Chapter 3
My blood went cold.
He wasn’t simply threatening to take my inheritance.
He was suggesting that he could use my grief and pregnancy to convince people I was incapable of controlling my own life.
Suddenly, several strange moments from the previous month began fitting together.
The financial adviser Caleb had insisted I meet.
The documents he had repeatedly placed in front of me after dinner.
The medical consultation he had arranged without asking me.
The way he had started telling people that I was forgetful, fragile, and overwhelmed.
I had thought he was worried about me.
Now I understood that he had been building a story.
A story in which I was helpless and he was the responsible husband who needed to make decisions for me.
Three years of marriage flashed through my mind.
The canceled anniversaries.
The unexplained trips.
The apologies delivered with diamonds.
The nights I had spent wondering why a man who claimed to love me could make me feel so alone.
I remembered his proposal in my father’s rose garden.
He had knelt before me beneath an arch of climbing white roses and promised that my family fortune meant nothing to him.
“I would choose you if you had nothing,” he had said.
I had cried when he said those words.
Looking at him now, I wondered how many times he had practiced them.
Vanessa leaned against his arm.
“Caleb, perhaps we should sit down.”
“In a minute.”
He looked at me again.
“Don’t embarrass yourself today, Eleanor.”
Something inside me wanted to scream.
I wanted to slap him, drag Vanessa from the chapel, and tell every person in that room what kind of monster I had married.
But then I remembered my father’s final warning.
Two weeks before his death, I had visited him in his study.
He had been unusually quiet that afternoon, sitting behind his massive oak desk with a cup of tea he had barely touched.
“Eleanor,” he had asked, “if you had nothing tomorrow, do you believe Caleb would still choose you?”
I had laughed nervously.
“Dad, where is this coming from?”
He hadn’t smiled.
“Just answer me.”
“Of course he would.”
My father studied me for a long moment.
Then he opened a drawer and handed me a small brass key tied with a faded blue ribbon.
“Keep this somewhere safe.”
“What does it open?”
“Something you may need when I’m no longer here.”