Chương 4
“What kind of property?”
“Small residential flips.”
Audrey stared at him.
“Eleanor can barely change a light bulb.”
“She supplied money.”
“From where?”
Thomas shook his head.
“That part gets complicated.”
Mara stepped in.
“And it is also exactly the kind of thing we should not speculate about until we verify records.”
Audrey looked at her.
“You know about this?”
“Some of it.”
“How much?”
“Only what your father told me this morning.”
Thomas nodded.
“I called her after Julian called me.”
Audrey folded her arms, then immediately winced.
Mara noticed.
“You need to go to the doctor.”
“I’m going.”
“Now would be better.”
“It can wait ten minutes.”
Mara did not argue, but her expression made clear that ten minutes was what Audrey had purchased.
Thomas unfolded his hands.
“The property venture failed.”
“How badly?”
“Badly enough that your grandmother’s investigator found judgments tied to two of the participants.”
“To Julian?”
“Not directly.”
“So why does this matter?”
“Because Eleanor’s name appeared on one of the companies.”
Audrey stared at him.
“What company?”
Thomas told her.
She knew the name.
Not from Julian.
From work.
Wexler Residential Partners had appeared in a vendor review eighteen months earlier when Audrey’s team examined subcontractor ownership disclosures.
She had not worked that specific review, but the name had stuck because one analyst joked that it sounded like a law firm trying to sell condominiums.
“That company dissolved years ago.”
Thomas’s eyebrows rose.
“You know it?”
“Barely.”
She reached for the second phone.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
Mara spoke immediately.
“Do not access your employer’s systems.”
Audrey looked at her.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
The firmness in Mara’s voice irritated her, which was probably why it helped.
Audrey put the phone down.
“What did Julian say to you this morning?”
Thomas leaned back.
“He said Audrey and I are making a financial decision, and I expect you to respect our marriage.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He also said the townhouse was creating unnecessary complications.”
“What complications?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Audrey looked at the envelope again.
“And then?”
“I told him your property was none of my business.”
Thomas’s mouth tightened.
“He said it would become my business if you started asking questions about the trust.”
Audrey felt something click into place.
Not an answer.
A direction.
“He knew I didn’t know.”
“Yes.”
“And he wanted you to keep me from finding out.”
“Yes.”
“Why would selling the townhouse matter?”
Thomas glanced at Mara.
Mara answered.
“It might not.”
Audrey frowned.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the cautious answer.”
Mara crossed to the table and placed both hands on the back of a chair.
“Julian may believe the sale creates leverage over you.”
“How?”
“Cash becomes easier to pressure someone over than a separately titled house.”
Audrey’s stomach tightened.
Mara continued.
“Or he may want you financially entangled with Eleanor before your trust becomes accessible.”
“Accessible when?”
Thomas said nothing.
Audrey looked at him.
“When?”
“Three weeks.”
She stared.
“My birthday.”
“Yes.”
Audrey’s thirty-fifth birthday was twenty-two days away.
Julian had been talking about Eleanor’s house for nearly two months.
At first it had been casual.
Your commute would only be ten minutes longer.
Then practical.
We could save so much.
Then persistent.
Mom’s alone in that big place.
Then angry.
Why are you so attached to a stupid building?
Audrey had assumed the pressure was about control.
Perhaps it still was.
But now there was a date attached to it.
Mara picked up the envelope and offered it to her.
“This is a copy of the trust summary and the most recent accounting.”
Audrey did not take it.
“I don’t want it.”
Thomas’s face tightened.
“Audrey.”
“I said I don’t want it.”
“It belongs to you.”
“That didn’t bother you for ten years.”
He went still.
Mara looked away.
Audrey regretted the sentence immediately.
Not because it was untrue.
Because part of her had wanted to hurt him.
She recognized the impulse.
It frightened her.
Thomas nodded once.
“That was deserved.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make it easy for me by agreeing.”
For the first time, irritation flashed across his face.
“You want me to argue?”
“I want you to tell me why.”
“I did.”
“No, you told me what Grandma did.”
Audrey stepped closer.
“Why did you keep it from me?”
Thomas’s eyes shifted toward the window.
“Because after she died, you were twenty-four and in love with a man I didn’t trust.”
“I wasn’t married to Julian at twenty-four.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t even dating him.”
“No.”
Audrey stopped.
Mara turned slowly toward Thomas.
He looked down.
Audrey’s voice changed.
“Then who?”
Thomas’s silence answered before he did.
“Daniel.”
Audrey had not heard the name aloud in years.
Daniel Price had been the boyfriend before Julian.
The one Thomas despised.
The one Audrey had defended until the night Daniel emptied their shared savings account and disappeared to Arizona with a coworker.
Audrey swallowed.
“You thought I’d give him the money.”
“I thought you might.”
“And after him?”
Thomas rubbed his forehead.
“You were furious with me.”
“I had a right to be.”
“Yes.”
“So you kept hiding it.”
“Yes.”
“And then Julian came along.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t trust him either.”
“No.”
Audrey stared at her father.
“You never trusted anyone I chose.”
Thomas’s expression hardened.
“That is not fair.”
“Maybe not.”
“You stopped speaking to me because I asked questions about Julian.”
“You had him investigated.”
“Your grandmother did.”
“You continued it.”
Thomas looked at her.
“Yes.”
There it was.
The old fracture, fresh again.
Audrey turned away.
Five years earlier, she had found a report in Thomas’s study with Julian’s name on the cover.
She had accused her father of trying to control her life.
Thomas had said she was being reckless.
Audrey had left before he could explain further.
Neither of them had apologized.
Then she married Julian.
May you like
Thomas attended the ceremony and left before the cake.
Audrey had told herself that proved she was right about him.
