The lock clicked before my attorney had even finished speaking.
“Don’t let Nathan know you found this yet,” he had warned me.
Then the front door opened.
I closed the folder so quickly the edge caught my finger.
Emily grabbed the cream boutique card from the table and slipped it beneath a magazine.
The emerald dress was harder to hide.
It lay across the armchair in a bright green spill, impossible to miss.
Nathan stepped into the apartment carrying his laptop bag.
His eyes landed on the dress.
Then Emily.
Then me.
Something flickered across his face.
It vanished almost immediately, replaced by irritation disguised as surprise.
“Emily,” he said.
“Didn’t know you were coming over.”
“Obviously,” she replied.
Her voice was too sharp.
I saw Nathan hear it.
He set down his bag slowly.
“Everything okay?”
I forced myself to look annoyed rather than devastated.
“Your sister tried on the dress and got stuck in the zipper.
We nearly had to cut her out of it.”
Nathan looked at Emily.
She crossed her arms.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then he gave a short laugh.
“Well, that would’ve been an expensive accident.”
Expensive.
That was what worried him.
Not why Emily looked pale.
Not why my paperwork had suddenly disappeared from the center of the dining table.
Not why the woman he had supposedly bought the dress for had let someone else wear it.
Just the price.
I heard my attorney’s voice in my head again: Don’t let him know.
So I shrugged.
“No damage done.”
Nathan’s shoulders loosened almost imperceptibly.
Then he glanced toward the closed folder.
“Did you get through the forms?”
There it was.
Not How was your day?
Not Why is Emily upset?
The forms.
“Most of them,” I said.
His eyes sharpened.
“Most?”
“I got tired.
I’ll finish tomorrow.”
He stepped toward the table.
“They’re pretty straightforward.
I showed you where to sign.”
Emily made a tiny sound beside me.
I reached for my coffee before she could say anything.
“Then another day won’t matter.”
Nathan stared at me long enough for my skin to prickle.
