Chapter 4

The next morning, I took the bank records and all seven hotel reservations to a divorce attorney.

After reading them, she asked only one question.

"What position did Wes give Taryn last night?"

"Head of operations."

She asked me to open my old company email and search Taryn's name in the year-end folder.

The first result was titled Consent to Transfer Ownership Interest.

Recipient: Taryn Bell.

Interest to be transferred: twenty-five percent.

"The company was formed during your marriage, and your savings funded it," the attorney said. "Wes cannot give her that interest without your written consent."

She opened the final page.

A line had been left for my signature.

If I signed, I would be confirming that I willingly gave Taryn one quarter of the company I had spent eight years holding together.

The document had been placed among our insurance forms, prenatal paperwork, and year-end bills. Wes had attached a yellow tab to every line that required my signature.

He knew I had never checked those packets page by page.

He intended to have me give her part of my company with my own hand, without ever realizing it.

I called Wes from the attorney's office. He answered on the fourth ring.

I heard silverware in the background. Taryn was asking whether he wanted another bottle of wine.

"I found the ownership transfer," I said, making every word clear. "Were you planning to hide the signature page in the year-end documents and let me sign it without reading?"

The line went silent.

Wes did not deny it.

"You went to an attorney?"

"Because you refuse to tell me the truth."

"I wanted to wait until everything was final before bringing it up," he said. "Taryn has carried this company through an impossible year. She earned that interest, and our competitors are trying to recruit her."

His tone sharpened.

"Your blood pressure has been unstable. I did not want this argument before the baby came. But your dislike of her cannot stand in the way of a sound business decision."

"So you took our baby's money, shared a hotel room with her, and prepared to trick me into signing away my ownership." I tightened my grip on the phone. "And now you're saying you were protecting me?"

"You keep mixing unrelated things together. Every time the company had a crisis this year, Taryn was there. You haven't participated in daily operations for six months. That isn't an accusation. It is a fact."

After that, I no longer needed another explanation.

I asked whether he was coming home that night.

"Impossible," Wes said. "The meeting is tomorrow morning, and Taryn has prepared for this project for a month. I can't abandon her in Chicago. If you don't feel well, ask your sister to take you to the hospital."

He said it so naturally.

As though I had always been the person he was allowed to abandon.

After the call, I authorized my attorney to notify the company and its accountant that I did not consent to the transfer.

Then I moved my salary into an individual account and changed my emergency contact at the hospital.

That evening, I packed only my identification, medication, hospital bag, and a few changes of clothes.

The crib remained in the nursery.

Six weeks earlier, Wes had assembled it himself and promised he would work less after our daughter was born. He would make up for all the time he had missed.

Now I understood what after the baby comes really meant.

He planned to wait until I needed him most, then force me to accept decisions he had already made.

I placed the ownership document on the kitchen island and set my wedding ring over the blank signature line.

Then I pulled my suitcase out of the house where we had lived together for eleven years.

As the elevator doors closed, my attorney confirmed that notice of my objection had been sent to Wes, the company, and the accountant.

Less than a minute later, my phone rang.

"Camille, where are you?" Wes no longer sounded cold. "I saw the attorney's notice. Don't leave. Don't sign anything else. I'm coming home now."

I did not give him my location.

I did not promise to wait.

Five minutes later, a flight-change notification entered our family inbox. Wes had canceled the next day's meeting and booked the earliest flight home.

For the first time, he understood that I was not making a threat.

What he did not understand was that by the time he reached me, I would never hand him the right to make my decisions again.