Part 1
Jennifer stopped breathing. Her heavily made-up eyes widened in disbelief, and the paper trembled in her hands as her breath came out uneven and broken.
“This is a joke,” she whispered.
But her voice had lost all its confidence. It sounded thin now. Fragile. Almost childish. I did not blink.
“Accountants don’t make jokes, Jennifer.”
I turned the page slowly, giving every person in that ballroom enough time to feel the weight of what was coming.
“And neither do notaries.”
Then I looked at Lucas. My son. My blood. The man who had stood by and watched his mother be humiliated in front of hundreds of people. He stepped forward and nearly ripped the document from Jennifer’s hands. His eyes darted across the bold highlighted lines. Within seconds, every bit of color drained from his face. The glowing groom became a corpse in a tuxedo.
“Dad…” he stammered. “What does this mean?”
“It means the game is over, Lucas.”
I pointed to the first paragraph.
“The Manhattan loft where the two of you live?”
Then I looked straight at Jennifer.
“The lease is in my name. I terminated it this morning.”
Jennifer opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
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