"How does it have nothing to do with him? Renata, you're the one being unreasonable here." Mrs. Fleming swept in from outside the door. "Everything in this house, down to the last blade of grass, was earned by Dale's hard work."
"And somehow when it comes to you, none of it's connected?"
"All these years you've been eating his food, living off his money. He's not even asking you to settle that tab in the divorce."
"One little necklace, and you insult him? Saying he's pushing his luck? The only one pushing her luck here is you."
"Take off the necklace and give it to Noreen."
I ignored Mrs. Fleming entirely. My eyes stayed locked on Dale. "Dale Fleming. I'm asking you one more time. Does this necklace have anything to do with you?"
"Renata, I was right there when my brother bought you that necklace."
Zoey Fleming. Dale's older sister, and once upon a time, my closest friend. She'd arrived too.
She went on, her tone casual and certain: "I even asked Dale to buy me one just like it, but it turned out to be a one-of-a-kind piece. Don't tell me you've forgotten?"
Mrs. Fleming shot me a sideways glance. "Ungrateful wretch. As if she'd remember anything."
I remembered everything. They were the ones who had forgotten.
Back then, it was Zoey who told me her family was struggling, that her mother lay awake every night worrying about finding Dale a wife.
She said she knew I wasn't the shallow, materialistic type. She asked me to give her brother a chance.
On our wedding day, Mrs. Fleming had wept with joy, saying that finding a daughter-in-law as sensible as me was a blessing from their ancestors.
When exactly had all of that changed?
In the beginning, Dale had nothing. When we married, I'd asked for only a token bride-price of six thousand six hundred dollars.
No house. No car.
I didn't choose a partner based on those things. I cared about character and ability.
As for money, I could handle that myself.
My family placed certain financial restrictions on us children before we had kids of our own, but even with those restrictions, the resources I could access were more than enough to send Dale's career into the stratosphere.
It seemed none of them had ever stopped to wonder why a man with no connections, no background, no family name had managed to sail through business without a single setback.