Chapter 4 - SHE SURVIVED—THEN ASKED HIM FOR A DIVORCE
Claire woke almost two days later.
Nathan was asleep in a chair beside her.
His hand covered hers.
The dried gardenia lay on the blanket between them.
Claire stared at him until his eyes opened.
His face broke with relief.
“You’re awake.”
She pulled her hand away.
Nathan froze.
“Water,” she whispered.
He helped her drink.
Afterward, Claire closed her eyes.
Then she said, “When I can walk out of here, I want a divorce.”
Nathan did not argue.
He wanted to.
Instead he looked at the dried flower.
“All right.”
Claire opened her eyes.
“You agree?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
Nathan nodded once.
“Then I’ll sign anything you ask me to sign.”
She expected relief.
Instead something hurt.
Nathan leaned back.
“But until you can walk out of here, I’m staying.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
That was the first meaningful thing he had given her in their marriage.
Something she had not purchased with sacrifice.
Something he was not obligated to provide.
A choice.
He stayed.
A week later, Claire left the hospital for the Mercer lake house on Lake Norman because Dr. Hale wanted her recovering somewhere without stairs.
Nathan stayed too.
He kept his distance.
Every morning there was weak tea with honey beside Claire’s chair.
Books appeared on her nightstand.
The old jazz records her father loved played quietly in the living room.
Claire assumed Emily or Samuel had told him.
She did not ask.
One night she found Nathan sitting alone with her mother’s poetry book.
It had fallen open to the pale outline where the gardenia had been pressed.
Nathan held the flower.
“It belongs here.”
Claire sat across from him.
“You’ve been carrying it?”
“Since the hospital.”
“Why?”
He looked down.
“Because I finally understood what it meant.”
“What did it mean?”
“That something from our wedding mattered to you.”
Claire stared at the fire.
“You assumed nothing did.”
“I assumed everything about you.”
“That was easier than asking.”
“Yes.”
Nathan placed the gardenia carefully into the book.
Then, without looking at her, he told her about his mother.
The operation.
The waiting room.
His father’s empty promise.
The flowers dying in his hands.
When he finished, Claire was crying silently.
“I swore I would never do that to anyone,” he said.
His voice was rough now.
“And somehow I did it to you in the same hospital.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know because I never looked.”
Claire said nothing.
“That’s worse.”
“No.”
Nathan finally met her eyes.
“No?”
“The worst thing would be knowing now and deciding you still don’t care.”
He stared at her.
Claire looked down.
“The hotel photographs were lies.”
“I know.”
She looked up sharply.
“The dates match your cardiology appointments.”
Nathan had compared the appointment card from her purse to the hotel receipts.
Every date matched.
“And the man in the café?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Emily solved that two days later.
She was examining the photograph at the lake house when she suddenly pointed at the chair beside Claire.
“That’s my scarf.”
Claire frowned.
“What?”
“The green scarf. On the chair.”
Emily remembered the lunch immediately.
She had been sitting opposite Claire that afternoon.
Someone had digitally removed Emily and inserted a man.
Claire examined the hotel invoices next.
Those were fake too.
The tax rate was outdated.
One floor listed on the receipts had been closed for renovations.
Nathan’s expression hardened.
“Martin gave me these.”
Claire slowly closed the folder.
Then she opened her laptop.
“There’s something else you need to see.”
She showed him Northline Industrial.
Eighteen months of suspicious payments.
A mailbox rented under the name of Martin Sloan’s sister.
Approximately $2 million missing.
Possibly more.
Nathan stood behind her chair without speaking.
Claire braced herself for dismissal.
It never came.
“You tried to tell me.”
“Six months ago.”
“And I told you it wasn’t your concern.”
“Yes.”
Nathan came around the desk.
Then, to Claire’s surprise, he knelt beside her chair.
“I was wrong.”
She stared at him.
“From now on, if you tell me something, I listen until you’re finished.”
“Nathan—”
“No. I need to say it correctly.”
He swallowed.
“You were trying to protect my company while I was accusing you of betraying me.”
Claire’s eyes burned.
Nathan stood.
“And Martin tried to destroy your marriage because you found his theft.”
“Our marriage.”
Nathan looked at her.
Claire corrected herself quietly.
“He tried to destroy our marriage.”
Something changed between them.
Not forgiveness.
May you like
Not yet.
But perhaps the first door toward it.
