“No.”
I looked through the window.
“But it explains a lot.”
He stayed quiet for a moment.
Then he told me something I never forgot.
“When my father died, they started discussing the estate before he was even buried.”
His grip tightened around my hand.
“I watched money turn grief into negotiation.”
He looked ahead.
“I promised myself I would never let money decide what mattered to me.”
I believed him.
Terrence was easy to believe.
We married a year later.
Not at the Washington estate.
We had a small civil ceremony with eight guests and lunch afterward at the restaurant where we had gone on our second date.
Terrence wore a navy suit he already owned.
I wore a cream dress from a sample sale.
A photographer friend took pictures as a wedding gift.
