“He withdrew everything,” Cloe said. “No conditions. Just gone.”
Mac read Ruth’s message over her shoulder on the pavement and she felt him go still beside her. Not with surprise. With the specific stillness of a man who had been waiting for a thing to finish and had just felt it finish.
“Four words,” he said quietly. “That’s all he had.”
“It’s more than I expected,” she said. And she meant it. She had not expected Marshall to apologise. She had not expected the withdrawal. She had expected the slow grinding legal process that men like Marshall used to make everything cost more than it should, and instead she was standing on a Tuesday pavement with the sun on her face and Ruth’s text on her screen and the whole fight simply over.
She put her phone in her bag.
Mac took her hand again.
