Chapter 9 - The Divorce Papers in the Drawer
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Adrian followed me into his wood-paneled study, with Lorenzo and Victoria stepping quietly inside behind him.
Resting squarely in the center of Adrian’s leather desk blotter was a thirty-page legal document bound in heavy blue cardstock, alongside a gold Montblanc fountain pen.
Adrian stopped three feet from the desk. He didn't need to pick up the folder to read the bold black typography across the cover page:
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS — PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.
"What is this?" Adrian whispered, staring at the document as if it were a live explosive.
"I had my attorney draft that petition two months ago, the night you left my birthday dinner before the entrée arrived because Sophia claimed she heard a prowler outside her third-floor window," I said evenly, standing beside the tall window overlooking Lake Michigan. "At the time, I put it in my nightstand drawer without signing it. I told myself that two years of marriage and the promise I made to your grandmother deserved one last test."
I looked back at him over my shoulder.
"Ethan’s wedding was that test, Adrian. When you called me at four o'clock yesterday and told me to stay home so you could walk in with her, you gave me your answer. And at four-thirty, right after I took off my wedding ring, I signed the last page."
"No," Adrian said immediately.
He lunged forward, snatched the blue-bound divorce petition off the desk, and tore it straight down the middle with both hands before hurling the shredded halves into the empty limestone fireplace.
"I’m not signing a damn thing, Claire!" Adrian roared, his chest heaving as the ruthless control he wore like armor shattered completely. "We are not getting divorced over a photograph and a bracelet! You are my wife! I spent two years building our life here, and I am not letting you walk out of this penthouse because I was too stupid to see that Sophia was manipulating me!"
From the doorway, Lorenzo took a menacing step forward toward his son, his fists clenched.
"You lower your voice when you speak to her in my presence!" Lorenzo barked.
"Stay out of my marriage, Dad!" Adrian shot back, his dark eyes wild and bloodshot as he looked back at me, his voice dropping suddenly from fury to a rough, desperate plea. "Claire, please. Look at me. I have never touched Sophia since the day you and I stood at the altar. Not once. I felt guilty because ten years ago, when my older brother Marco died in that boating accident, Sophia’s family lost everything in the harbor investigation, and I thought I owed it to her to protect her when she came back broken from Milan. That’s all it ever was—misplaced guilt! I love you, Claire!"
I watched the shredded pages of the divorce petition curl against the cold iron grate of the fireplace.
"Tearing up the copy on your desk doesn't change anything, Adrian," I said quietly. "That was just your courtesy copy. My attorney electronically filed the signed original with the Cook County clerk’s system at 8:01 this morning, along with the timestamped photographs from the Walker wedding."
Before Adrian could take another step toward me, the front doorbell chimed a second time.
May you like
Lorenzo glanced at his watch and nodded toward the foyer.
"That isn't a process server, Adrian," Lorenzo said grimly. "That’s Arthur Henderson, the senior partner handling my mother’s estate trust. Your mother and I asked him to meet us here at eight-thirty—because it appears you never bothered to read the fine print of Grandmother Eleanor’s codicil regarding that bracelet."
