The Unwanted Wife Walks Away Free

ff easier than

r branches claw at the gray Manhattan sky. The Central Park view that had once made her gasp n

ingers. The Jarvis family stone. Fourteen years of being po

vanity with a soun

. Ja

Faith didn't answer. She watched the ring spin on the cold stone, cat

d inside, her sensible flats silen

Then Faith's bare left

hand to her chest like women did in movies Faith had

the bed. The law firm's wax seal caught the li

prenup alone took eighteen months to negotiate. The trust st

e th

Her hands were shaking. Faith could see sweat

lly said. Not a question anymo

ung in perfect color coordination-silks that cost more than most apartments, fu

Her fingers found cotton, ca

before she'd learned that Jarvis women didn't shop at department sto

t cinched at her waist-too loose now, she'd lost weight these p

ed, Holly's e

Swallowed. "You look like

oo

muffled and proper: "The car is waiting, Mr

r add the pearl earrings that Branson's mother had insisted com

over Faith's coat, her bare throat, her unpainted face. Something flickered there-surp

lver mink, Mrs. Jarvis? The

N

en, the private car that served only the penthouse. She walked ins

on the older woma

ndrail as the numbers dropped-40, 35, 20-each floor carrying her furt

plucked her from that funeral, had looked at her orphan's g

slowed. Faith

de her. The manila envelopes crinkl

. Ja

, light enough to feel the bone benea

opened ont

marble floors that had been imported from some Italian quarry Faith had once been e

rvis, al

er in New York, sharp enough to taste met

Gus stood by the rear door, his cap in his hands, his weathered face arranged in

pened the door. "Wh

French and woody that lingered in the upholstery like a warning. She reached over

ing the envelopes on the seat betw

and charity boards and the funeral of a man she'd barely known. He'd neve

is?" he as

lass of Fifth Avenue, toward the southern ti

adquarters," she

ce requested that destination. The Jarvis empire was Branson's territ

se, Mrs.

re clothes she'd once been photographed in, past restaurants where she'd picked at food

nila envelope and traced its seam, back and forth, waiting