Chapter 9
“Celeste, be quiet!” Andrew snapped, sweat glistening along his temples.
“No, Andrew, look at the paper!” she cried, tears finally spilling over her cheeks, landing on the dark mahogany. “Look at what you did! We weren't successful! We were living on charity! We were living on your little sister’s charity while I stood in that hallway on Friday night and told her she wasn't good enough to drink our wine!”
She turned toward me, her face pale, her hands shaking uncontrollably.
“Meredith... oh God, Meredith. I didn't know. I swear to you on my children’s lives, I had no idea. If I had known—if I had known for one second that you were paying for that apartment, I never would have set foot in it. I never would have let him sign that lease. I never would have spoken to you the way I did.”
I looked at Celeste. I saw the genuine, suffocating humiliation in her eyes. For three years, I had viewed her as an accomplice in Andrew’s grand illusion—a willing partner in his superficial cruelty. But seeing her now, stripped of her silver gown and curated poise, I realized she had been just another stage prop in Andrew’s desperate, fragile theatre.
“I know you didn't know, Celeste,” I said quietly. “Andrew made sure of that. Because the moment you knew the truth, he wouldn't be the conquering hero anymore. He’d just be an ordinary man who spent more than he made.”
Andrew slumped back in his chair. The fury seemed to drain out of him all at once, leaving behind only the hollow, gray exhaustion of a man whose bluff had been called on every single front.
“What do you want, Mer?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. “You want me to beg? You want me to get down on my knees in front of your lawyer? Tell me what you want.”
“I don't want you to beg, Andrew. I never wanted that. If I wanted you to beg, I wouldn't have spent seven hundred thousand dollars keeping you from doing it three years ago.”
I reached into my briefcase, pulled out a second folder, and laid it on the table.
“This is the transition protocol,” I said. “Listen carefully, because these terms are final, non-negotiable, and will not be revisited.”
Andrew didn't speak. He just stared at the folder like it was an explosive.
“First: the penthouse. As Gregory informed you, the master lease terminates on March thirty-first. The trust will pay the rent through that date. You have ninety days to pack your belongings and find housing that your firm’s actual revenue can support. If you try to stay past March thirty-first, the building management will initiate formal eviction proceedings against you individually. The trust will not intervene.”