Chapter 12: Page Four

"A photograph isn't a document," Lowell said, in the corridor. "I know that, and so do you."

Sebastian had stepped in front of me.

He did it without a word, and I felt him go cold all the way down his back.

"What do you want?" he said.

"I want to see the agreement, Sebastian. The real one. By the first of February."

Lowell straightened his cuff.

"Until then I'll say nothing. A trustee is a patient man."

"And if there's no agreement?"

"Then you won't mind showing me the nothing."

He walked away down the corridor with his hands behind his back.

In the car, Sebastian drove with both hands on the wheel and didn't say a word until we were home.

I stood in the bedroom doorway and watched him hang up his tuxedo jacket.

"He can't prove anything," I said.

"He can prove a check says marriage."

"A memo line isn't a contract."

"No."

"We could say it was a wedding gift."

"A wedding gift of two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars to a lender, on the day of the wedding."

He turned. His glasses caught the lamp.

"He's not stupid, Olivia."

"I know he's not."

"If he finds the pages and the clauses, he has everything."

"He won't find them. I have mine in my bag. You have yours in the study."

"I'm not worried about the pages."

I stared at him.

"Then what are you worried about?"

He took his glasses off, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and sat on the edge of the bed.

"I'm worried he'll read your note," he said.

"Clause nine. 'Declined. I will wear the ring. I will not act.' In your handwriting."

"So?"

"So he'll know it's in writing that you don't love me."

I sat down next to him.

The mattress dipped, and our shoulders touched.

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