Chương 4
“That is not my signature,” Teresa said.
Bernard adjusted his glasses. “It is the authenticated signature attached to your board consent.”
“I didn’t sign that consent.”
Arthur looked at her then. “You signed a batch of approvals at the house last spring.”
“I signed insurance renewals and the St. Louis acquisition.”
“You signed electronically. There were multiple documents.”
“You told me what they were.”
“I sent them for review.”
“To an email account you knew I barely used.”
Martin Kell tapped his pen. “Arthur, did Teresa know North Quay was receiving funds?”
Arthur’s pause was short but visible.
“She knew we were using outside consultants.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No,” Arthur said. “I don’t believe she knew the entity name.”
The admission shifted the room. Not dramatically. No one gasped. The outside counsel stopped writing. One investor leaned back and crossed his arms.
Teresa expected satisfaction. Instead she felt nauseated.
The company’s controller explained that North Quay had submitted reports and invoices. The reports existed. They were polished, lengthy, and largely assembled from public information. Lorne Hospitality had provided branding proposals for two hotels. Genevieve’s name appeared on the engagement letter as managing consultant.
“Her firm has three employees,” Teresa said.
Arthur’s jaw tightened. “Her work was legitimate.”
“Was sleeping in our house part of the scope?”
Martin Kell closed his eyes. “Teresa.”
She hated herself for saying it and hated Arthur more because the sentence had been true.
The meeting lasted two hours. By the end, the board had formed a special committee, retained independent counsel, and placed Arthur on paid administrative leave. Paid, because removing him without investigation risked violating his contract. Administrative, because leaving him in control risked everything else.
Teresa was asked to remain available but not to contact employees about the transfers.
In the hallway afterward, Arthur caught up with her near the exposed brick in the lobby.
“You got what you wanted,” he said.
She stopped. “Did I?”
“You embarrassed me in front of people who have worked with me for fifteen years.”
“You embarrassed yourself before I entered the room.”
His eyes flicked toward an employee walking past. He lowered his voice. “Harrison built those structures. He said the lenders required separation between the project entities.”
“And Genevieve?”
“Her company did work.”
“Did she invoice by the hour?”
Arthur looked away.
The elevator doors opened. Teresa stepped inside, but he blocked them with his hand.
“This isn’t what you think.”
“I think you used my signature to move millions of dollars.”
“I was keeping the Baltimore project alive.”
“With consulting firms owned by your mistress and your friend?”
“Harrison is not my friend.”
“That photograph suggests a warm professional relationship.”
The doors pressed against Arthur’s hand and reopened.
He leaned closer. His face was exhausted beneath the careful shave. “You don’t understand what he has.”
“Then explain it.”
“Not here.”
“You had all night to explain.”
“You left.”
“You put your explanation in a custody filing.”
His expression sharpened. “You took my son.”
“Our son.”
“You took him from his home and refused access.”
“I gave you access.”
“Ten minutes on a tablet.”
The employee near the reception desk was pretending to study her phone. Arthur noticed. He removed his hand from the elevator door.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Let me see Ethan.”
Teresa pressed the lobby button, though it was already lit. “Through the temporary schedule.”
“We don’t have one.”
“We will.”
“You used to trust me with him.”
“I used to trust you with everything.”
The doors closed between them.
The family court conference occurred Monday morning. Nothing about it resembled the decisive hearings Teresa had imagined from television. There was no dark-paneled courtroom and no judge delivering wisdom. They sat in separate rooms while attorneys moved between them. A family-relations officer asked practical questions: school transportation, medical care, current sleeping arrangements, access to clothes, whether either parent had weapons, whether Ethan had heard arguments.
Teresa answered carefully. Arthur answered in another room. Their lives became bullet points entered into a government computer.
A temporary schedule gave Arthur dinner with Ethan on Tuesdays and Thursdays and daytime time on Saturday. No overnight visits until the marital-home situation was clarified. Both parents were ordered not to discuss the financial investigation with Ethan or expose him to romantic partners during parenting time.
Genevieve’s name did not appear, but everyone understood the line was written for her.
After the conference, Teresa waited near a vending machine while Victoria spoke with Bernard. The courthouse smelled of wet coats and old coffee. A man in work boots argued quietly into his phone about parking. A toddler lay beneath a row of chairs and refused to come out.
Arthur approached alone.
“Saturday,” he said. “Can I take Ethan to the planetarium?”
“He’d like that.”
“I’ll pick him up at ten.”
“At the apartment lobby.”
“I’d prefer not to have my address withheld.”
“It isn’t your address.”
“Our son lives there.”
“For now.”
Arthur placed his hands in his coat pockets. “Genevieve is gone.”
Teresa felt the sentence before she understood it. “Gone where?”
“I asked her to leave the house.”
“How disciplined of you.”
“She wasn’t living there.”
“She knew where the coffee filters were.”
Arthur’s mouth tightened. He had always hated being mocked, perhaps because he was so skilled at making other people feel childish.
“She came over after the hotel dinner,” he said. “We had been drinking. That’s not an excuse.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking you not to destroy the company because of what I did to you.”
Teresa watched the toddler’s mother kneel and negotiate beneath the chairs.
“The company may already be destroyed,” she said.
“Not if you stop treating every transfer as theft.”
“Did I approve them?”
Arthur looked toward Victoria, who was still speaking with Bernard.
“No.”
The answer came without qualification. It should have relieved her. It did not.
May you like
“Why use my signature?”
“Because Harrison said the bridge financing would collapse without immediate consent. He said we’d replace the money when the hotel sale closed.”
