Half a Truth

Andy called before the hour was up.

"It's a burner," he said, no greeting, straight into it. "Purchased three days ago with a card linked to a shell company Gianna's used before. My assistant traced it in twenty minutes. She wasn't even trying to hide it well."

Hannah exhaled something that wasn't quite relief. "So it's nothing. She was just trying to scare me."

"That part, yes." A pause stretched too long on the line. "There's something else. I'd rather tell you in person."

They met at his penthouse, the same gray couch, the elevator ride up quieter than either of them managed to fill with small talk. Hannah sat upright this time instead of falling apart on it. Andy stood by the window with his hands in his pockets, and for the first time since she'd known this version of him, he looked like a man bracing for a verdict.

"I talked to a family lawyer this morning," he said. "Marcus Webb. He's handled Vaughn estate matters for fifteen years."

"About what?"

"About making sure that whatever happens to Danny's company doesn't take your share of our joint assets down with it. There's a structure we could put in place — separate from the divorce, separate from anything Danny controls — that protects what's legally yours before his creditors start circling."

Hannah felt something cool settle in her chest. "You did this today. Without telling me."

"I was going to tell you tonight. Before Gianna's message beat me to it."

"That's not the point, Andy." She stood, needing the movement. "The point is you decided, again, what I need protecting from, and who gets to know about it, and when. You did the exact same thing with the evidence in March. You just called it something nicer this time."

Andy didn't argue. That, somehow, was worse — she'd braced for a defense, and instead got silence, and the silence told her he already knew she was right.

"I'm trying to help you," he said finally.

"I know. I actually believe that." Her voice softened, but didn't waver. "But you keep helping me the same way you help Danny lose — quietly, three steps ahead, before I even know there's a game being played. I don't want to be someone you protect from a distance. I want to be someone you talk to."

"Okay." Andy crossed the room, stopping close enough that she had to tilt her head back to hold his gaze. "Then I'm telling you now. Ask me anything, about any of it, and I'll answer before I act, from here forward. That's not a rule I'm setting for the revenge. That's a rule I'm setting for this."

"For us."

"For us," he agreed, like the word cost him something to say out loud for the first time.

His phone buzzed against the counter before she could answer. He glanced at it, and whatever calm had settled over his face a moment ago disappeared entirely.

"What is it?" Hannah asked.

Andy turned the screen toward her. A single line from his assistant, timestamped two minutes ago.

*Gianna's PR firm just booked a sit-down interview for her and Danny. Friday. They're going public.*

Hannah read it twice. "Going public with what, exactly?"

"With themselves." Andy's jaw had gone tight, calculating again, the softness from a moment ago folding itself away. "A couple who fell in love while their marriages fell apart. That's the story they'll tell. Sympathetic, if they're careful. Especially if they get ahead of it before we do."

"Ahead of what? We haven't told anyone anything."

"They don't know that." He was already moving toward his desk, toward the folder of evidence that had started all of this. "They think we're close to exposing them. They're not wrong. This is them trying to control the story before we take that choice away from them."

Hannah looked at the message glowing on his phone, then at him. "Friday's four days away."

"Then we have four days," Andy said, "to decide what kind of story we want people to hear instead."

"Not just you deciding." Hannah pulled the folder toward herself before he could stop her. "If there's a story going out about us, I want a say in what it says."

Andy looked up, something in his expression shifting — not surprise exactly, more like recalibration. "What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know yet. But I know I don't want to be the wounded wife in someone else's headline. Not Danny and Gianna's redemption story, and not yours either." She sat down across from him. "If we're doing this, we do it together. Actual together. Not you managing me from three steps ahead."

Something that might have been the beginning of a real smile crossed Andy's face. "You've mentioned that."

"I'll keep mentioning it until it sticks."

"Noted." He slid a second folder across the table — thinner, newer, a name she didn't recognize typed across the tab. "Then let's start here. This is everything my team has on the reporter Gianna's side booked. If we're going to get ahead of Friday, I need to know what you're comfortable being true in public, and what you're not."

Hannah opened the folder, scanning the first page in the low evening light, and felt something steady settle into place beside the fear — not certainty, not yet, but the beginning of a plan that was finally, actually, hers too.

"Everything in here is true," she said. "That's the easy part. The hard part is deciding how much of it we're ready to let people see."

Andy watched her read, quiet for once, like he'd finally learned when not to fill a silence.

"Whatever you decide," he said, "I'm not doing this without you in the room."

Hannah rested her hand flat on the folder between them, and after a moment, Andy's hand settled beside it — not quite touching, close enough that the four days ahead felt less like a countdown and more like something they were finally facing the same direction.