David’s mouth curved into the expression I had once found charming and now recognized as the face of a man who only knows one way to feel good about himself. “Commendable. You’re finally understanding your position, Catherine.”
I reached back into my bag and produced two navy blue passports. I placed them on the table between us and watched David’s expression travel from contempt through confusion toward something it had not yet named.
“The visas were finalized last week,” I said. “I’m taking Aiden and Chloe to London. Permanently.”
Megan found her voice before David found his. “Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what that costs? Where would you possibly get that kind of money?”
I looked at her. I looked at him. I felt something close to pity, the specific pity you feel for people who have been so certain of their own story that they have entirely failed to read yours, who have been so busy performing confidence that they stopped gathering information about the world they thought they controlled.
“Money is no longer your concern,” I said.
A black Mercedes pulled to the curb outside the glass doors. A driver in a pressed suit stepped out, opened the rear door, and stood waiting with his hands folded. I picked up Chloe. Aiden gripped my hand with a force that compressed something in my chest. I looked at David one final time, not with anger or grief, but with the clear-eyed recognition of someone who has closed a book and is placing it on the shelf.
