Chapter 14 - Richard Finally Signs the Divorce
The divorce took almost two years.
Not because Claire reconsidered.
Because financial records were complicated.
Richard eventually stopped fighting the inevitable.
He signed the final agreement in Rebecca’s conference room.
His wedding ring was already gone.
Claire remembered hers hitting the yacht deck.
CLINK.
One tiny sound ending twenty years.
Richard looked at her.
“I wish I had told you seven years ago.”
“So do I.”
“Would we still be married?”
Claire considered the question.
“I don’t know.”
That answer hurt him more than no.
If he had told her then, perhaps they could have faced Thomas’s fraud
together.
Perhaps not.
The affair had not been inevitable.
Neither had the lies.
Richard had made choices.
Claire had made hers.
Before leaving, he placed something on the table.
Her wedding ring.
He had found it on the yacht after she left.
“I thought you might want it.”
Claire picked it up.
Not to wear.
Not to throw again.
Just to decide later.
May you like
That was the difference now.
The decision belonged to her.
