Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 327

Chapter 327

I did not linger for follow-up questions. I made my way to my room in Helix. The one I’d abandoned for a while, and took a quick shower. Afterward, I dried my hair with the kind of rushed efficiency that would have made my stylist weep, applied makeup with the muscle memory of years of practice, and stepped into the emerald dress like a soldier donning armor. A spritz of perfume, a final check in the mirror, and I was out the door, my heels clicking against the floor with a rhythm that felt almost like hope.

The courthouse was a grand limestone edifice in the city center, all columns and arches and the particular brand of architectural intimidation designed to remind citizens that justice was a serious business conducted by serious people in serious buildings. My lawyer was waiting for me in the lobby, a sharp-eyed woman Dominic had hired.

“Mrs. Fisher.” She extended her hand, her grip firm and dry. “I have excellent news. The divorce has been finalized. The marriage has been dissolved on grounds of infidelity and fraudulent misrepresentation.”

“Dissolved.” I tested the word on my tongue and found it surprisingly satisfying.

“Precisely. And there is more.” Her smile was the smile of a woman who had just delivered a financial coup and was about to savor the revelation. “You have been awarded fifty percent of Mr. Julian Fisher’s assets, including liquid funds, property holdings, and shares in his company. The total value, after our forensic accounting team finished their assessment, comes to approximately four hundred and fifty million dollars.”

I stared at her. “I told Dominic I did not want a penny from Julian.”

“And Mr. Ford told me, in no uncertain terms, that you were to receive exactly what you were entitled to under the law, whether you wanted it or not.” She pressed a thick envelope into my hands. “The divorce certificate is inside, along with a complete breakdown of the settlement. Congratulations. You are a free woman and a significantly wealthier one than you were earlier today.”

I opened the envelope and stared at the certificate. Celeste Fisher, formerly Celeste Adams, no longer bound by law or obligation to the man who had cheated on her with her best friend. The paper was thick and official, embossed with the court’s seal, and I felt something loosen in my chest that had been clamped tight for longer

than I cared to remember.

I kissed the certificate, right there in the courthouse lobby, with the lawyer looking on with the amused tolerance of a woman who had seen clients do far stranger things in the aftermath of a successful judgment.

“No more Mrs. Fisher,” I murmured, and the words tasted like champagne. “No more introducing myself with his name.”

I snapped a photograph of the certificate on my phone, careful to frame it so the embossed seal caught the light, and sent it to a popular blogger I knew. The message I attached was brief: Celeste Adams has been officially divorced from Julian Fisher. Feel free to run with it.

Let it go viral. Let the whole city know that I was no longer attached to that man in any capacity. From this moment forward, Julian Fisher was nothing but a regrettable chapter in my personal history, the kind you skimmed past on your way to the better parts of the story.

I was still smiling when I pushed through the courthouse doors and stepped into the early afternoon sun, still holding the envelope like a winning lottery ticket, still tasting the sweetness of freedom on my tongue. And that was when I saw him.

Julian was rushing toward me across the courthouse plaza, his movements jerky and desperate, his face pale and drawn, and around his neck was a medical cast, the kind people wore after cervical spine injuries, the white foam collar framing his jaw like a grotesque fashion accessory. I looked around wildly for somewhere to hide, but the

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plaza was an open expanse of concrete and the courthouse doors had already swung shut behind me, and before I could formulate an escape route, his eyes locked onto mine and his pace quickened from a rush to a sprint.

“Celeste! Celeste, please, I need to talk to you!”

He caught my hands before I could pull away, his fingers closing around my wrists with the desperate grip of a drowning man, and then, incredibly, absurdly, in full view of anyone walking past the courthouse, he began to cry. Not the delicate, single-tear variety of crying that actors deployed in romantic dramas. Real crying, messy and ugly, his face crumpling, his shoulders shaking, snot running from his nose in a way that suggested he had been doing this for a while and had lost all concern for appearances.

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