“She kept moving near an electric clipper.”
“Because she was trying to get away from you.”
“I was helping her!”
“Stop saying that.”
Daniel’s voice cracked.
The coordinator knocked again.
“Everything okay?”
Daniel opened the door two inches.
“We need thirty minutes.”
The woman looked startled.
“Daniel, the ceremony—”
“Thirty minutes.”
He closed it.
Simone stared.
“Thirty?”
“Maybe forever.”
Her face collapsed.
“You’re cancelling our wedding because of paperwork?”
Daniel looked at the locks of Lily’s hair on the floor.
“No.”
He pointed.
“I’m reconsidering our wedding because my daughter begged you to stop touching her and you decided your pictures mattered more.”
Then he lifted the phone.
“And now I’m learning you were trying to get access to money her dead mother left her.”
Simone flinched.
“That is not fair.”
“What isn’t?”
“Making it sound like I wanted to steal from her.”
“What did you want?”
“A home.”
“With her money.”
“For all of us.”
Daniel laughed once.
Sharp.
Disbelieving.
“She’s seven.”
“And someday that money will belong to her.”
“It belongs to her now.”
“She has millions sitting in an account while we’re living in a house you complain is too small.”
“I do not complain about my house.”
“You complain about the kitchen.”
“That does not mean my child buys us a mansion.”
Simone wiped her face.
“You don’t understand how families with wealth work.”
Daniel stared.
“My daughter’s trust is not family wealth.”
“That is exactly the problem.”
The words came too quickly.
Simone realized it immediately.
But Daniel heard them.
Andre heard them.
Silence expanded.
Daniel asked:
“What problem?”
Simone looked away.
“Nothing.”
“You said Lily’s protected money is a problem.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Andre spoke.
“Daniel.”
“Yes?”
“I think you should stop this conversation until I arrive.”
“Where are you?”
“Ten minutes away.”
Daniel frowned.
“You were coming here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because of the authorization.”
Andre paused.
“There is another document you need to see.”
Simone’s head snapped toward the phone.
“What document?”
Andre ignored her.