At 5:20, Gregory returned.
I closed my eyes.
“Jacqueline?”
I did not answer.
He waited.
Then I heard his bag open.
Metal touched wood.
The thermos.
He came close enough that I smelled his cologne.
Then he laughed.
“What an irony.”
He whispered.
“You spent your whole life building that firm, and in the end, I’m going
to get everything.”
I pressed my fingers into the mattress.
“If I divorced you, Vanguard would still be yours. That wouldn’t work
for me.”
He paused.
“But as your widower, things change.”
My heart hammered.
Gregory kept talking because he believed I could not hear him.
“Paige already has plans for your office.”
Paige Miller.
A designer I had hired a year earlier.
“She knows how to appreciate what I do for a woman.”
Gregory chuckled.
“When this is over, she’ll be creative director, and I’ll take care of
everything else.”
