Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Came Back
I read the letter three times before the words held still.
He knew. Arthur had known — for years — that someone inside our own family intended to strip me of everything the moment he was in the ground.
That someone was Vivian. His sister.
According to the letter, Vivian had been working on him for more than ten years, quietly, patiently, pushing him to write me out. She told him I'd been unfaithful in the early years. She told him I was hiding something from him. She told him I hadn't earned a dime of what he'd built.
Arthur wrote: "I never believed a word of it. Not once. But I knew that if I left everything to you the normal way, in the open, she would tie the will up in court and drag you through years of misery. So I built something else."
I was sitting in that office with the letter flat against my chest, trying to remember how to breathe, when the door opened.
Vivian walked in.
Her eyes went to my face, then to the envelope in my lap. Something behind her expression flickered — cold, quick — before the smile arrived and covered it.
"Margaret," she said, warm as anything. "Still here? I'd have thought you'd want to be home lying down."
May you like
She didn't know I'd read it.
And that was the moment I understood why she'd come back. She wanted to be sure I hadn't.
