“For leaving?”
“For not warning him. For letting him walk into whatever happened today.”
Elise lifted an eyebrow. “Did you know something would happen?”
“I knew Penelope was lying about something. I didn’t know what.” Julianne wrapped her hands around the cup. “She came to the condo six months ago. Marcus wasn’t home. She was crying. She told me she was pregnant and that he loved her. Then she asked if I would fight the divorce.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked if she was safe.”
Elise’s expression shifted.
“She said Marcus was generous when pleased and frightening when embarrassed.” Julianne looked down. “I told her that was not love.”
“And?”
“She called me jealous.”
“Perhaps she needed you to be jealous. It made the rest easier.”
Julianne closed her eyes. “I don’t hate her.”
“No one said you must.”
“I hate what she helped break.”
“That is different.”
The night air carried the sound of a distant tram bell. Julianne sat with the quiet for a while.
Then Elise reached into the pocket of her cardigan and removed a cream envelope.
“This arrived two weeks ago at the Paris office. I waited until you were here.”
Julianne recognized the seal immediately.
Her mother’s family trust.
She frowned. “What is it?”
“Elena’s final instruction.”
Julianne went still. Elena had been her mother, gone twelve years now, but her decisions still moved through Julianne’s life like underground rivers.
“My mother left another instruction?”
“She left several. Most were conditional.” Elise slid the envelope across the table. “This one became active upon your legal divorce from Marcus Henderson.”
Julianne did not touch it.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know. It was addressed only to you.”
Back in the city Marcus had always considered the center of his world, the Henderson family gathered in Evelyn’s formal living room beneath the portrait of his late father.
Nobody celebrated.
Penelope had gone home to her apartment with swollen eyes and Evelyn’s driver under strict instructions not to speak to reporters, though there were no reporters. Marcus stood by the fireplace, staring at the marble mantel as Roxanne paced.
“Do you understand what this looks like?” she demanded. “We announced the pregnancy to half the family.”