Chapter 1 - THE DOCUMENT ON TOP
Julian stared at the document in Darcy’s hand as if he had suddenly forgotten how to breathe.
Eleanor stood beside him, still wearing the cream suit she had worn the night before.
“What is that?” Julian asked.
Darcy didn’t answer him.
She placed the document on the conference table and slid it toward him.
Julian picked it up.
His eyes moved across the first paragraph.
Then stopped.
His face changed.
“What the hell is this?”
I leaned back in my chair.
“The reason I didn’t argue with you last night.”
Eleanor stepped closer.
“Julian?”
He ignored her.
His hands were beginning to shake.
The document was a certified copy of the property agreement for our house.
And beneath my name was a clause Julian had apparently never bothered to read.
The house was mine.
Not jointly owned.
Not marital property.
Mine.
Purchased before our marriage through a holding company funded entirely by my grandmother’s inheritance.
Julian had lived there for six years without ever realizing that the mortgage payments he bragged about making had actually been reimbursements to my company.
But that wasn’t the document that frightened him.
It was the second page.
Darcy tapped it with one finger.
“This is the part your husband should be concerned about.”
Julian looked down.
His lips parted.
“That’s impossible.”
“What is?” Eleanor demanded.
I watched her take the paper from his hand.
She read it.
Her expression hardened.
“What does this mean?”
“It means,” Darcy said calmly, “that Julian personally guaranteed a business loan using assets he did not own.”
Eleanor turned toward her son.
“You told me the company was clean.”
“It was.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn't.”
Two weeks earlier, I had discovered the $40,000 withdrawal from our emergency account.
I had assumed it was connected to the affair.
It wasn't.
At least, not entirely.
The money had been transferred into an account belonging to Julian’s company.
From there, it had been divided between three other accounts.
One belonged to his mother.
One belonged to his business partner.
And the third belonged to a consulting company that, according to Darcy’s investigator, had no employees, no office, and no legitimate clients.
It existed for one purpose.
Moving money.
Darcy opened another folder.
“We traced approximately $317,000 over the last eighteen months.”
Eleanor went pale.
Julian stood abruptly.
“You went through my accounts?”
“They were joint accounts,” I said.
“You had no right!”
I almost laughed.
“No right?”
I looked directly at him.
“You told me to get out of my own house because I refused to finance your mother’s vacation.”
Silence.
Then Darcy said something that made Julian sit back down.
“The $317,000 is only what we found.”
Julian swallowed.
“How much more?”
Darcy looked at me.
“We don't know yet.”
Then she opened the final file.
“But we know where to look.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Julian standing outside a private club with a man I had never seen before.
Behind them was a black SUV.
On the windshield was a small parking permit.
Darcy zoomed in.
“Your husband met this man nine times.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
Darcy's voice dropped.
“That's the problem.”
She turned the photograph over.
Written on the back was a name.
A name that made Eleanor suddenly cover her mouth.
May you like
Because she knew him.
And apparently, she had been hiding that fact from me for years.
