Chloe said nothing.
“I’m not trying to overstep,” he continued, lowering his voice further. “There’s just a lot of paperwork coming at her this month with the wedding, and I can see it wearing her down.”
He continued, “If you could gently encourage her to take her time with all of it, not rush, not sign anything when she’s this exhausted, it would put my mind at ease. She’ll listen to you. She trusts you in a way she doesn’t quite trust me yet.”
I felt the blood leave my face.
“I’m only thinking of her,” he added softly. “Someone has to look out for her when she won’t look out for herself.”
Chloe’s eyes lifted and found mine over his shoulder. They were wide, almost wet, full of something between horror and apology.
He had been testing doors, gently, the way he tested every door, and now he had found one that would open. It all snapped into place like a key turning in a lock I never knew was on my own front door.
He was not here to marry me. He was here to take me apart, piece by piece, and he had decided my “daughter” was the easiest crowbar.
I stepped out from behind the divider, and Richard looked up.
The smile he gave me was the last lie he would ever tell me. I did not make a scene. I sat back down, folded my hands on the table, and looked at Richard with the steadiest face I could manage.
“Richard, would you repeat for me what you just told my daughter?”
He blinked. The faux concern slid right off his face, and something colder slid into place.
“Maggie, sweetheart, you misunderstood. I was telling her how worried I’ve been about you.”
“Worried about my finances, you mean.”
“That’s not fair.”
I turned to Chloe. She nodded once, slowly, her jaw tight.
“Here’s what’s fair, Richard. Chloe isn’t my daughter. She’s my niece. I asked her to sit here today because my gut has been screaming at me for weeks, and I needed to know if I was crazy or if I was right.”
“Yesterday I pulled copies of every document you’d been asking about — account summaries, the deed to the house, the draft prenup your lawyer sent — and drove them to Diane’s.”
“…She’s been my closest friend since law school, and I wanted a dated paper trail in someone else’s hands, in case you ever tried to claim I’d agreed to something I hadn’t.”
His face changed. The charm drained from him so completely that I almost didn’t recognize the man across from me.
“You set me up.”
“I tested you. There’s a difference.”
“You’re paranoid, Margaret.” He leaned on the name like a blade. No one had called me Margaret since my mother died, and he knew it. “You’re going to die alone in that big empty house, do you know that? No man is going to put up with this.
