Tuesday Tales Picture prompt

This is  September's Picture Prompt week. Thank you for coming by and I hope you'll visit all the other participants in this week's Tuesday Tales.
“You’re joking! Tell me you’re joking.” Max stared at the woman standing inches in front of him and wondered how it had come to this without him noticing.“I’m serious.  This is not a joke.” Doreen’s glance took in the opulent office, the panoramic view beyond the glass walls before fixing her husband with a steely glare. “If you spent less time wedded to your job than your marriage it may not have passed you by.  After all you’re the last to notice.”
His gaze dropped to his wife’s midriff, to the obvious swell of her belly. “We said no kids…”

 

You said no kids,” Doreen interrupted. “When I walked you promised we could have kids.”

 

“But so soon…”

 

“Five years is too soon?”

 

Had they been married so long?  It hit him how little time he’d spent with the woman he’d wanted to himself. Where had the years gone, and who was this hard faced stranger?

 

Automatically he took the papers she held out. “What’s this?”

 

“Divorce papers.”

 

Two ice-laden words, that pierced his heart. No joke, Doreen was serious. “On what grounds?”

 

“Desertion.” Raising her hand she indicated their surroundings.

 

Disbelief leant volume to his voice. “It’s given you everything you wanted. The house, money, cars, designer clothes.”

 

“But not your heart, you never understood that’s all I wanted.” Doreen hesitated at the door.  “Goodbye, Max.”

 

* * *

 

Releasing the past had been harder than expected.

 

“Well?” Allan’s love embraced her when she joined him outside the office buildings.

 

Doreen placed her hand in his. “It’s done.”

 

“To new beginnings,” she said, raising her glass thirty minutes later.

 

"New beginnings.” Allan echoed and reached across the table to brush a kiss on her lips before touching his champagne flute with hers. “New beginnings.”