Chapter 4: The Recording
My attorney's name was Serena Okafor.
She had handled my property purchase six years ago, drafted the prenup, and reviewed the deed transfer without a single unnecessary word.
When I arrived at her office the following morning and placed my phone on her desk, she pressed play without asking what it was.
Diane's voice filled the small room.
*"Let her go.
We'll find a way to challenge the prenup.
I know someone."*
Serena stopped the recording.
She looked at me.
"How long have you been recording?"
"Since the dinner where he told me to watch my mouth.
I record every significant conversation in my own home.
The house was in my name.
Legally clean."
"And this one — last night?"
"My home until midnight, when the keys transferred to the buyer.
Still legally clean."
Serena leaned back.
"She said she knows someone.
That could mean a solicitor willing to argue duress, undue influence, lack of independent advice at signing."
"Julian had independent advice.
The prenup file includes a letter from his own solicitor confirming he reviewed it."
"I know.
I drafted the requirement myself." She tapped the phone.
"This recording tells me she's going to try anyway.
It also tells me she's done this before — that phrasing, *I know someone*, that's not a first instinct.
That's a habit."
I had thought the same thing at the door.
I hadn't said it out loud until now.
"Is there anything else I should know about?" Serena asked.
"The forty thousand."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Tell me."
I told her.
The request.
The transfer.
The account closure.
She made notes without interrupting.
When I finished, she set her pen down.
"That transfer was from your personal account?"
"Yes."
"To a joint account that Julian controlled day-to-day?"
"Yes."
"And you have the transfer records."
"I have everything."
Serena looked at me the way she had looked at me six years ago across this same desk, when I had come in alone to buy a house at thirty-one and she had asked, once, whether anyone else would be on the deed.
I had said no then, too.
"Claire," she said.
"I want to be honest with you.
The prenup is solid.
The house sale is clean.
The forty thousand is a civil matter and recoverable, but it will take time.
What I'm more concerned about is this." She slid a notepad across the desk.
On it she had written a name.
"Do you know who this is?"
I looked at the name.
"No."
"He's a solicitor who was struck off in 2019 for filing fraudulent asset declarations in three separate divorce cases.
He was reinstated on appeal eighteen months later under conditions.
He is also Diane's brother-in-law."
The room was very quiet.
"She wasn't making an empty threat," I said.
"No.
And if she moves quickly — files a challenge before you've formally initiated separation — she can create enough procedural noise to delay your clean exit by months.
Possibly longer."
"What do I do?"
"You file first.
Today.
I draft the separation notice this afternoon, we file before close of business, and we attach the prenup, the deed history, and a formal record of the forty-thousand-pound transfer as exhibit evidence." She picked up her pen.
"I also want a full written account of every instance where you were excluded from decisions about your own home.
The nursery conversion.
The kitchen.
The medical appointments.
Dates, if you have them."
"I have them.
I kept notes."
Serena looked up.
"Of course you did," she said, and for the first time that morning there was something almost warm in her voice.
My phone buzzed on the desk between us.
Julian's name on the screen.
I looked at it.
Let it ring out.
Then it buzzed again.
Not Julian this time.
A number I didn't recognize.
A London area code.
I showed it to Serena.
Her expression didn't change, but she reached across and turned the phone face-down.
May you like
"Don't answer that," she said.
"Not until we've filed."
