Fifteen Days to Divorce novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: Nobody Asked
At midnight Malachi put three sheets of paper on the kitchen island and said, "Read these."
Frances had gone home an hour ago with half a pie and a long look.
Portia pulled the first sheet toward her.
It was a letter in blue ink, in a plastic sleeve.
She read it through to the end, to the neat blue signature with her name under it.
"I never wrote this," she said.
"I know."
"I've never even seen it."
"Margo gave it to me a year ago. She said you slid it across her desk."
Portia looked up.
"She told me you picked me out of a photo from the set," she said slowly. "She said you needed a wife for the studio, and you wanted somebody quiet who'd be gone in a year."
Malachi did not move.
"She said you were too busy to meet me first, so she'd handle the paperwork," Portia said. "Then she held out your page, already signed."
"I signed on the same day, at her office," he said. "She showed me your signature first."
"I signed after you."
"She told me you'd signed before me."
They looked at each other.
She laid it out in her mind, the way she'd lay out a pattern on a cutting table.
He had thought she asked for the money.
She had thought he chose her.
A year of tiptoeing, and not one of those steps had been taken for the reason the other believed.
"So nobody asked for this marriage," Portia said.
"Margo did."
"For a year I thought I was the one you'd settled for."
"For a year I tried to be easy to live with," said Malachi, "so you'd want to go home sooner."
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