Even from several feet away, I could hear him shouting through the phone.
“Just leave the kids there!”
Melissa lowered the phone.
“You heard him.”
“Yes.”
I took another sip of coffee.
“And?”
That was when she finally realized something had shifted.
She climbed back into the SUV and drove away.
Daniel called eleven times.
I answered none of them.
Instead, I opened my laptop.
For twenty-five years, I had handled the accounting for Daniel’s small engineering consultancy.
He enjoyed introducing himself as the owner.
Legally, however, the company belonged to both of us.
More importantly, I owned the building where the business operated.
My father had left that property to me before he died.
Daniel’s company had been paying rent far below market value because I had never cared about making money from my own husband.
I also owned sixty percent of our two rental houses because I had used my inheritance to fund most of their down payments.
Daniel knew all of those facts.
He had simply never put them together.
By noon, I was sitting across from Eleanor Shaw, the attorney who had handled my father’s estate.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
“Completely.”
She studied me carefully.
“Thirty-two years is a long marriage.”
“So is being treated like furniture.”
Eleanor nodded once.
Then we began.
I didn’t drain our accounts.
