He pointed toward the farmhouse.
"And then I started looking."
My eyes filled despite everything I had told myself.
"For what?"
"For this."
Marcus swallowed.
"You gave up almost ten years of savings to keep my company alive. And you never once made me feel like I owed you for it."
"You did owe me."
"I know."
His answer silenced me.
"I don't mean financially. I mean I knew what that money represented."
He looked toward the barn.
"You didn't just give me dollars, Elena. You gave me the one thing you had been building for yourself since your twenties."
My hand rose automatically toward the small gold pendant hanging at my neck.
It had belonged to my grandmother.
Marcus continued.
"So when the company turned around, I decided I wanted to replace what you'd lost."
"By secretly spending money again?"
A faint, miserable smile crossed his face.
"When you say it like that, this plan sounds much worse."
"It is much worse."
"I realize that now."
Camille and Tessa had followed us at a distance.
Camille stepped forward.
"For what it's worth, I repeatedly told him surprising someone with real estate was insane."
I looked at her.
"He insisted."
Marcus sighed.
"Thank you, Camille."
"You're welcome."
I almost laughed.
Almost.
Then another thought hit me.
"The LLC."
Camille answered this time.
"I created the purchase entity while we negotiated because Marcus was worried the seller might recognize his business name. We also needed privacy while the title work was being completed."
"Why?"
Marcus looked directly at me.
"Because the farm wasn't supposed to belong to me."
I stared at him.
Camille walked back toward her car.
A minute later she returned carrying a dark leather document case.
She opened it on the hood of Marcus's truck.
"Technically, we still have a few filings being recorded," she said. "But this is the executed deed."
She turned it toward me.
My eyes went to the owner's section.
ELENA MARIE BROOKS
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
There was no Marcus Hale beside it.
No company name.
No trust controlled by him.
Nothing.
Just me.
I looked up.
"Why is only my name here?"
Marcus's eyes were wet now.
"Because when you were a kid, adults made decisions and suddenly your home disappeared."
My chest tightened.
He continued quietly.
"You told me once that what hurt wasn't just losing the farm. It was realizing you had no control over whether it stayed or went."
I couldn't speak.
"So this one is yours."
"Marcus—"
"If we ever become idiots and get divorced someday, it's yours. If my business fails tomorrow, it's yours. If I get sued, it's yours. If something happens to me, nobody gets to tell you to leave."
That did it.
I sat down in the grass.
Not gracefully.
Not dramatically.
My legs simply stopped cooperating.
For nearly two weeks, I had prepared myself to discover that my husband had betrayed me.
Instead, I was staring at legal paperwork for the dream I'd buried years ago.
And somehow that didn't immediately erase the anger.
I cried anyway.
Marcus sat beside me.
He didn't touch me until I reached for his hand.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
I laughed through tears.
"Do you have any idea what I've been thinking?"
"I can imagine."
"No, you can't."
I wiped my cheeks.
"I thought you were taking Sophie away from me."
His face fell.
"I thought you had another woman. Another house. Another family."
"Elena—"
"She told me you had a secret lady."
Camille burst out laughing behind us.
Marcus groaned.
"I told Sophie Camille was helping with a secret."
"She's seven!"
"I know that now."
"You told a seven-year-old not to tell the woman she had just started calling Mom that her father spent Saturdays with a mysterious woman at a secret house?"
"When you summarize it like that—"
"It sounds completely insane?"
"Yes."
"Because it was."
Tessa folded her arms.
"I would like the record to show that I have been saying this for several minutes."
Camille nodded.
"I've been saying it for two months."
Even I laughed then.
But the relief faded quickly.
I turned back to Marcus.
"You should have told me the company recovered."
"I know."
"You should have told me before moving six figures around."
"I know."
"You definitely should not have involved Sophie in keeping secrets."
"I know."
"And I shouldn't have followed you instead of confronting you."
Marcus gave me a look.
"Considering how suspicious I made everything look, I'll give you that one."
"No."
I shook my head.
"I mean it."
He went quiet.
"I gave you my savings without making you understand what losing that farm had done to me. You made a huge decision because you thought you understood what would heal it. We both made choices for the other person without actually asking."
Marcus stared down at our joined hands.
"That's probably not a great habit for married people."
