I sat there frozen, the closed velvet box between us like a heartbeat I couldn’t control.
For three years, Jonah had been obligation, stability, a quiet presence on the other side of glass and steel.
Now he was a man who could describe the way my hands had shaken as I handed my brother a cheap paper cup eight years ago.
A man who had carried that memory into a cell and built his only request for a future around it.
The money had saved us, but it was no longer the most valuable thing on the table.
I thought our story ended with a signature and a clean divorce.
Instead, I was suddenly staring at the possibility that I had been someone’s choice long before I ever believed I was worth choosing.
The contract was over. The marriage, for the first time, had actually begun.
