"The mansion. The garden. Every room I decorated with my own hands. It's yours."

His eyes flickered with greed, the same hungry look he'd worn when he first walked through its doors. "And what's the catch?"

"The catch is that you pay me for it."

"Pay you what?"

She smiled. It was the first time she had smiled in this life, and it was nothing like the soft smile he remembered.

"Five hundred million dollars."

Michael stared at her.

Then he burst out laughing, loudly and wildly, doubling over with one hand on his knee. "Five hundred... You're insane! The house isn't worth a tenth of that! You've lost your mind!"

"The house is worth exactly what I say it's worth," Sharon replied. "It's the one place I'll need to be fifty days from now, and I'd rather you didn't live in it. But you want it so badly, don't you? So pay."

"I don't have five hundred million dollars!"

"I know." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "That's the point."

He stopped laughing.

"If you refuse, you walk out of this room with nothing. Not the house, not the cars, not the company. I'll pull my shares tomorrow morning, and by noon, Hargrove Logistics will belong to my lawyers." She picked up the suitcase and walked toward the door. "You'll have a choice, Michael. Pay me, or lose everything you thought was yours."

"Sharon, wait..."

"Sign it."

He grabbed the pen with trembling fingers. His breath came in short gasps. Sweat ran down his temple as he pressed the tip against the signature line, and for one heartbeat she thought he would do it.

Then he froze.

His eyes had landed on the very last line of page nine, the one printed in small gray type below the signature box. The pen slipped from his fingers and clattered across the floor.

"What... what is this?" he whispered, the color draining from his face. "Why is *her* name on this?"

Sharon didn't turn around. Her hand rested on the doorknob.

"Because, Michael," she said softly, "you're not the only one who's been keeping secrets."

Behind her, the folder slid from his grip and hit the floor, and the pages scattered like fallen leaves.