Chapter 7 7

The Maybach smelled of leather and Branson's cologne, the same combination that had filled their bedroom for years. Faith sat by the left window, her shoulder pressed to the cold glass, and watched Manhattan slide past in gray and brown and the occasional desperate green of winter-dead trees.

Branson occupied the opposite corner. They'd left the center seat empty, the wide armrest between them like a border wall. He'd loosened his tie-silk, Hermès, the pattern she'd selected for his birthday three years ago. His collar gaped to show the hollow of his throat.

Neither spoke.

Traffic thickened as they approached the courthousel. Faith watched a cyclist weave between delivery trucks, puffs of breath visible in the cold air. The cyclist wore a backpack with a patch she couldn't read, heading somewhere with purpose, belonging to himself alone.

"I never crossed that line with her."

Branson's voice cut through the engine's hum. Faith didn't turn.

"The Kent situation. It's-" He stopped. Started again. "There's an arrangement. Her career, certain protections. I can't explain the details, but it wasn't-"

"Wasn't what?" Faith finally looked at him. " Wasn't betrayal? Wasn't another way to remind me that I exist only when you choose to notice me?"

Branson's jaw tightened. "You're being irrational. This is exactly why I never-" He caught himself. "There are considerations you don't understand. Business considerations."

"I understand that you spent three years coming home at three in the morning. That you stopped touching me after the second miscarriage. That when I found another woman's jewelry in your desk, you didn't even bother to lie convincingly." Faith turned back to the window. "I understand perfectly, Branson. I just stopped caring."

The car stopped at a light. Branson's reflection ghosted in the glass beside her-handsome still, always handsome, the face that had launched a thousand magazine covers and investor presentations.

"You're making a mistake." His voice had dropped, almost intimate, the tone he'd used in the early years when they'd still shared a bed. "You have no money, no connections, no skills that translate to-"

"To what? Real life?" Faith laughed. "I managed your mother's foundation for eight years. I sat on boards you couldn't be bothered to attend. I learned to read financial statements because you refused to explain where our money came from." She met his eyes in the glass. "I'm not the girl you found in that studio, Branson. You just never bothered to notice."

The light changed. The car moved forward.

Branson leaned across the armrest. His hand closed on her wrist-hard, sudden, the grip of a man accustomed to holding things that tried to escape.

"Who is he?"

"Who?"

"The man you're leaving me for." His fingers tightened. She could feel her pulse against his thumb, rabbit-fast. "There's someone. There has to be. You wouldn't-" He stopped, throat working. "You wouldn't just go. Not after everything I've given you."

Faith looked at his hand. At the signet ring pressing into her skin, the family crest she'd once traced in idle moments, imagining it meant she belonged somewhere.

"Let go."

"Tell me his name."

"There's no one." She pulled against his grip, feeling skin stretch and protest. "There never was. That was your mistake, Branson. You thought I needed someone else to want me before I could leave you. You never understood that wanting myself was enough."

His fingers spasmed. For a moment, she thought he might hold on, might force this confrontation into physical territory where he had every advantage. Then his hand opened. Released.

She pulled her wrist back, cradling it against her chest. No marks, she saw. Not yet. But they'd bloom later, purple and yellow, the last gifts of their marriage.

"You're pathetic." The words came soft, almost wondering. "All this power, all this money, and you're terrified of being alone. Of being unwanted." Faith shook her head. "I pity you, Branson. I really do."

The car slowed. Through the windshield, the courthouse rose in wedding-cake grandeur, columns and steps and the constant flow of people entering to begin or end their most important legal bonds.

"We're here," the driver announced.

Faith gathered her bag. She didn't look at Branson again-couldn't, not without risking something she didn't have words for. She pushed open her door and stepped into winter light, into the next chapter, into whatever came after being Mrs. Jarvis.