Chapter 3
The next morning, I opened our joint savings account.
Harrison and I had spent eight months searching for a home near my mother’s care center. We were supposed to make an offer on Monday.
I needed to know how much money I could use if I left.
The balance made my hands go cold.
£11,204.
There should have been more than £53,000.
I checked the transaction history.
Three months earlier, £42,600 had been transferred to King’s Hound Holdings.
Bianca’s pub.
The payment had been approved by two people.
Harrison Cole.
And Dahlia Cole.
My name and signature appeared on the authorization.
But I had never seen the document before.
My phone rang.
Harrison.
I turned it facedown.
A message appeared when the ringing stopped.
Bianca feels terrible about the kiss. She wants to apologize.
Then another.
Let’s forget last night and enjoy the final together.
He was still trying to explain the kiss.
He had no idea I had found the money.
I called Maya Price, the solicitor who had handled our apartment paperwork.
I had known her for four years, and she was one of the few people I trusted not to protect Harrison from the consequences of his choices.
“Harrison transferred £42,600 from our savings into Bianca’s pub,” I said. “The authorization has my signature on it. I never approved it.”
“Send me the statement, the authorization and the original apartment documents,” Maya said. “Save every message he sends you. Don’t confront him yet.”
“I won’t.”
I looked at the transfer again.
“And Maya?”
“Yes?”
“Prepare the divorce papers too.”
She paused.
“All right. I’ll start today.”
I opened my laptop and created a folder called Harrison.
While searching for the original apartment documents, I found the receipt from the dealer who had bought my grandmother’s piano.
The amount was almost exactly what Harrison had claimed we still needed for our deposit.
He had watched me sell it while knowing our money was already inside Bianca’s pub.
I saved the receipt with the bank records.
Then I noticed a flagged email I had kept for three months.
FINAL OFFER — SENIOR ARCHITECT POSITION
Copenhagen.
I had rejected the firm twice because Harrison refused to leave London.
Our life is here, he had said.
But it had never been our life.
It was his friends.
Bianca.
The pub.
I opened the offer.
The position came with a higher salary, temporary accommodation and responsibility for restoring a nineteenth-century customs house.
At the bottom was one sentence.
If your circumstances change, contact us. The door is not permanently closed.
My circumstances had changed.
I replied.
Is the position still available?
Then I sent Maya the documents.
Her answer arrived first.
Received. I’ll prepare the divorce papers.
The architecture firm replied ten minutes later.
Yes. If you accept, we need you in Copenhagen on Tuesday.
Monday was supposed to be the day Harrison and I made an offer on our new home.
Instead, it would be the day I arrived in another country.
I accepted the job and withdrew the apartment appointment.
The World Cup final was four days away. Harrison and Bianca would both be at the pub, surrounded by the same people who had watched them kiss.
I sent Maya one final instruction.
Have the divorce papers delivered after the final whistle.
Then I took a suitcase from the wardrobe and placed it on the bed.
By the time Harrison received the divorce papers, I would already be on my way out of his life.