Chapter 3
And somehow, he had put my name on it.
PART 2
The next morning, I met Chloe at a café in downtown Denver.
She arrived ten minutes late wearing a cream dress and carrying a designer handbag that probably cost more than our first mortgage payment.
Her eyes went immediately to my bruised cheek.
She said nothing.
I pushed a county property record across the table.
“How long have you and Jason owned the Miami condo together?”
Her expression changed.
Barely.
But enough.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I added the closing statement.
“Last May. Jason wired the down payment. Your name was added to the deed two days later.”
She leaned back.
“So this is why you wanted to meet?”
“No.”
I looked directly at her.
“Are you pregnant with my husband’s child?”
Silence.
Then she lifted her chin.
“Yes.”
Oddly, the answer didn’t destroy me.
Maybe because Jason had already destroyed something more important the night before.
My instinct to protect him.
“He was going to tell you,” Chloe said.
“When?”
“After he got things settled.”
“What things?”
“Your marriage.”
I almost laughed.
Then she said, “He told me you two haven’t been happy in years. That you care more about numbers than him. He said you’ve been trying for a baby because you thought it would save the marriage.”
My fingers tightened around my coffee.
“What else?”
“He said you’d never leave.”
There it was.
Not love.
Certainty.
Jason had been certain I would stay.
Chloe touched my wrist.
“I don’t want a war. If you divorce him, keep the house. Keep whatever you want. I only want Jason.”
I removed her fingers one at a time.
“You think I came here to compete for him?”
Her confidence flickered.
I stood and placed my attorney’s business card on the table.
“From now on, anything about money, property, or my marriage goes through counsel.”
“You’re really divorcing him?”
“Yes.”
“Because of me?”
“No. Because of him.”
As I stepped outside, Megan sent me a voice message.
Her tone was different now.
“I found duplicate vendor entries in Reed Supply’s old financial records. There are transfers to an offshore company. I can’t tell whether it’s fraud or terrible bookkeeping yet, but the exposure could be serious.”
I stopped walking.
“How much?”
“Possibly more than a million.”
My stomach dropped.
Then she added, “The offshore entity appears to be registered using your legal name.”