Chapter 3
At seven the next morning, Amy knocked on my door.
I had just showered. My dinner dress hung from the bathroom door, and my open suitcase took up the only chair.
Amy stepped inside and looked around the small room.
“Dad said the hotel found you somewhere to stay.”
“This room is in my name.”
She set a coffee on the table without offering it to me.
“Why did you have to do that last night?”
“Do what?”
“Make it look like Dad blindsided you. Everyone was recording. The video is already online.”
“He announced our divorce at our anniversary dinner.”
“But you already knew.”
“Who told you that?”
“Dad showed me your email.”
I pulled out the chair beside the table. “Show me.”
“Mom—”
“If that email proves I agreed to a divorce, let me read it.”
After a moment, Amy took out her phone.
Daniel had forwarded her a message with one sentence above the copied text.
Your mother sent me this in May. Please don’t confront her yet. She doesn’t want the marriage to interfere with the acquisition.
The message below sounded like mine.
Our marriage has become nothing more than a business arrangement.
I don’t want to make anything public until the acquisition is ready for final approval.
After the anniversary dinner, we can tell the children and move on separately.
I scrolled up. There was no original sender, recipient, or complete timestamp. Daniel had pasted the words into a new email before forwarding them.
“I didn’t send this to him.”
Amy folded her arms. “Those are your words.”
“Some of them are.”
“Then why did you act like you knew nothing?”
I opened my private email and found the message I had sent to Dr. Levin, our marriage counselor, several months earlier.
“Read the original.”
Amy took my phone.
My first paragraph said our marriage felt like a business arrangement and that Daniel and I had stopped talking honestly. The next said I did not want pressure from the acquisition deciding our future.
Then she reached the lines Daniel had removed.
I want us to try counseling before we decide whether anything can be repaired. Until we make that decision together, I don’t want to involve the children.
Amy read those lines again, then returned to the message from Daniel.
“He left this out.”
“Yes.”
“And moved the part about the acquisition.”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened. “Dad said you sent him the original.”
“He lied.”
“Maybe you sent another version.”
“I didn’t.”
She put down her phone.
“You could have pulled him aside last night. You didn’t have to embarrass him in front of everyone.”
“He had already told everyone except me.”
Amy looked toward the window.
I pointed to her phone. “Forward me everything Daniel sent you. Not a screenshot.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Save it.”
“Use it against Dad?”
“Someone used words I wrote to a counselor to convince you I agreed to a divorce. I need to know how he got them.”
Amy held her phone for several seconds, then tapped Forward.
My phone chimed.
She reopened my original message and checked the recipient line.
“You only sent this to Dr. Levin?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t copy Dad?”
“No.”
For the first time since the dinner, she didn’t defend him.
“Then how did he get it?”