Chương 2
Grant chuckled.
"Good, because my mother has already threatened to hunt you down if you make her return those shoes."
I leaned against the kitchen counter and watched Marcus write something beneath the last line on his legal pad.
"She hates the shoes."
"She hates everything after she buys it."
"That sounds expensive."
"It is."
Grant laughed again, and the ease of it made my skin crawl.
He sounded exactly as he had the week before when we argued over whether the twins could have sparklers at the reception.
Nothing in his voice acknowledged the conversation I had overheard.
Nothing suggested shame.
"I missed you," he said.
"We had dinner together yesterday."
"Still missed you."
Across from me, Marcus looked down at the legal pad rather than at my face.
Grant continued, "You sound tired."
"I am."
"Wedding nerves?"
"Probably."
"You know you don't have anything to worry about, right?"
My throat tightened.
"No?"
"I'm serious, Mara."
His voice softened.
"Saturday isn't going to change the good parts."
I closed my eyes.
That sounded like the man I had intended to marry.
The man who had driven forty minutes through freezing rain because Maisie left her dance bag at school.
The man who had once spent an entire Saturday repairing the warped cabinet door beneath my kitchen sink even though I had told him three times that I could hire someone.
I hated that those memories did not disappear simply because a new truth had arrived.
"I know," I said.
There was a silence on the line.
Not suspicion exactly.
Attention.
Grant was very good at hearing what people did not say.
"You sure you're okay?"
"Just tired."
"I can come over."
"No."
The word came too quickly.
Marcus lifted his eyes.
I softened my voice.
"The kids are finally settling down, and if you come over, they'll be awake another hour."
"Caleb still doing that thing where he pretends he doesn't like me and then follows me around?"
My fingers tightened around the phone.
"He's twelve."
"That wasn't an answer."
"No, it wasn't."
Grant laughed.
"See you tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Love you."
I paused one beat too long.
Marcus noticed.
Grant might have too.
"Love you too," I said.
When the call ended, I put my phone facedown on the counter.
Marcus exhaled through his nose.
"That looked unpleasant."
"I lied to him."
"Yes."
"I've spent four years trying to teach the kids not to lie."
"Mara."
"I know."
"You are not required to announce to a man that you suspect him of trying to exploit you financially."
"I still lied."
Marcus pushed one of the coffees toward me.
It had gone lukewarm.
"Then feel bad about it later."
I peeled the cardboard sleeve off the cup and rolled it between my palms.
"That sounds like terrible moral advice."
"It's extremely expensive legal advice."
I almost smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
"What do we do first?"
Marcus opened his laptop.
"We identify what is actually at risk."
For the next hour, he made me list everything I owned and everything I controlled.
The house was mine outright except for a small home-equity line I had used three years earlier to renovate the studio.
My architecture practice was an LLC with me as the sole member.
My grandparents' investment account had remained separate property under my name.
The twins' trust was not mine at all.
Caleb had a modest education account that I funded automatically each month.
Grant had no signature authority over any of them.
"Good," Marcus said.
"It doesn't feel good."
"It is good."
"He has a document designed to change that."
"A document you haven't signed."
Marcus tapped the property agreement.
"That's not nothing."
I looked toward the dark kitchen window.
My reflection hovered over the glass.
"Could he have done something already?"
"Without your signature?"
"Yes."
"Possibly small things if he had access to passwords, devices, statements, identifying information."
My stomach dropped.
"He knows the alarm code."
"That's not the same thing."
"He knows where I keep tax files."
"That matters more."
I stood too fast.
The stool scraped loudly across the floor.
Marcus caught my wrist before I could move away.
"Don't start tearing through the house."
"Why not?"
"Because if Caleb hears you opening a fire safe at eleven o'clock at night, he's going to know something is wrong."
I stopped.
He released my wrist.
"You need to protect the kids from panic as much as you need to protect the assets from Grant."
The sentence irritated me because it was correct.
I sat down again.
Marcus asked whether Grant knew my passwords.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I use a password manager."
"Master password?"
"No."
"Phone passcode?"
I hesitated.
Marcus looked up.
"He knows it."
"Change it tonight."
"He'll notice."
"Then let him notice."
"He might ask why."
"Tell him the twins learned it."
"That's technically true."
"Good."
June had discovered my phone code the previous summer while attempting to buy a game involving cartoon horses.
I changed the code.
Then we changed the password to my primary email account.
Marcus had me enable additional verification on my banking and brokerage accounts, remove saved devices I did not recognize, and request fraud alerts with the major credit bureaus.
Nothing dramatic happened.
No sirens sounded.
No hidden account appeared.
The most frightening part was how ordinary the work felt.
Numbers.
Menus.
Security prompts.
A forgotten recovery email.
At one point, my bank texted a code and I entered it incorrectly twice because my hands were shaking.
Marcus took the phone away from me.
"Drink your coffee."
"It's cold."
"It has caffeine whether it's emotionally satisfying or not."
I drank it.
At nearly midnight, we opened the fire safe in my office.
The tax records were there.
Property documents were there.
My passport was there.
Grant had never been given the combination.
I still changed it.
Marcus photographed several documents and made notes.
Then he reached the folder containing the twins' trust statements.
May you like
"These shouldn't stay here."
"They've always been here."
