“She will not mind the details.”

“It’s a joke, Claire,” Julian said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“That’s what I mean,” he said.

“If it ever came to anything,” he went on, “my father’s firm handles these things quietly.

No courthouse, no registry, nothing that reaches a file clerk.”

Arthur’s fork hit the glass again, harder.

Julian drove home with one hand and held mine with the other, his thumb moving back and forth over my knuckles.