Chapter 2 - Before He Could Take It Back
“Home,” I said.
Nathan pushed his chair back.
“Clara, wait.”
“No.”
“We need to talk.”
I looked at him.
The strange thing about betrayal is that sometimes the person who hurts you expects the privilege of deciding how you react.
Nathan had apparently imagined tears.
Questions.
Maybe bargaining.
What he had not expected was for me to become calm.
“You already talked,” I said. “I listened.”
“I was angry.”
“You said it twice.”
“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
“How many meanings does ‘I wish you weren’t my wife’ have?”
His face tightened.
“Can we not do this here?”
“You chose here.”
I reached for the small wrapped box beside my purse.
His anniversary present.
For three months Nathan had complained about the watch his father gave him before he died. The leather strap had cracked, the mechanism had stopped twice, and Nathan refused to let anyone replace it.
So I had secretly found the retired watchmaker who originally restored it for his father twenty years earlier.
The box contained the repaired watch.
On the back, I had engraved four words.
Still choosing you. Always.
I stared at the package.
Then placed it in front of Nathan.
“What’s this?”
“Your anniversary gift.”
His expression changed.
“Clara…”
“Open it tomorrow.”
I walked away.
He followed me onto the sidewalk.
Charleston’s humid night air hit my face. Car headlights slid across wet pavement, and somewhere beyond the buildings, the harbor smelled faintly of salt.
“Clara.”
I kept walking.
He caught my arm.
Not hard.
But I looked down at his hand until he released me.
“I made a mistake,” he said.
“No. A mistake is forgetting our anniversary. Eight months requires scheduling.”
His face went pale.
“I didn’t plan for this to happen.”
“You planned enough hotel rooms.”
That landed.
“Victoria and I—”
“Don’t.”
“You deserve to understand.”
“I deserve many things. Your explanation stopped being one of them eight months ago.”
The valet brought my car.
Nathan stepped closer.
“Where are you going?”
“Our house.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“Clara, that’s my house too.”
“For tonight.”
He stared at me.
Something flickered across his face.
For the first time, Nathan seemed to understand that I wasn’t threatening him.
I was informing him.
I drove home alone.
I cried exactly once.
At a red light.
It lasted perhaps thirty seconds.
Then the light turned green.
By 10:18 p.m., I was inside the house we had renovated together.
By 10:31, a suitcase was open on our bed.
Nathan had bought that suitcase for our honeymoon.
I almost appreciated the symmetry.
Clothes.
Passport.
Camera.
Laptop.
Grandmother’s jewelry.
Documents.
Everything important fit more easily than I expected.
That realization hurt almost as much as Nathan’s words.
At 10:47, my phone began ringing.
Nathan.
I ignored it.
Again.
Ignored.
Then a message.
Please don’t do anything tonight. Let me come home.
I stared at it.
Something about the wording bothered me.
Not please don’t leave.
Not I love you.
Don’t do anything.
As though he were worried about consequences rather than losing me.
I opened the home office.
Nathan and I had always kept separate professional files but shared household documents.
Insurance.
Mortgage.
Taxes.
I opened the filing cabinet looking for the deed.
Instead, I found a blue folder I had never seen.
CARTER DEVELOPMENT — RESTRUCTURING
I should have closed it.
I didn’t.
Inside were preliminary corporate documents dated six weeks earlier.
Nathan was reorganizing his company.
That alone meant nothing.
Then I saw my name.
Clara Bennett Carter — spousal consent required.
My heartbeat changed.
I read faster.
Nathan planned to move several company assets into a newly created holding company.
And beside the proposed company name was another name.
Victoria Lane — Director of Strategic Acquisitions.
I sat down.
My hands went cold.
I had believed I was discovering an affair.
I was wrong.
Nathan had been planning an entirely new life.
And somehow, legally, financially, my signature was standing in his way.
The front door opened downstairs.
“Clara?”
Nathan.
I closed the folder.
His footsteps came quickly toward the office.
He appeared in the doorway, breathing hard.
Then he saw the documents in my hands.
Every bit of color disappeared from his face.
“Where did you get that?”
There it was.
Not confusion.
Fear.
I slowly stood.
“You wished I wasn’t your wife.”
“Clara, give me the folder.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t understand what you’re looking at.”
“Then explain why your mistress is listed inside your corporate restructuring.”
He said nothing.
That silence answered more than words could.
I put the folder into my bag.
Nathan moved forward.
“Those are confidential documents.”
“They mention my name.”
“Because the house and some early collateral are tied to—”
He stopped.
Too late.
I stared at him.
“What early collateral?”
His eyes closed briefly.
And suddenly I remembered something I had almost forgotten.
Six years earlier, before we married, Nathan’s first development project had nearly collapsed.
No bank would extend him another dollar.
I had inherited a small waterfront cottage from my grandmother.
I sold it.
Nathan had promised to repay me.
He never had.
I had never asked.
We were building a future together.
Or so I thought.
“How much of your company exists because of what I gave you?” I whispered.
“Clara, it isn’t that simple.”
“It suddenly feels very simple.”
I took my suitcase downstairs.
Nathan followed.
“Where will you go?”
“My sister’s.”
“Just stay tonight.”
“No.”
“I’ll sleep downstairs.”
“No.”
“Please.”
That stopped me.
Nathan Carter rarely said please.
I turned.
His eyes were red now.
“I didn’t mean what I said at dinner.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I was frustrated.”
“You were honest.”
His phone buzzed.
We both looked down.
Victoria.
Again.
I smiled without humor.
“Answer her.”
“I’m not answering.”
“You’ve been answering for eight months.”
I opened the door.
“Clara.”
I looked back one last time.
“I’m giving you exactly what you wished for.”
Then I left.
At 8:03 the next morning, I was sitting across from divorce attorney Rebecca Sloan.
At 9:26, Nathan received notification that I had retained counsel.
At 10:11, Rebecca discovered something in the documents I had taken.
She read one page twice.
Then she looked at me.
“Clara, did your husband tell you he was selling Carter Development?”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“He should have.”
“Why?”
May you like
Rebecca rotated the page toward me.
“Because according to this, the sale can’t happen without you.”
