authentic?”
Adrian’s face drained further.
Across the aisle, Samuel and Owen sat close together. Samuel’s eyes were fixed on his father. Owen was looking at me, searching my face for an explanation I had never wanted him to need inside a courtroom.
I gave him the smallest nod I could manage.
Russell stood. “Your Honor, we would request a brief recess to review these documents.”
“You may have ten minutes,” Judge Calder said. “But I suggest you use them carefully.”
The gavel came down.
The moment we stepped into the corridor, Adrian turned on me with disbelief rather than anger.
“What have you done?”
I looked at the man I had once loved, the man who used to fall asleep at our tiny kitchen table with fuel receipts scattered around his elbows and hope written plainly across his face.
“I told the truth,” I said.
Paige appeared beside him, her voice lowered. “Adrian, what is she talking about?”
He did not answer her.
That silence told her more than any explanation could have.
Years earlier, Hollis Transit had not been a fleet of buses with regional contracts and glossy brochures. It had been one rented van, a spreadsheet, and a man with ambition bigger than his savings account. Adrian had the charm to win clients, but no collateral, no credit, and no patience for paperwork.
I had all three.
My grandmother had left me a modest inheritance and a narrow brick house in Alexandria. I sold the house, cashed the bonds she had hidden in a metal recipe tin, and used the money to launch what Adrian called our dream.
At the time, it had been our dream.
I handled the filings because Adrian hated forms. I signed the first lease because the landlord trusted my steady job at the hospital administration office. I negotiated the first insurance policy during my lunch break. I tracked invoices at night while Adrian drove airport routes until dawn.
When the twins were born, I stepped back from public involvement because they needed me more than the company did. Or so I believed.
