Tyler’s eyes filled unexpectedly with tears. “Debra, wait. Please, let’s actually talk about this.”
“I’m not negotiating,” I said. “I’m not screaming, and I’m certainly not begging. Those days are finished.”
Rachel started to say something else, but I simply held up one hand, and, somewhat to my surprise, she stopped talking.
“You came to my front door this morning intending to take my home from me,” I told her. “Instead, you just lost the man you spent an entire year carefully managing.”
Tyler turned slowly toward her. “Rachel. Tell me honestly that the inheritance had nothing to do with any of this. Tell me the baby is real.”
Rachel didn’t answer that either. She looked down at the floor, then toward the front door, clearly calculating which exit would cost her the least in that particular moment.
That silence, stretching out between the three of them, was the loudest thing I had ever heard inside my own kitchen.
