“Julian asked me to marry him,” I said. “He wanted someone there who wasn’t looking at his property like a ledger sheet.”
Caleb sneered, his gaze dropping to the yellow acrylic of my collar.
“Look at you,” he said. “You are a nobody, Nora, a fraud in a cheap sweater.”
The couple at the table behind us stopped clinking their forks. The entire back corner of the diner seemed to grow quiet, the only sound coming from the hum of the refrigerator unit behind the counter.
“You think a five-minute ceremony in a hospital chapel makes you an heir,” Caleb continued, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper that carried clearly across the narrow aisle. “You think you can hold up a development project that has three different pension funds backing it.”
“Julian wanted the tailor shop kept just as it was,” I said, though my throat felt dry and tight. “He wanted Lily’s memory protected.”
At the mention of his sister’s name, Caleb’s jaw tightened so hard a small muscle twitched near his ear. He checked his gold wristwatch, the metal links clicking against the edge of the formica table.
