CHAPTER 7: Before the Fall, There Was Ink

Dorian had not always looked like a man who could stand above his wife on a balcony and ask strangers to believe him.
In the beginning, he looked grateful. He brought Nora coffee before meetings. He remembered her mother's favorite roses. He told her that Caldwell Resorts would survive only because her family believed in him.
Nora believed in him too.
That was the part no document could punish.
By the third year, gratitude became entitlement. Dorian began saying our capital when he meant her trust, our properties when he meant her grandfather's land, our future when he meant a company he could not finance without her name.
Then Elise appeared, polished and ambitious, carrying spreadsheets that found ways to make Nora unnecessary.
The papers upstairs were the final step.
Sign tonight, Dorian had said. Don't make this uglier.
Nora had refused.
After that, the balcony doors opened.