Chapter 15: Buy Her Out Quietly

Ione's POV

Rosamund's email came to Posey's kitchen at 6:12, while the coffee maker was still dripping.

It had two attachments.

The first was a short message, written two years ago, from the man I had married to a lawyer, one week after the courthouse.

The second was a clean copy of the petition for dissolution I had refused on Sunday, with a covering letter from Rosamund's attorney.

The letter said the divorce would be "concluded upon filing."

It said a courier would collect my signature at nine.

I read the first one standing at the counter.

Then I sat down on the chipped stool and read it again.

"If it goes bad, we buy her out quietly."

I had been a line in a budget.

I had been something to be settled.

I texted Lachlan: "I read it. Where are you?"

Posey came out of the bedroom in her robe, saw my face, and went straight to the cabinet for the good mugs without a word.

He arrived at 7:40.

He still had yesterday's shirt on, and a printout in his hand that was folded in quarters.

Posey let him in and went to stand by the stove with her arms crossed.

"I was going to tell you," Lachlan said.

"I know."

"I wrote it in a panic. It was a week after the wedding. My mother had been talking about the Gadsdens, and I thought."

"I don't need what you thought," I said. "Tell me if it's true."

"It's true. I wrote it."

"And you never took it back."

"No," he said.

"For two years."

"I never wrote anything after it," Lachlan said. "I told myself it was a bad day. That's all. I never sent another word on the subject."

"But you never said, to me, that you didn't mean it."

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