Page 28 of The Wife He Accused

Angelica told her. Melody repeated it once, committing it to memory. Angelica watched her for a second. "You don't have to decide anything tonight."

"I know."

"You don't have to call her tomorrow."

"I know."

A beat.

"But you're going to."

Melody met her eyes. "Yes."

They sat there for a moment, the weight of it settling between them. Angelica reached for her hand and squeezed it once. "Okay."

Melody nodded. "Okay."

Outside, the city moved the way it always did: people going out, coming home, lives unfolding in small separate directions. Inside, on a couch in a Brooklyn apartment that smelled like garlic and takeout, Melody Carter sat in her own clothes with her sister beside her and knew she was going to build a life that did not require her to be believed by anyone but herself.

CHAPTER 10

ALEXANDER

The apartment didn't change overnight.

The lights were off when he woke, because he'd turned them off himself sometime after two in the morning. The marble was still cool underfoot. The windows still looked out over the same city. The furniture remained exactly where it had always been.

He made his own coffee. The action was unfamiliar enough that it slowed him down. He opened the wrong cabinet first, then the next, locating the beans, the grinder, the machine he'd never had reason to operate himself. The process was inefficient. Measured wrong the first time. Corrected. He drank it standing at the counter, and it tasted different. He set the mug down and looked, briefly, at the space on the windowsill where the pothos had been, then turned away.

There was work to do. There was no outcome he could guarantee, no metric he could point to and saythis, this is where it improves.There was only the understanding, settled now and immovable, that whatever he did next could not be contingent on her returning. If it was, it would fail.

He left the apartment at eight.

The first move was structural.It had to be.

By nine-thirty he was in his office with legal, finance, and two members of the foundation board on a call. The proposal was already drafted by the time they began. He hadn't slept much, but he'd worked.

"I want to separate the literacy program from the Winters Foundation."

There was a pause on the line. Surprise.

"In what capacity?" one of the board members asked carefully.

"Full separation. Independent endowment. Separate governance. Separate administration."

Another pause.

"That would require a significant reallocation of funds," the finance rep said. "And a restructuring of existing commitments."

"Yes."

"And the Winters name would no longer be attached."

"No."

Silence. He let it sit.

"May I ask the reasoning?" the legal rep asked.