Chapter 3

I stormed back into the private room.

I demanded, "Richard, where's my money?"

Pamela froze with her fork halfway up.

Richard looked up at me, genuinely surprised.

He asked, "You checked already?"

"There isn't a dollar left in my account! Where did you move it?"

He said, "To my account."

He said it like he had every right in the world.

He shrugged. "We're married. What's yours is mine. Is that a problem?"

"Who said you could touch my money?"

Pamela slapped her fork down on the table. "Evelyn, is that how you talk to your husband? First day married and you're already shouting! Who raised you?"

Richard took a sip of his coffee and barely looked at me. "Mom, that's how she is. Don't bother."

I stared at Pamela. "Who raised me? The two of you froze my payroll card and emptied my savings, and now you want to talk about how I was raised?"

Pamela scoffed. "What were you going to do with nine thousand dollars? Richard gives you more than that in spending money every month."

Nine thousand and five hundred dollars was every penny I'd scraped together over the last two years.

After Eric and I divorced, I walked away with nothing, and I built it back one dollar at a time.

Now, even that was gone.

Richard stood up, came around the table, and looked down at me.

I took half a step back.

He was a head taller than me, and this close he had always made me feel like I was standing in a shadow.

He said, "Evelyn, think this through. If you want to stay with me, you do what I say. If you want to make a scene, the door is right there.

"But if you walk out that door, you have nothing. No money, no home, no job. You work at my company, and one phone call ends that.

"Everyone in this business knows about your first marriage. Get divorced twice and you can guess what people will say."

He delivered every word calmly, the way he would read out a status report.

I pressed my back against the icy wall.

Pamela added, "You marry a man, and you live with what he is. You drew a bad card. Learn to live with it."

Richard added, "Don't make me repeat myself. Sit down and eat."

Something was stuck in my chest and it would not go up or down.

Five years ago, he wasn't like this.

Five years ago, when he waited for me in the hospital hallway, he wasn't this person.

Back then he had said, "Evelyn, as long as I'm around, nobody gets to hurt you."

I slowly sank back into my chair.

It wasn't obedience.

My legs simply would not hold me up anymore.

The meal dragged on for almost two hours.

I didn't touch a single bite.

On her way out, Pamela patted Richard's shoulder. "Keep her in line. Don't let her talk to anyone."

Richard nodded.

He took me back to his apartment, and I moved like a puppet on strings.

When we walked in, I spotted a new pair of women's shoes sitting on the rack.

Red stilettos with thin heels and clean soles, brand new.

It wasn't mine.

I brushed my hand against them, and Richard came up behind me, casually scooping them up and tucking them away in the cabinet.

He said, "Monica left them here."

He said it so casually, like it was no big deal.

Like he was just mentioning, "Oh, the package is over there."

I stared at the closed cabinet door, my stomach twisting in knots.

I asked, "When was she here?"

He said, "Last week. I already told you."

I asked, "You let her come over?"

He corrected me, "Our place."

I bit my lip, staying silent.

My phone buzzed again.

This time it wasn't the bank. It was a call from a number I didn't know.

I picked up.

The caller asked, "Is this Evelyn Lane?"

The voice sounded older, but polite.

I said, "Yes."

The caller said, "Ms. Lane, my name is Frank Bennett. I was a friend of your father's. There are some things I would like to discuss with you in person about what your father left behind."

Richard suddenly snatched the phone from my hand and ended the call.

He asked, "Who was that?"

I said, "No idea."

"Then don't answer." He slid my phone into his own pocket. "Your parents are gone. Every kind of stranger comes crawling out for someone like you."

He wasn't wrong. My parents really were gone.

My mom passed away from illness when I was twelve, and my dad died in a car accident the year I graduated college.

At the funeral, a few strangers showed up in suits, claiming to be my dad's colleagues.

They left business cards, but I was too heartbroken to take them.

We never spoke again.

The voice on the phone sounded like one of them.

But Richard didn't give me a chance to find out.

He switched my phone to silent and set it on the coffee table in the living room.

He said, "Get some sleep. There's something at the office tomorrow."

I asked, "What is it?"

He said, "It's none of your business."

He went into the study and locked the door behind him.

I sat on the couch, staring at my silenced phone on the coffee table.

The screen lit up.

That unknown number called again.

I didn't answer.

It wasn't because I didn't want to, but because I was too scared.