Chapter 3 The Divorce That Wasn’t
Aurora didn’t sleep. She sat at the small kitchen table in the guesthouse, divorce papers spread before her as the sky outside bruised from black to purple. The guesthouse was cold and sparse, a servant’s quarters that had been her assigned corner of the estate-a physical reminder she had never been more than a temporary fixture.
With a hand that trembled only slightly, she signed her name: Aurora Stone. The ink was black and final. She slid the settlement check out and stared at the figure. Five million dollars. A hollow laugh escaped her. Three years of enduring their contempt worked out to roughly four thousand five hundred dollars a day. A bargain, really, for a “fat, scarred shield.” The self-mockery was a clinical accounting that reduced her heartbreak to a line item, something she could file away. She shoved the check back into the envelope and dropped it in a drawer. She didn’t want his dirty money.
