The answer had always been no.
I simply hadn’t wanted to accept it.
Patricia shook her car keys in the air.
“Come on, everyone! Lunch is on me. Today we celebrate!”
And they did.
The whole family streamed down the courthouse steps, laughing and congratulating Grant.
They called him a free man.
Someone told him his best years were still ahead of him.
Vivian said something that made the group roar with laughter.
Then they climbed into two black luxury SUVs and headed toward Buckhead.
Patricia’s favorite steakhouse was there.
The staff knew her by name.
A lunch for twelve would easily cost more than a thousand dollars.
And Patricia would put it on her American Express without blinking.
I watched them drive away.
I did not cry.
That mattered to me.
I stood outside the Fulton County Courthouse and watched my ex-husband’s family leave to celebrate what they believed was my defeat.
And I didn’t shed one tear.
Instead, I climbed into Daniel Reyes’s sedan.
He was waiting at the curb with the engine running and the air conditioning blasting against the July heat.
I closed the passenger door.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“You did well,” he finally said. “That was harder than it looked.”
I placed the folder on my lap.
My hands were surprisingly steady.
“How long before they get home?”
Daniel checked his watch.
He was in his mid-fifties, silver-haired, careful, and the kind of attorney who could make even disaster sound manageable if the paperwork was properly prepared.
My friend Renata had recommended him.
She had survived a brutal divorce three years earlier and come through with both her dignity and retirement account intact.
When I called her at two in the morning the previous October, sobbing about the hotel receipt and Brooke’s perfume, she gave me one piece of advice.
“Do not use anyone connected to Grant. Get your own lawyer. A good one.”
Then she gave me Daniel’s number.
Daniel glanced toward downtown traffic.
“Patricia holding court over lunch? Two hours minimum. Probably three. We have more than enough time.”
I looked through the window at the courthouse disappearing behind us.
“Are you absolutely sure about this?”
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