(Celia's POV)

I found it while looking for Julius's cufflinks.

The manila folder was tucked behind his watch box, half-hidden under a folded pocket square. I almost pushed it aside. Then I saw our names printed on the cover tab.

Proctor v. Proctor. Supreme Court of the State of New York.

I pulled it out and opened it.

Divorce decree. Final judgment. My name, Julius's name, a case number, an official-looking court seal. The effective date stamp read thirty days from today - exactly on Julius's birthday.

My hands started shaking before my brain caught up.

I set the folder on the dresser and called the New York County Clerk's Office. The woman on the line put me on hold twice. When she came back, her voice was flat and professional.

"Ma'am, I'm not finding any divorce filing under those names. I have a marriage registration for a Julius and Celia Proctor, but no petition, no case number matching what you've given me."

"You're sure?"

"I ran it twice. There's nothing here."

I thanked her and hung up.

I stood there for a moment, looking at the document on the dresser. The seal looked real. The formatting looked real. Julius had put real effort into this.

Why would he do that?

I grabbed my coat and my keys.

Julius's office was on the thirty-second floor of the Proctor Group building in Midtown. His assistant Charlie gave me a tight smile when I stepped off the elevator, the kind of smile that meant he knew something and had been told to say nothing. I walked past him and pushed open the office door myself.

Sasha was standing on her toes, both hands pressed flat against Julius's chest, kissing him on the cheek.

She turned when she heard the door. She didn't step back. The emerald necklace at her throat caught the light.

Sasha is my half-sister. Same father, different mothers. She'd always known exactly how to stand in a room.

"Celia." Her smile was warm and completely unbothered. "Julius was just congratulating me. My dissertation got shortlisted for the Hartwell Prize."Then she walked out of the room.

I looked at Julius.

He looked back at me the way he'd been looking at me for months - like I was a scheduling conflict he hadn't gotten around to resolving. No guilt. No embarrassment. Just that familiar cold impatience.

"Julius," I said. "I want a divorce."

He exhaled through his nose. "Don't make this into something it isn't."

Charlie knocked and stepped in with a tablet, already talking about the Townsend merger numbers. Julius turned toward him immediately, fully, like I'd already left the room.

I left the room.

Sasha was waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall with one hand resting on the emerald necklace. She looked like she'd been there a while.

"You should know," she said, "that once the divorce is finalized, he's going to marry me. So whatever scene you're thinking about making - don't."

The way she said divorce stopped me. Not careful, not hesitant. Completely matter-of-fact. Like she'd been briefed.

I only now fully understood: that forged judgment was something Julius specifically made for Sasha to see. He didn't want a real divorce, but he wanted to possess both of us at the same time.

Julius clearly knew how my father treated her and her mother, knew how Sasha bullied me when we were children, yet she still made this choice. I laughed bitterly. Sasha's smile froze for a moment; she probably thought I was mocking her.

"The marriage was always temporary," she said, her voice cooling. "He needed the stock price stable through the Proctor-Townsend IPO. That's thirty days out. After that, he doesn't need the optics of a steady marriage anymore. You were a placeholder, Celia. That's all."

I pressed the elevator button.

"You really have nothing to say?" she asked.

The doors opened. I stepped in.

I sat in my car in the parking garage for two minutes before I made the call. Harrison Reed picked up on the second ring.

"I was wondering when you'd call," he said.

"I'm in," I told him. "The Silicon Valley project. I'll do it."

I heard him exhale. "That's - good. That's really good, Celia. We've been hoping you'd come around."

"What's the timeline?"

"Thirty days to departure. Once you're out there, I'll set up a meeting with the project lead. Alexis Ast."

Thirty days.

The same number on the fake decree. The same number Sasha had just thrown at me in a hallway like a countdown.

Fine. I had my own countdown now.

That evening I drove out to the Proctor estate for the foundation documents - Julius had the originals and I needed signatures before the quarterly filing deadline. Victoria, Julius's mother, was in the sitting room with Sasha when I arrived. She was showing Sasha something on her phone, laughing at whatever it was, and she looked up when I walked in with the specific expression she reserved for me - polite, faintly inconvenienced.

"Celia." She turned back to Sasha. "As I was saying, the Hartwell shortlist is extraordinary. Your father would have been so proud."

I set the folder on the side table. "I just need Julius to sign the quarterly documents."

Victoria waved a hand toward the hallway, already re-engaged with Sasha. "And would you mind asking Margaret to bring more tea from the kitchen? She seems to have forgotten us."

I looked at Julius. He was standing near the fireplace. He reached over and poured Sasha a fresh cup without looking up.

I picked up the folder and walked out the front door.

It was raining. Cold, steady rain that soaked through my coat before I reached the car. I sat in the driveway for a moment with the heater running, watching the water streak down the windshield.

Then I drove home.

The fake divorce decree was still on the dresser where I'd left it. I carried it to the kitchen table and set it down under the light. I looked at it for a long moment - the careful formatting, the fake seal.

I opened my laptop.

It took me less than an hour. I knew the language, I knew the statutes, I'd spent three years working in family law before Julius had quietly suggested I focus on the foundation instead. I drafted the real thing - clean, complete, no ambiguities, no gaps. Asset division, no spousal support requested, no contested property. I printed two copies and set them side by side on the table.

Tomorrow was our wedding anniversary.