I move through the kitchen, opening cabinets, reorganizing what’s already organized. The spices were alphabetical. Now I sort them by color, then change my mind and sort by frequency of use—the ones I reach for most are pushed to the front. I count them as I go. Forty-one. That’s a prime number. I count them again to be sure.
Forty-one.
When the kitchen runs out of things to rearrange, I drift.
His office door is open. Partially. The way he sometimes leaves it.
I stand in the doorway for a full minute before I go in.
His desk is exactly as it always is—neat, everything at right angles, the surface clear except for a stack of newspapers and a leather portfolio. The newspapers I’ve seen before. The portfolio is new.
The tab on the side readsSullivan Development—Correspondence.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I can’t resist. I have to do it. I open it.
The documents inside are organized chronologically. Months of correspondence. Projected revenue charts. A partnership structure that spans four pages of legal language that I have to read through twice. I sit in his chair and work through it, page by page.
Twenty million dollars. That’s the projection over five years. Twenty million, built on the O’Rourke name and the Sullivan family’s real estate holdings and a handshake between families that went back a generation.
Then, a letter from Sullivan’s lawyer, dated three days after my wedding.
“In light of recent developments, the Sullivan family wishes to formally withdraw from the proposed partnership outlined in the letter of intent dated…”
Recent developments.
Iam the recent development.
I read the letter twice. Then I close the portfolio and set it where I found it, at the same angle. I remain in Cillian’s chair. Sitting very still.
Twenty million dollars. That must be the “cost to the business” Ronan was talking about. Wow. That’s quite a big cost.
I think about Aoife’s comment at the charity luncheon,“The Sullivan-O’Rourke alliance would have been so beneficial.”It carried with it all the weight she intended it to carry.
I think about Declan’s voice through the door, when I was bringing Cillian his coffee and stopped because I heard my own name.“This is because you married the Murphy girl.”
I set both palms flat on the desk.
Cillian sits here every morning. Reviews financials. Plans. Controls everything he can control, which is most things—except the fact that he married me and it cost him twenty million dollars and his family’s respect and his mother’s goodwill and whatever else I don’t have the documents to prove.
After a long time, I get up and leave his office exactly as I found it.
In the kitchen, I pull up recipes on my phone.
If I can’t bring money or connections, I’ll be useful. I’ll make dinner. Something real, not takeout, not the simple meals I’ve been making. Something that takes time andproves I have a purpose here beyond being a charity case in an expensive dress.
I find a recipe for beef bourguignon. It takes three hours to prepare.
I order groceries from the delivery app like Cillian showed me, feeling the weight of guilt with every item I add to the basket—the good wine for the braise, the fresh herbs, the quality of beef that costs more than I used to earn in an entire diner shift. I stare at the screen, calculating whether I could make it work with something cheaper.
I can’t. The recipe is specific.
I buy what the recipe requires and wait an hour and ten minutes for the groceries to be delivered.
The cooking takes the rest of the afternoon. I lose myself in it—the rhythm of chopping, the smell of wine reducing, the satisfaction of something coming together the way it’s supposed to. I hum under my breath and let the work absorb the part of my brain that keeps returning to that portfolio.
By the time I hear his key in the door, the apartment smells extraordinary, and I’ve set the table the way I observed at both the O’Roarke estate and at the country club.
I arrange myself on the couch. Casual. As though I hadn’t rehearsed this.
