Fifteen Days to Divorce novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Forty-One Readings

In the studio's boardroom Portia plays Malachi's own words back to the lawyers and sets her terms for the last fifteen days, and he agrees to everything. At his house the guest room has been emptied and the only bed left is his.

On Monday morning, a dozen people sat around a glass table on the thirty-first floor.

None of them were looking at the window.

Portia wore the only suit she owned.

Frances had pressed it at six a.m. and fixed the left cuff, which Portia had not known was crooked.

Malachi sat at the far end of the table.

He had not looked at her once.

He had a pen in his hand, and he turned it over and over without writing a word.

The studio's lawyer cleared his throat and read aloud.

"The nine weddings violate the good-conduct clause. The studio's position is forfeiture of the full settlement. However."

Margo leaned in with her gold pen and her calm voice.

"However, we're all friends here. Half now, signed today, a quiet exit for Portia and no more headlines."

"The other half stays with the studio," the lawyer added. "That's six hundred thousand dollars."

"I can count," Portia said.

A woman sat down in the empty chair beside her.

It was Reese Lansbury, Malachi's co-star, in a pale coat, holding a paper cup.

"Oat milk, one pump of vanilla," Reese whispered. "I remembered from set. I'm so sorry about all this."

"Thank you," Portia said, and she took the cup.

Reese glanced down the table at Margo before she sat back.

It was a short glance, and Portia was already looking at the lawyer again.

"I have a question," Portia said. "Clause nine."

The lawyer turned a page, looking for it.

"Neither party discloses the nature of the marriage to any third party," Portia said, before he found it.

"I've read this contract forty-one times. I read fine print for a living."

She set her phone face up on the glass and pressed play.

It showed a wedding hall and a hundred raised phones.

Malachi Branigan's voice came out flat and clear. "She's my wife. For fifteen more days."

The recording ended, and nobody at the table moved.

"That's two hundred witnesses," Portia said. "The breach is his, not mine."

"So the full amount is due at once," she added. "One million, two hundred thousand dollars."

"Mr. Branigan's statement was provoked," the lawyer said.

"By what?"

"An email," said Malachi.

It was the first thing he had said.

"Malachi," Margo said, very softly.

He stopped, and he put down the pen.

"The email is a separate matter," Margo said. "Let's stay on the contract."

"Let's," Portia said, and she looked right at her.

Margo smiled back with perfect warmth.

The lawyer said the studio did not wish to litigate.

He said the premiere was in two weeks, and the studio needed the couple seen together every day until then.

"In the same house," he said. "For the cameras."

"Fine," Portia said. "Here are my terms."

She had written them on the back of Frances's pie recipe.

"I walk the carpet at the premiere on his arm, and I sign nothing apologizing for anything."

"I'm paid in full on the day the contract ends, exactly as written."

"Nobody speaks about me to the press unless I've read it first."

"And Margo is off my phone and off my calendar."

"Hon," Margo said, still warm. "I'm only trying to help."

"You've helped for a year. I'd like to be bad at things on my own for two weeks."

Somebody at the end of the table coughed into a sleeve.

"In the house, we're a happy couple in public and strangers in private," Portia said.

"Separate rooms. No touching unless a camera is on."

She looked at Malachi for the first time that morning.

His gray eyes were already on her.

He looked tired, and his chin had a small cut from shaving.

"Yes," he said.

"You haven't heard the rest."

"Yes."

"He agrees to everything," the lawyer said, slowly.

"Yes," said Malachi, one more time, and Margo's pen went still.

The meeting ended with the scrape of chairs across the floor.

Reese squeezed Portia's arm on the way out.

"I think that was brave," she said, and she sounded like she meant it.

By afternoon a photographer was waiting on Malachi's front lawn.

So Portia moved her suitcase back into his house with her chin up and a smile on her face.

The house was white and quiet and too big for two people.

The housekeeper met them in the hall.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Branigan. The guest room is being painted. The painters said it would be dry by Friday."

Portia walked down the corridor and opened the door.

The furniture was stacked under plastic sheets.

The bed was gone.

"I didn't do this," Malachi said behind her.

Portia turned and looked at him.

"Who hired the painters?" she asked.

"I don't know."

He seemed to mean it.

The only bed left in the house was his.

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