Chapter 6 - The Honeymoon Suite
When I returned to the hotel, Julian and Margaret were waiting.
The suitcase was still open on the bed. The wedding dress hung near the window, soft and useless in the morning light. The bouquet had begun to wilt on the chair. The marriage-license envelope sat on the glass table like an object that knew more than everyone else in the room.
Margaret rose first.
“Where have you been?”
“With Marissa.”
Julian’s face changed.
Not guilt.
Fear.
Margaret recovered faster. “That woman is not well.”
“She seems very organized for someone you keep calling unstable.”
Julian took one step toward me.
“Evelyn, I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can. You’ve had practice.”
He flinched.
I placed Marissa’s folder beside the blurred license envelope.
“Did you submit a false divorce decree?”
Margaret snapped, “Careful.”
I looked at her. “That sounded like advice for someone guilty.”
Julian’s voice dropped. “It wasn’t supposed to hurt you.”
That sentence did something clean inside me.
A final thread broke.
“You married me while legally tied to another woman, used my name to cover a professional scandal, let your mother insult me through my own wedding, and planned to fly me to the beach before the county could finish reviewing the license.”
“I panicked.”
“No. You prepared.”
Margaret walked toward the table.
“You are being melodramatic.”
I picked up my phone.
“Laura Medina said the office would accept a written statement from me confirming I had no knowledge of the false document. My attorney is drafting it now.”
Julian stared.
“You called an attorney?”
“I’m practical,” I said. “Almost painfully so.”
May you like
Margaret’s face flushed.
For once, her own insult had found its way home.
