All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) by Lindsey Forrest Page A

his hand. “I can just imagine Kevin Stone’s reaction to the timing of your transfer of that desk. Well, here’s the good news. On the face of it – my signing that flight log was no more incriminating than your husband signing it. It links her to me, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re not going to testify.”
    He acted as if he had a magic wand to make it all disappear. “Lucy said she couldn’t help me, since she’s your lawyer. So she’s going to talk to a friend of hers and see if he’ll represent me.”
    He nodded. “She told me. It’s fine that you’re getting a lawyer, but I promise you that you won’t need one.”
    Laura was getting tired of those words. “You keep saying that. How can you make this go away?”
    Richard reached into his briefcase, pulled out a blue-backed sheaf of papers, and put it in her hands.
    “I filed for divorce this afternoon,” he said. “Diana was served at the Tavern this evening.”
    If he’d meant to knock the breath out of her, he succeeded. She stared at him in shock. She must have imagined his words; he hadn’t said what she thought she’d heard. He hadn’t stepped off the precipice so abruptly; he hadn’t tossed away eighteen years of marriage – miserable years, but, still, eighteen – for her. He hadn’t decided to cut the love of his life out of his life for her.
    But he had. He’d laid the petition in her hands in the same way that Max liked to bring her his dead bug trophies. Maybe, she thought hysterically, he wanted her to pat him on the head and tell him what a good boy he was.
    He was divorcing Diana.
    “Why?” she whispered.
    He paused for a moment. “It’s time.”
    She nodded, dazed, and looked down at the petition. Richard Patrick Ashmore, Complainant, vs. Diana Renée Abbott Ashmore, Defendant …. Plain words on a paper. Eighteen years of marriage, the end of the fairy tale, right here in her hand. She bit her lip and felt tears bathing her eyes. Stupid to cry, she hadn’t even cried when the FedEx package had arrived in London with Cam’s divorce petition, but no fairy tale had ended there. No Prince Charming had danced with his Sleeping Beauty at City Hall in San Francisco.
    She paged through the petition, unseeing. He said nothing, he justified nothing. He merely waited while she absorbed the reality that in her hands lay the end of one dream and – no, she wouldn’t think it, wouldn’t wonder if it could be the beginning of another. This was a tragedy. Two people who’d been in love beyond all thought were finally admitting that their love had come up short, that they hadn’t well lost the world for each other.
    She handed the petition back to him. Without a word, he put it back in his briefcase.
    He said evenly, “This will take some time – a year or so. I don’t know how long it takes in Texas, but here in Virginia, it takes several months even when the parties agree. I don’t expect that she’ll cooperate at first.”
    Laura pulled together her scattered thoughts. Diana must be devastated right now. Being served papers must have come as a shock. “How – do you know – how is Di taking this?”
    He paused with his cup halfway to his mouth. “Judging from the incoherent message she left on my cell – not well.”
    “Oh, my God.” Laura buried her face in her hands. “Poor Di.”
    This was probably not the reaction he was looking for. “Diana is going to be all right. Please believe that. This is the best thing for us both. It’s time she and I let each other go.”
    “Richard – she thinks you are mated for life. She told me so.”
    He sounded startled. “When did she say that?”
    “Last Friday when – when I was driving her home from the hospital. She asked me—” Laura stopped, and then said slowly, “She asked me if I’d give her an affidavit about Francie, and I said no. She said it didn’t matter anyway, so I guess she was thinking about the subpoena. She said she used to worry