Chapter 9 - SERENA WASN’T AS COMFORTABLE AS SHE LOOKED ON THE LAWN
Serena contacted me through her attorney.
She wanted my necklace returned officially documented.
It already had been.
Then she requested a private conversation.
I refused.
A week later I changed my mind.
Not for closure.
Information.
We met in Dana’s office.
Serena wore no jewelry.
She looked younger without the polished corporate clothes.
“I’m sorry about the necklace.”
I waited.
“Julian told me you stopped wearing it after your mother died.”
“That makes stealing it better?”
“No.”
“Did you know it was in a safe?”
Her eyes moved.
“Yes.”
“Did you know the house was mine?”
Another hesitation.
“I knew it came from your family.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
“Then why did you text that if I was out, the appraiser could go through?”
Serena swallowed.
“Julian said occupancy was the immediate issue.”
“For a loan against a house he didn’t own.”
“He said title could be restructured between spouses.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
She looked down.
“No.”
That changed my understanding.
“How long did you know?”
“A month.”
“So you knew before Maya was born.”
“Yes.”
“Why keep going?”
Serena began crying.
Not loudly.
“The hotel was everything I’d worked toward.”
There was the emotional ledger.
She had spent ten years in corporate communications while wanting to own something herself.
Vale House was her escape.
Julian offered money.
Contacts.
Business experience.
Then love.
Or whatever they called it.
“He told me your marriage was already over.”
“That line actually exists outside movies?”
She almost smiled.
Then stopped.
“He said you were staying together through the birth.”
“Did I seem aware of that arrangement?”
“No.”
“What did you think would happen after?”
“You’d separate.”
“And the house?”
She looked ashamed.
“He said you had other family property.”
I laughed.
Because I owned something else, Ashgrove became available?
That was the same mentality Julian had shown on the lawn.
People with alternatives are easier to dispossess because everyone assumes losing one thing cannot hurt them.
Then Serena told me something I had not known.
Julian had promised her the hotel investment would close Monday.
The same Monday as the Ashgrove appraisal.
He told her:
“By next week everything changes.”
That was why she was in my house Saturday.
Not only sex.
Planning.
They had expected me to leave after the affair confrontation.
Serena had packed some clothes.
She thought Julian would move with her to Manhattan after financing closed.
“So why were you standing in my house wearing my necklace?”
Serena wiped her face.
“I wanted to know what it felt like.”
“What?”
“To be the woman who wasn’t temporary.”
May you like
That answer was ugly enough to be honest.
I never met with her again.
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