“There is?”
I nodded. “I’m afraid I wasn’t as trusting as everyone believed. I had stopped asking you about your phone weeks before any of you noticed something was wrong.”
“But there’s one thing even Walter doesn’t know.”
Graham was trying to understand where I was going, and I could almost see the calculation behind his eyes. He still thought this was about the trust. About money.
It wasn’t.
“When Walter asked me to meet Margaret,” I continued, “he believed he was sending me to someone who could help me prepare for a divorce.”
I glanced toward Margaret.
“What he didn’t know was that Margaret and I had already spent nearly three months together by then,” I finished.
Walter blinked. “You never told me.”
“I wasn’t ready,” I said gently. “Not until tonight.”
Margaret rose from the table four and stepped beside me. “Mr. Collins came to my office a few weeks ago. Eleanor had already retained me long before that.”
He still thought this was about the trust. About money.
A ripple of surprise spread through the room.
Margaret turned to face Graham. “And you came to my office two months ago, asking how quickly a spouse could be removed from joint assets. You didn’t know I was already representing your wife. So I declined to represent you.”
Graham stared at her. “You promised everything we discussed was confidential.”
“It was,” Margaret replied. “Until you stood up tonight and said most of it out loud yourself.”
She reached into her own leather folder and removed a file.
“This,” she said, handing it to me, “is yours.”
I looked around the room. Nearly two hundred faces watched me.
Friends. Neighbors. Business associates. People Graham had invited because he wanted witnesses.
Then I smiled at Graham. “You introduced us to Lida tonight. I’d like to introduce everyone to my anniversary gift.”
