Marcus Webb

Naomi turned back around.

“Say that again.”

Julian was still standing, one hand braced on the desk, like he hadn’t decided yet whether he regretted saying it at all.

“Your father knew what happened to mine,” he said. “He’s known since before you and I ever met.”

“Knew what, exactly?”

“That’s not a today conversation.”

“You don’t get to hand me half a sentence and then tell me the rest is on a schedule,” Naomi said. “You just told me my father died knowing something. You don’t get to say that and then stop.”

Something crossed his face, not guilt exactly, closer to a man recalculating how much damage he’d just done without meaning to do it yet. He came around the desk again, that same instinct from a minute ago, closing distance before he seemed to register he was doing it.

“When the case is finished,” Julian said, close enough now that she had to tip her head back slightly to hold his eyes. “You’ll have it all then. Every piece of it, I promise you that.”

“Your promises aren’t worth what they used to be.”

He didn’t argue with that. He just held her gaze, steady, and for one unwelcome second she remembered exactly how it used to feel to be looked at like that and mean something by it. His throat moved once, like there was a different sentence sitting behind the one he’d actually said. Neither of them stepped back first. It was the ringing silence that finally broke it; Naomi looked away before he did, and hated that she’d lost that particular contest.

Naomi walked back to the chair across from his desk instead of leaving. If he wanted to control when she learned the rest, fine. She could at least make him sit through the part that was still hers to control.

“Then let’s finish the part you’re willing to finish,” she said, sitting. “The papers.”

Julian sat back down slowly, like the conversation had cost him something he hadn’t budgeted for.

“You can keep the condo in the city,” he said, sliding a folder across the desk. “You can keep your position, if you want it, though I imagine you won’t.”

“I won’t.”

“The joint accounts stay joint until probate on your father’s estate clears.” He kept his voice level, almost courteous, though it had lost the ease it carried five minutes ago. “My mother wanted nothing set aside for you beyond what the prenup requires. I arranged a separate check anyway. For the six years. She doesn’t need to know.”

His hand rested on the check a moment longer than the transaction required, like some part of him wasn’t quite ready to let go of it. Then he slid it across the desk, and his fingers grazed hers on the handoff, the same half second of stillness from an hour ago repeating itself before either of them could stop it.

“Don’t contest it,” he said, voice rougher than the sentence needed. “I don’t have the bandwidth for that right now. My lawyers file tomorrow. Once the waiting period runs, we’re both free.”

She said nothing. She took the check with a hand that wasn’t quite steady and looked at the number and thought, so this is the price of six years. Four million dollars.

Calloway Holdings was worth considerably more than that. Ashford Logistics, before the audit, had been worth more than that too. And she, who had defended him at every dinner where his name walked in first, was worth four million dollars in his ledger, and apparently a secret about her own father she wasn’t allowed to have yet.

“Sign it,” Julian said. “Take the rest of the week.”

Naomi signed every page.

When she was done, she stood, gathered her copy, and looked at him one more time.

“You said I’d have all of it eventually,” she said. “I’m going to hold you to exactly that. Whatever it costs you.”

Something moved behind his eyes, not fear, she didn’t think he was capable of that anymore, but something close enough that his jaw tightened before he could smooth it back into stillness. She filed it away. She was getting good at reading what he tried not to show her, better than she’d ever been able to read what he actually did.

She tore the check cleanly in half instead of answering him, and set both pieces on the desk beside her wedding ring.

“Keep it,” she said. “I don’t need your family’s guilt money. I’ll get the truth another way.”

Priya was already waiting at her own office when Naomi arrived, and the moment the door shut, Priya said everything Naomi couldn’t yet. “What happened? You look like you saw a ghost in there.”

“He told me my father knew something,” Naomi said. “About his father. Before we ever met.”

Priya went still. “Knew what?”

“He wouldn’t say. He said I’d have it all when the case is finished.” Naomi sat down hard across from her. “What case, Priya? There’s no case. My father’s dead.”

Priya was quiet a moment, and when she spoke again her voice had dropped the way it did when she’d stopped being Naomi’s friend for a second and started being a lawyer instead.

“There doesn’t have to be a case already filed for there to be a case,” Priya said. “There has to be evidence somebody’s sitting on. And people don’t sit on evidence for eleven years unless using it is worth more than burying it.”

Naomi looked up. “You think he’s building something.”

“I think a man doesn’t slip and tell his soon to be ex wife her dead father was hiding something,” Priya said slowly, “unless some part of him wanted her to go looking for it before he has to be the one who tells her the rest.”

Naomi’s phone buzzed on the table between them. Unknown number.

She looked at it a long moment before she picked it up.