Chapter 3
"What about the baby, Henry? What's your plan there?" I asked.
"I… I'd have her terminate…" Henry stammered, his words barely audible.
"Terminate? At seven months?"
He had no response.
I let out a short, bitter laugh. "Do you think I'm stupid, or just the easiest mark in the world?"
"Delilah, just let me explain."
"I'm done listening."
I stood up. "You're sleeping in the study tonight. Tomorrow I'll figure out what comes next."
I headed for the stairs.
He called after me. "Delilah! Ten years! You're really going to throw away ten years without even hearing me out? All we've built, and that's it?"
I kept walking. Didn't look back.
Ten years.
Yeah.
Ten years and three million dollars, traded for a public humiliation on a video call, a seven-month pregnancy on the side, and six hundred thousand spent on a condo, a car, and whatever else she wanted.
And that one pleading line, delivered like he was the one who'd been wronged: "Can't you just let me explain?"
He genuinely felt aggrieved.
He saw himself as a "good guy who slipped up."
He was convinced I ought to forgive him.
I walked into the bedroom and locked the door.
Then I pulled out my phone and started combing through the bank statements.
Line by line.
Transaction by transaction.
I wasn't here for explanations.
I was here to do the math.
The next morning, my phone buzzed early. It was HR.
"Ms. Sullivan, got a minute?" the HR manager asked.
"Go ahead," I replied.
"About yesterday… you saw it, right?"
"I saw it."
There was a brief pause on the other end.
"Thing is… a lot of people here have known for a while," the HR manager said.
My thumb stopped scrolling.
"How long?" I asked, my voice steady but cold.
"Over two years, probably. Mr. Ravenscroft's driver, a few admins, some sales folks," the HR manager replied.
"And you?"
"I only heard six months ago."
"Why didn't anyone say anything?"
"Ms. Ravenscroft, it felt awkward. It's… personal family stuff, you know?"
Yeah. Personal family stuff.
Over two years.
The entire company knew.
I was the only one left in the dark.
"Thank you for telling me," I said.
I hung up.
Then I tracked down Henry's driver, Tom, who'd been with him five years and knew every secret.o
Jack had been with him for five years and knew everything.
"Ma'am, I swear I never meant to hide it from you," Tom said, looking guilty.
"I'm not mad at you. Just answer a few questions, straight up," I said.
"Anything."
"Where does she live?"
"East side, Emerald Lakes, Building 17."
"Henry bought the place?"
"Yeah. I even drove him to look at it."
"The car?"
"BMW X3. He paid cash, put it in her name."
"How often do they meet?"
"Two, three times a week. Sometimes he'd call it a business trip, but he was really heading there."
Two or three times a week.
I thought he was burning the midnight oil, wining and dining clients, jetting off for work.
It turned out he was building a second life.
"Anything else?" I asked.
Tom hesitated. "He gave her a supplementary card. Seventeen-grand monthly limit."
Seventeen thousand.
Every month.
That was two hundred thousand a year.
Times three: six hundred thousand.
Matched the condo-and-car figure he'd tossed out.
"Ma'am, people at the office… they talk." Tom hesitated.
"About what?"
"That you're too good. Too trusting."
I let out a short, bitter laugh.
Too good? Too trusting?
So that was how the world saw me: the clueless wife.
That afternoon I went to the bank.
I pulled every record.
Henry's paycheck hit six figures every month.
But the balance never grew.
It all vanished.
I read each line.
Transfers to "Madeline Sterling": seventeen grand, twenty-seven grand, forty grand…
To some jeweler: ten grand.
To a med-spa: seven grand.
To a travel agency: thirteen grand.
Three years.
Total drained: seven hundred thousand.
A hundred thousand more than the six hundred he'd admitted to.
He couldn't even lie convincingly.
That evening, the moment I walked in, my mother-in-law Mary called.
"Delilah, sweetheart, I heard what happened," she said.
"Yeah," I replied.
"I'm not defending Henry. But men… out there hustling, things happen. You know how it goes."
I didn't say anything.