It was from their courthouse wedding. Clarissa in a white dress simple enough to be mistaken for ordinary, Julian smiling like a man who had not yet learned to resent what was pure.
“I kept this,” he said.
Her throat tightened despite herself.
“Why?”
“Because that day was real.”
Clarissa took the photograph carefully.
For one moment, she let herself mourn.
Then she placed it back on the table.
“Yes,” she said. “It was real. But one real day cannot excuse three cruel years.”
Julian’s shoulders collapsed.
“There’s something else,” he whispered.
Clarissa felt the air shift.
“What?”
He looked toward the door, then back at her.
“Chloe didn’t get your number from my phone.”
Clarissa went still.
“She got it from someone in your father’s office.”
A cold silence entered the room.
Julian continued quickly. “I don’t know who. But she had information about you before I told her anything. She knew your old SIM existed. She knew you and Arthur were estranged.”
