I leaned back into him without thinking. For a moment, I just let myself feel the quiet domesticity of it all.
It felt . . . good. The kind of good I could see myself getting used to, even if I wasn’t sure yet how to trust it, even if part of me still whispered be careful.
I rested my hands lightly over his, just long enough to let myself have it.
Because while I might not fully trust it yet, I could see how I might want to.
Breakfast blurred into something soft and almost normal. Dad kept talking, and Chandler asked questions like he actually cared about the answers. Geoffrey made sure everyone had exactly what they needed before they even realized they needed it.
And Raph?—
Raph stayed close. A hand at my back when I shifted. A quiet presence at my side. Something steady I kept leaning into without meaning to.
It would have been easy to stay there. To pretend everything from last night had settled neatly into place. But it hadn’t. He knew it, and I knew it.
So when he said quietly, “Come with me,” I didn’t hesitate.
I followed him to his office. The same room where everything had unraveled. The same room where he had told me he had no intention of divorcing me. My stomach tightened slightly as the door closed behind us.
He didn’t waste time. He moved to his desk, opened a file, and turned it toward me. “Sit,” he said gently.
I did.
The papers were formal. Legal in a way that made my head immediately want to check out.
“I do not expect you to understand this immediately,” he said.
“That’s reassuring,” I muttered.
His mouth twitched faintly, but his focus stayed sharp.
“I have transferred ownership,” he continued, tapping the top page, “of all acquisitions made since our marriage.”
I blinked. “What?”
“The hotel in Columbus,” he said. “And Merry Band of Maids.”
I stared at him.
“You . . . what?”
“I signed them over to you.”
My brain stalled. “That doesn’t— that doesn’t make sense.”
“It does,” he replied calmly.
“No, it doesn’t,” I said, flipping through the papers like that would somehow make them less real. “You bought my company and then just . . . handed it to me?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you were right.”
The words hit me mid-breath. I looked up at him.
“You said the footing was uneven,” he continued. “You said the power dynamic was unacceptable.”
